AJAX stands-for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML", and Oracle AJAX is a super-hot technology within web-based Oracle systems.  For complete details, see the book "Oracle on AJAX" by Steve Karam, Oracle certified master and Oracle ACE.

Essentially AJAX is a set of pre-defined API's combined with a methodology, like SOAP (the Simple Object Access Protocol).  Oracle AJAX methodology uses the document object model (DOM), an offshoot of COM and CORBA standards and protocols.

What is AJAX?

It's the asynchronous aspect of AJAX that is exciting to web developer.  With asynchronous HTTP requests, messages can be sent to the Oracle server without the end-user waiting and waiting the hourglass as the page reloads. 

Oracle claims that the AJAX will enhance web development, especially for highly interactive applications where the end-user requests can be processed in the background.  Oracle offers AJAX in several of their web development environments:

• Native AJAX - AJAX supports standard API calls from standard XML, SOAP, XSD (XML Schema Definition) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language) supporting native J2EE Oracle applications.
   

• AJAX and Apex - AJAX is becoming a popular extension to Oracle Application Express (Apex, formerly HTML-DB) and Apex developers can incorporate AJAX calls into an HTML-DB system for high interactivity. 
   

• AJAX in JDeveloper - Oracle has released AJAX in Oracle JDeveloper 10g Release 3 with native AJAX support. 

Faces and AJAX

AJAX also works with Java Server Faces (JSF) and Oracle's subcomponent of JSF, ADF faces.  ADF faces is an open-source Application Development Framework (ADF) customized or Oracle data access.  In plain English, ADF is a set of pre-defined widgets that you can incorporate into your online web screens for a uniform look-and-feel.

AJAX Oracle Support

Oracle AJAX is a cutting-edge technology and few companies can find consulting support for AJAX.