DBA Basics

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(1)Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i & Release 12 Apps DBA 101.

(2)  Copyright 2012 by Red River Solutions All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without explicit permission from the authors. Published by Red River Solutions, LLC 14800 Quorum Dr Suite 325 Dallas TX 75254-7666 (972) 715 6110 [email protected] http://www.DrHealthCheck.com Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.. Other trade and service marks are the property of their respective owners.. 2.

(3) PREFACE ............................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1 – THE BASICS ................................................................. 11 CHAPTER 2 – THE ARCHITECTURES ................................................... 13 EBS RELEASE 11I AND EBS RELEASE 12 MULTI-TIERED ARCHITECTURES........ 13 PLANNED RELEASE 12.2 MULTI-TIERED ARCHITECTURE .............................. 14 What is WebLogic? ..................................................................... 15 WebLogic Benefits ...................................................................... 15 Do You Need to be a Guru to Support WebLogic?...................... 15 Online Patching Features ........................................................... 16 COMPARISON OF THE ARCHITECTURE TIERS FOR R11I, R12.0/R12.1 AND R12.2 ........................................................................................................ 17 Desktop Tier ............................................................................... 17 Application (Middle) Tier ............................................................ 18 Oracle Process Management and Notification (OPMN)................... 19. Database Tier – Oracle 10gR2 or Oracle 11gR2 ......................... 20 Oracle 10gR2 Improvements ........................................................... 20 Oracle 11gR2 Improvements ........................................................... 21. Multiple Oracle Homes ............................................................... 24 CHAPTER 3 – LIFETIME SUPPORT ..................................................... 25 APPLICATIONS UNLIMITED ..................................................................... 25 FUSION MIDDLEWARE SUPPORT, INCLUDING DISCOVERER ........................... 30 ORACLE DATABASE SUPPORT ................................................................. 30 MANDATORY EXTENDED SUPPORT BASELINE PATCHING .............................. 30 So What’s the Risk? .................................................................... 32 Can I Pick and Choose Which Patches I Apply? .......................... 32 Why are There So Many Patches to Apply? Why is This So Complicated?.............................................................................. 33 Can I Unlicense Modules? .......................................................... 34 CHAPTER 4 – UPGRADING THE DATABASE ....................................... 35 WHY UPGRADE TO ORACLE 11GR2?....................................................... 35 SHOULD WE UPGRADE EVERYTHING AT ONCE? ......................................... 35 MUST WE UPGRADE? .......................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 5 – UPGRADING THE APPLICATIONS ................................. 39 SHOULD WE UPGRADE TO RELEASE 12? .................................................. 39 MUST WE UPGRADE TO RELEASE 12.1? .................................................. 40. 3.

(4) UPGRADE PATHS ................................................................................. 40 SHOULD YOU WAIT FOR RELEASE 12.2? .................................................. 41 UPGRADE BY REQUEST .......................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 6 - RELEASE 12 ADMINISTRATION AND MAINTENANCE TOOLS: OEM, OAM AND OCM ......................................................... 43 E-BUSINESS SUITE ADMINISTRATION AND MAINTENANCE TOOLS .................. 43 LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT ...................................................................... 44 WHAT IS ORACLE ENTERPRISE MANAGER (OEM)? .................................... 44 WHAT IS ORACLE APPLICATIONS MANAGER (OAM)?................................. 45 Applications Patching with OAM ............................................... 47 AutoConfig with OAM ................................................................ 48 iSetup with OAM ........................................................................ 49 License Manager with OAM ....................................................... 51 Oracle eBusiness Suite Diagnostics with OAM ........................... 51 Other OAM Tools ........................................................................ 54 WHAT IS ORACLE CONFIGURATION MANAGER (OCM)? ............................. 54 CHAPTER 7 - HOW DO OEM AND OAM AND THE E-BUSINESS SUITE PLUG-IN WORK TOGETHER? ............................................................ 57 WHAT IS THE E-BUSINESS SUITE PLUG-IN? ............................................... 58 Discovery .................................................................................... 59 Monitoring ................................................................................. 60 Cloning ....................................................................................... 61 DEALING WITH CUSTOMIZATIONS, PATCHING AND SETUP ........................... 62 WHAT CAN YOU DO WITHOUT THE E-BUSINESS SUITE PLUG-IN? ................. 64 WHAT CAN’T YOU DO WITHOUT THE E-BUSINESS SUITE PLUG-IN?............... 65 IS THE E-BUSINESS SUITE PLUG-IN WORTH THE EXTRA MONEY? .................. 66 CHAPTER 8 - TOOLS THAT ARE STILL RUN FROM THE COMMAND LINE ........................................................................................................ 69 Rapid Install Wizard ................................................................... 69 adadmin ..................................................................................... 69 Database and CPU/PSU Patching............................................... 70 CHAPTER 9 - APPLICATIONS PATCHING ............................................ 71 RELEASE 12 APPLICATIONS PATCHING CHANGES ........................................ 71 Codelines and Codelevels ........................................................... 71 TYPES OF APPLICATIONS PATCHES ........................................................... 72 Release Update Pack (RUP) ........................................................ 72 Critical Patch Update (CPU/PSUs) .............................................. 74. 4.

