Or, things you might need but not know how to find.
1-Minute (or Less) Summary
- Reference architectures are one-pagers offering a vetted architecture, deployment automation, and design recommendations for a specific use case.
- Solution playbooks are detailed architectural guidance and implementation workflows, often with downloadable automation, to help you achieve specific business goals.
- Both are available on the Oracle Architecture Center.
The Whole Story
As I mentioned in another blog post (see Getting Better Oracle Assistance), there are limitations on general search engines, like Google or DuckDuckGo. There are also limitations on specialized search engines, like the one available on Oracle Help Center. The limitation is one of attention.
When search results are returned, we (and that we includes me) like to look at the first one or two, and maybe the first page if necessary. What we often don’t do (and I personally dislike doing) is scrolling through several pages. In large part, I dislike it and don’t do it, because I am not sure that the time and effort will actually pay off. Will I get to the information I want and need?
One of the hard to find resources for most software companies is architectures. In other words, how do I put all the pieces together to form a unified whole? Why is it so hard to find this important information?
One, there are not a lot of technology companies that publish these. Often times, these are considered proprietary or restricted information. In fact, for many software companies, you would pay, generally in the form of professional services fees, to get this information. Oracle takes a different approach… a better approach, in my opinion. They make these architectural resources available, for free, to you on the Oracle Architecture Center.
You can find two types of resources on the Oracle Architecture Center.
- Reference architectures are one-pagers offering a vetted architecture, deployment automation, and design recommendations for a specific use case.
- Solution playbooks are detailed architectural guidance and implementation workflows, often with downloadable automation, to help you achieve specific business goals.
Two, these resources don’t lend themselves to easy search terms. Yes. An architectural plan will need you to install software. In fact, it may need you to install several pieces of software, some from Oracle and some from other vendors. Some of those pieces may be already installed, and simply need to be connected. Any of those tasks, installation, integration, or management are individually detailed in documentation. And, those documentation resources are more likely to be the first search results returned. But, what you are seeking is an overall architectural plan, and that isn’t always easy to specify in terms useful to a search engine.
Three, there are lots of ways that software can be put together with lots of different resources. In fact, the ability to integrate with differing software, using common standards, is a hallmark (and a major requirement) of modern software.
BUT! The permutations, costs, and licensing restrictions can make it nearly impossible. For example, most modern systems allow for a unified security identification management system (e.g., a single sign-on (SSO) system) to enforce and manage better security for access to the system. If you are using Oracle Identity and Access Management, Oracle can easily develop an architectural recommendation for this. However, there are other identity management solution vendors, like Okta and Microsoft. To test those solutions, Oracle needs to retest for those two solutions. Before Oracle can do this, it needs to license those products, ensure that it doesn’t violate the licensing with its testing or recommendations, and incur the setup and training costs of these permutations. In some cases, the licensing costs and/or restrictions from those vendors may make it impractical, perhaps even impossible, to test.
So, there are resources that don’t easily appear in search engines. These are items you should probably bookmark. If nothing else, you should know how to get to them without a bookmark. Here is how you get to Oracle’s Architecture Center.
- Go to Oracle’s Help Center.
- Select Architecture Center tile.
That’s it! From there, you will have access to Oracle’s Architecture Center.
