Monitoring uptime and health of several services (web service, oracle, web app)?

Go have a look at the xymon system. It is simple and easy youse and scales well. I used xymon at several organizations and it is awesome.

The user community is also very vibrant and helpfull.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.