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Why Oracle APEX customers are opting for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

July 19, 2021

Build enterprise apps 20x faster with 100x less code with Oracle APEX, now powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with an aggressive pricing.

A powerful low-code development platform, Oracle Application Express (APEX) empowers customers to build secure and scalable enterprise applications, packed with robust features, that can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

By utilizing Oracle APEX on Oracle Cloud, developers can rapidly create and launch engaging applications that provide tangible benefits and immediate value. With APEX, customers don’t have to be proficient in a wide range of technologies to deliver complex solutions. Simply focus on problem-solving, and APEX will handle the technical details.

31.1% CAGR

Increasing demand for business digitization, adoption of cloud technology, less dependency on professional developers, and stringent government norms are the key factors driving low-code development platform industry

Source:

PS Market Research: Low Code Development Platform Market

Oracle APEX on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Interestingly, Oracle today is making its popular APEX low-code development platform available as a managed cloud service that developers can use to build data-driven enterprise applications quickly and easily.

Unlike the original APEX, which was exclusively tied to the Oracle Database, APEX Application Development is now available as a standalone service that can be used with a wide range of applications.

Used by 500K Developers

On OCI $260 per month

Support for 500+ Users Unlimited applications

Elastically scales as per need

A recent study from Pique Solutions showed that developers could build enterprise applications 38x faster with the Oracle APEX service without having to learn complex, full-stack technologies.
The Oracle APEX architecture provides extremely tight integration with the database, enabling a 10x reduction in round trips between the application and the database, resulting in much faster response times for end-users of data-driven applications. Additionally, APEX allows application developers to fully exploit the power and simplicity of SQL.

Oracle APEX Application Development – Comprehensive Low Code Platform

Oracle APEX Application Development – Framework

Used to build desktop and mobile applications for the Oracle Database. Oracle APEX enables you to design, develop and deploy beautiful, responsive, database-driven applications, either on-premises or in the cloud.

Quickly build reports, forms, charts, calendars, etc. on top of the data in your database
IT Developers and “citizen-developers” who know a little SQL can readily build applications.
Oracle APEX can also take advantage of the large majority of Oracle Database features.

Oracle APEX Application Development – Characteristics

Without a client software, APEX is a meta-data model execution engine and easier to maintain in contrast to code generation with the most efficient execution engine for Oracle databases.

With a web browser, you can do everything you need to create apps:

Model database objects
Load/unload data
Create REST interfaces on this data
Build applications on these database objects
Run and deploy applications

Oracle APEX Application Development – Architecture

Oracle APEX Application Development – Value Proposition

Use Cases Apex Can Help Solve

Use case 1 – Transform your spreadsheets to web apps

For Spreadsheet replacement, you can drag and drop CSV, XLS, XML or even JSON files into APEX.

APEX creates all the base tables, and create a new app based on that spreadsheet in minutes.

You can even create charts, calendars, validation rules, and more in mere minutes

Copy / paste or upload a spreadsheet file
Creates table in oracle database
Determines best-fit data types
Uploads data into oracle table
Creates first-cut of app

Move to a single source of truth
Send out a URL not a file
Secure, scalable, multi-user app
Add validations to improve data quality
Superior reporting with faceted search & dashboards
Extend with charts, calendars, and more

Use Case 2 –Rapid application development

Build apps in days / weeks not months / years
Use powerful wizards to create fully featured apps
Low-code capabilities allow non-IT professionals to also build or help build apps
Easily modify to meet changing requirements
Rapidly iterate to production-ready app

Opportunistic
Simplistic, tactical apps to meet immediate need
Webify paper processes
Generally developed by one or two people

Use Case 3 –Modernizing Oracle Forms

APEX is the natural evolution of forms
Both based on SQL and PL / SQL
Re-use DB packages, procedures, functions
Easily train forms developers to develop APEX

Proof-of-concept using subset of Forms apps
Organization-wide apps, rather than back-office
External apps for customers / partners
Mobile-first apps
Net new requirements

Use Case 4 – Build or Extend enterprise applications

Quickly build custom mission-critical apps
Extend ERPs and other enterprise software such as EBS, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, SAP, and SalesForce
Provide organization-specific dashboards and reports
Improved workflows
Enhance data capture, corporate data reporting and maintenance

Meet non-standard or industry specific requirements
Optimize common business functions
Integrate disparate data sources
Scale to hundreds of thousands of users
Leverage enterprise features of Oracle Autonomous

Use Case 5 – Integrated AppDev as a Service

Optional ”Self-Service” mode
Turns APEX into a private APP Dev Service
Each workspace provisions a database schema
Approval can be manual or automatic
Allows IT to deliver a service to citizen developers
Allows IT to govern data lifecycle, data management, and standardization of identity management
Used by 100’s of customers

APEX on Always Free Autonomous Database Vs. APEX Service

With Oracle Cloud Free Tier come Always Free Services which includes Autonomous Databases (2 instances). These Always Free Autonomous DB instances come with a generous capacity. The idea behind Always Free is to learn, explore and do POCs and when you are ready move to a Paid service which comes with support and many other capabilities listed on this slide.

Global Companies are Today Leveraging Oracle APEX on Oracle Cloud

One of the leading British communications company, providing mobile, fixed, broadband and TV services

Uses APEX to manage entire infrastructure lifecycle from provisioning to retirement
APEX was selected as it is flexible, easy to customize, and allows for developing applications incredibly quickly with minimal coding

Leader in intelligent digital mining improves operational profitability and sustainability – Aaccelerates time to value

Ingests GBs of daily IoT sensor data at 2x faster performance and with flexible auto-scaling
65% reduction in DBA workloads increased productivity on development and reporting
Built-in APEX speeds development to deployment of new low code apps from 6 weeks to 1 week
Future plans to use Oracle Machine Learning’s once Phyton compatibility is available.

Conclusion

IT Convergence can help you kickstart your Oracle APEX journey or even accelerate APEX to Oracle Cloud migration journey to maximize your time to value. Other key benefits which ITC can deliver:

– Inflight Upgrade of Oracle APEX on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
– Assess & optimize APEX to Minimize architecture
– Oracle APEX integration with Identity Management SSO

Our unique methodologies and tools deliver the most cost effective and time saving for Cloud solutions.