Oracle enterprise reference architecture

Everyone who has been watching Oracle and the strategy from Oracle closely will have noticed that they have been growing by acquiring new products and companies and by developing new solutions. When you look at the current portfolio of Oracle you will notice that they can provide solutions in a wide range of fields. One of the daunting tasks for Oracle is providing an overall strategy and architecture to combine all those products and product lines into a reference architecture which can be used and deployed by architects at there customers and at system integrators. To help architects with this Oracle has developed the "IT Strategies from Oracle" or in short ITSO. ITSO helps customers to find there way in the wide range of products and solutions and build IT strategies and architectures based upon the Oracle best practices and blueprints.

The general starting point for ITSO is the overview image of the IT Strategies from Oracle from which you can drill into details. 

As you can notice in the above overview image the IT strategies from Oracle do consist out of 3 main components. These are: "Enterprise Technology Strategies", "Oracle Reference Architecture" and "Enterprise Solution Designs". To fully understand the the IT strategies from Oracle it is of vital importance to understand the meaning of the three main components and there role within the overal strategie from Oracle. 

Enterprise Technology Strategy

The Enterprise Technology Strategies or in short ETS is the integration of the vertical positioned technologies into the core part of the ITSA, the core part is the ORA within ITSA. Within the technologies mentioned in ETS you can find technology paradigms like SOA, BPM, EDA, etc. From within the ORA there is a connection made to the verticals within the Enterprise Technology strategy. 

Oracle Reference Architecture

The Oracle Reference Architecture or in short ORA. ORA is a logical architecture reference showcasing how to build and deploy enterprise class solutions. The purpose of ORA is to provide a reference architecture for designing, building, and integrating solutions based on modern technology from Oracle and other vendors. The reference architecture offers architecture principles and guidance based on recommendations from Oracle product development architects and field experts. Information provided by ORA gives architects an understanding of how to design solutions for the Oracle environment and best leverage its capabilities.

It is important to note that One of the key concepts of ORA is to be vendor neutral  and product agnostic. This means that within theOracle Reference Architecture core document no Oracle products are specifically promoted. Having stated this, there is an exception made by Oracle that they will name specific vendors and products in case that this is needed to clarify certain principals or to be used as an example.

Enterprise Solution Designs

The Enterprise Solution Designs or in short ESD is used to provide insight in specific industrie  perspective. It combines specific industrie requirements into solution designs  which leverage the information in the Oracle Reference Architecture and in the Enterprise Technology Strategy documents.

The entire stack of information provides architects working with Oracle products and/or developing architectures for enterprise grade solutions. This information can be valuable to craft a overall architect strategy which you can follow and use as guidance in creating a strategic roadmap for the future and set design principles for a team of architects.