Preface

Oracle Application Server Personalization provides real-time personalization for Web sites using an integrated real-time recommendation engine that is embedded in an Oracle database. OracleAS Personalization is based on data mining technology and modeling; it builds a predictive model of customer preferences using Web-based behavioral data collected by a Web site as well as demographic data.

This manual is designed to introduce Java programmers and DBAs to the basic components and interfaces of OracleAS Personalization.

Intended Audience

This manual is intended for users of OracleAS Personalization:

• Database administrator (DBA) who administers OracleAS Personalization

• Application designer/architect

• Application programmer

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Requirements

To follow the exercises in this manual, you will need to have OracleAS Personalization installed, including the option of installing the REAPI demo. (During installation, you are asked whether you want to install the demo data; you do.)

OracleAS Personalization needs both the Oracle database and Oracle Application Server installed, possibly on different systems. If they are installed on different systems,

• install the MOR, MTR, and RE schemas on the machine where the Oracle database is loaded

• install REAPI and the REAPI demo on the machine where Oracle Application Server is loaded

• the Administrative UI operates from the OracleJServ/HTTP server

The following software is required for the Administrative UI browser:

• Netscape 4.75 or Internet Explorer 5.5 with SP1.

Where to Find More Information

Documentation for OracleAS Personalization at the current release consists of the following documents:

• Oracle Application Server Release Notes, 10g Release 2 (10.1.2), which contains a chapter for each component of Oracle Application Server. The chapter for the OracleAS Personalization component contains platform-specific information, a bug report, and information about any late-breaking changes.

• Oracle Application Server Personalization User's Guide, 10g Release 2 (10.1.2) (this document).

• Oracle Application Server Personalization Administrator's Guide, 10g Release 2 (10.1.2).

• Oracle Application Server Personalization Programmer's Guide, 10g Release 2 (10.1.2). A programmer's manual for programming the recommendation engines in real time and for obtaining bulk recommendations.

• The API classes and methods are also described in Javadoc (Oracle Application Server Personalization Java API Reference), updated for the current release.

Related Manuals

OracleAS Personalization documentation is a component of the Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2) Documentation Library. See especially:

• Oracle Application Server Concepts

• Oracle Application Server Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Application Server Installation Guide (the appropriate version for your operating system).

Documentation Formats

Documentation for OracleAS Personalization is provided in PDF and HTML formats.

To view the PDF files, you will need

• Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or later, which you can download from www.a-dobe.com.

To view the HTML files, you will need

• Netscape 4.x or later, or

• Internet Explorer 4.x or later

Online Help

The OracleAS Personalization Administrative UI includes extensive online help that can be summoned from a list of contents and from Help buttons.

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document: