Where Oracle ADF Fits In???

In my previous blog I described What is Oracle ADF and What is its architecture…

In present blog I have described in which scenario You should use Oracle ADF

There may be various Integration Scenario where ADF is well suited:

• Waht to have start from scratch development of your application in which you want to have rich UI, Charts,Google Maps,Task Flows etc
• Want to create UI layer only and integrate with existing service layer
• Want to have composite layer as you are integrating with 2 or more application (SOA scenario – can be 2 or more independent components) – Using ADF you can achieve Composite behavior at Application Module level (aggregate multiple View Object), ADF business component level or can have custom composite layer (in case application existing architecture uses Service Bus, composite web services)
• Want to have rich internet UI as well as advanced feature like – “UI Customization at Runtime” (Integrate with WebCenter), “MDS Integration”, “Security – ADF Security Authentication”, “Responding to Application Events”, “Customize the Application Look and Feel with Skins”, “Partial Page Rendering (PPR) on a JSF Page” etc.
• Want to Integrate SFDC Cloud/Anyother cloud with your application, ADF fits very well.
• Want to integrate your application with Oracle EBS R12…
• Want to have Mobile Application functionality as well considering future of the application (Mobile application developed in Oracle ADF can be deployed in iOS,Android and all other popular mobile service platforms).

When to Use (Recommendation)
Fast Development: Want to build application within no time. This case will be best suited for small projects where you want to build application quickly and looking for end to end framework or build new UI and integrate existing service layer. Reason for saying this is once you understand ADF architecture/layers, can focus on ADF feature you want to explore.
Migration: To migrate existing application choosing ADF as option needs to be evaluated. ADF provide number of rich internet UI patterns and help in rapid UI development, so migrating application for UI scenario should be large (in terms of no of UI screens). In large application effort can be drastically minimized after identifying common usability pattern. As development scenario we can have 4 scenario stated above CRUDQ [Create, Read, Update and Search/Query]. For better usability (similar look and feel), Business Analyst/Usability Team can define similar look and feel. ADF have lot of inbuilt Usablity Pattern for CRUDQ, which can decrease development time drastically. Migration for small application just for UI might not be good idea (unless you have requirement to extend application in near future).
Rich Internet and Advanced Features: Rich Internet Feature, “UI Customization at Runtime” (Integrate with WebCenter), “MDS Integration”, “Security – ADF Security Authentication”, “Responding to Application Events”, “Customize the Application Look and Feel with Skins”, “Partial Page Rendering (PPR) on a JSF Page”.
Integration: Integrate your application into a SOA by firing events from your business components, invoke BPEL or create Human Work Flows

References: http://shishirkumarblog.wordpress.com, http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/overview/index-100269.html