It was a Labor of .... well it took a bit of work.

It has been a while. For a lot of things and for a lot of reasons.  Today I want to extend a greeting to all those serving in uniform no matter your country.  As the US celebrates its Independence Day, I recognize that those in uniform bear the brunt of diplomacy and its failings but the service you provide is invaluable to those that you serve.  I wish you all Peace now and in the future.

This latest post is to commemorate the first real showcase of a project that I have been working on for a while. It's origins go back as far as when I first began to use Application Express.  I had worked with several other systems that included a workflow component and almost immediately felt the absence of one in the APEX offerings. 
  I began with the idea, it matured into a design, then to code, and finally it got a name "Relay".   I originally thought that Domino might be better but IBM already had a product with that name, and I was uncomfortable with the idea that the perception of the name included a lot of work with one good show at the end.
  Over the years I worked, here, there; whenever I had some time in my life with my wife, (her patience with this should be notably appreciated), my two sons, and a full-time career.  Now, I have come to a point where I'd really like to show some of what it means to have workflow in your applications.  Today I uploaded a short (25min) video to youtube.com.  You can find the video here (https://youtu.be/N56G9VYbmtg) or by clicking the logo.
I am hoping that Relay will fill the gap I have seen for far too long in APEX and allow us to redefine some of how we create our applications in the future. 

There will be questions, I know this.  There will be comments, I know that too.  There will also be more videos and posts from me as I show more of what this has become.  Please tell me what you think.  As for release and a decision on commercial availability, I am leaving that as an open-ended topic for the moment but I am open to thoughts here as well.

Enjoy!

APEX on udoo x86 (TEST 1)

Not much to add from the previous post except that over the evening I finished the first test that merges all this into one example. The code is simple turn on a light when it shows that oracle says it should be on. try it for yourself : https://github.com/jaughenbaugh/precision-guesswork

APEX IoT recipe

So, This happened.

Time to slap a sticker on this one. Not because I can, because it works ( and I can ). Stay Tuned... #orclapex #makerboard pic.twitter.com/Qxt5YBtXcT

— Jason Aughenbaugh (@wileecoyote_) December 4, 2017

The History:
  Over a year ago (while with Insum) there was an announcement brought to us by Danny Boivin (@DannyBoivin), detailing a new kickstarter program for a maker board that promised a lot.  The main promise was an x86 based maker-board, similar to Arduino or RPi but better.  Well, they delivered.  This year Udoo released their x86 line of single board computers.  I say it is a line because there are options, and more options, but four main boards with a lot of extras. 
  What I saw in this and a reason to buy is a solution to an interesting problem (or at least a good opportunity).  How do we get Application Express, and an Oracle database to interact with an IoT project. It also expands the Arduino maker side of the board with additional pinouts from the x86 core.
  This is why I bought in.


Recipe for APEX IoT:

• 1+ udoo x86 SBC ( I am using the Advanced Plus board for experimentation)
• + is cool because apparently you can cluster these things for more fun
• Connect your stuff (not all required but I am testing after all)
• M.2 Wireless / BT4
• M.2 SSD
• SATA SSD
• 32GB eMMC (integrated on 2 of the base boards)
• 64GB micro SD
• Choose your OS
• Ubuntu 16 LTS and Windows 10 are recommended but not the only options by far
• I'm using a hard drive for each but primarily Win 10 Pro
• Install Software
• Oracle Database 11g Express Edition 64bit
• Oracle Application Express v5.1.3
• Arduino IDE
• The maker side of this board uses an Intel Curie processor (Arduino 101)
• Python 2.x.x (64bit)
• pyserial
• cx_oracle
• pyfirmata
• Any other stuff you need (SQL Developer, Atom, etc)

  That's it for the environment the next thing is the theory of operations.  If you are already doing IoT with a regular Computer (with Apex) and an Arduino UNO then you are way ahead of me and please pipe up on what you've accomplished.

  Also if you are a newbie like me to using a lot of this stuff you can check out this book on getting started with Python for Arduino.

• Python Programming for Arduino by Pratik Desai

  For me the approach I have is two-fold.

• Using a python script to reference Oracle data to make the Arduino do work 
• This is my first set of test cases
• Oracle Initiated function : Running Python from Scheduler
• Maybe generating the python code prior to running it
• This is the ultimate goal

  So there you have it, the first maker-board that has the ability to run Oracle and APEX in the same hardware. Even if it is just consolidating the hardware side of it, it works. 

  More to come as I have it to give. 

 

Cheers!