(5) Oracle Database Vault ............................................................... 76 Applications Technology Group (ATG) ....................................... 76 MORE APPLICATIONS PATCHES............................................................... 79 AUTOPATCH (ADPATCH) ...................................................................... 80 APPLIED PATCHES AND PATCH WIZARD .................................................... 81 PATCH APPLICATION ASSISTANT (PAA) .................................................... 82 DATABASE AND CPU/PSU PATCHING ..................................................... 83 CHAPTER 10 - ORACLE INTEGRATION REPOSITORY (IREP) ................ 85 CHAPTER 11 – HOW FUSION FITS IN ................................................ 87 TERMINOLOGY .................................................................................... 87 FUSION APPLICATION DESIGN PRINCIPLES................................................. 88 FOCUS ON BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT AND IMPROVEMENT ............... 90 FUSION MIDDLEWARE IS THE “ENABLER” ................................................. 90 FUSION MIDDLEWARE AREAS ................................................................. 91 FUSION COMPONENTS TO KNOW ............................................................ 92 APPLICATIONS ROADMAP OVERVIEW ..................................................... 101 HOW THE FUSION APPLICATIONS FIT IN ................................................. 102 THE ROAD TO FUSION - ROADMAP CONCEPTS ......................................... 103 CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 105 LINKS AND MY ORACLE SUPPORT (MOS) NOTES AND DOCUMENTS ............ 107 ABOUT THE AUTHORS ......................................................................... 113. 5.

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(7) Preface This guide describes the new features, functionality and utilities available to Applications DBAs with Release 12 of the E-Business Suite of Applications. We will start by comparing the Release 11i and Release 12 architectures to lay the foundation for understanding the wide assortment of tools available to manage and maintain the Release 12 environment (and most are available for use for Release 11i environments as well). The tools include Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), Oracle Applications Manager (OAM), Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM), the E-Business Suite Plugin (aka Oracle EBS Application Management Suite 4.0), Rapid Install Wizard, Rapid Clone, AutoConfig, Patch Wizard with the Patch Information Bundle (PIB), AutoPatch, OPatch and n-apply CPU/PSU patching, Oracle E-Business Suite Diagnostics, and the Oracle Integration Repository (iRep). This guide also discusses the considerations for upgrading your database to Version 11gR2, and the E-Business Suite of Applications to Release 12, and includes a brief discussion about Fusion Applications and where they appear to be heading.. 7.

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(9) For more details about E-Business Suite patching, check out our latest book:. Available at: http://www.redriversolutions.com. 9.

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(11) Chapter 1 – The Basics We’ll start with a list of things you need to know about the E-Business Suite of Applications: . Release 12 is also known as R12. . Each new point release of R12 is packaged in a RUP (Release Update Pack). . Current R12 RUPs are 12.0.1, 12.0.2, 12.0.3, 12.0.4, 12.0.5, 12.0.6, 12.1.1 (aka EBS 12.1 RUP 1), 12.1.2 (aka EBS 12.1 RUP 2), and 12.1.3 (aka EBS 12.1 RUP 3). . RUPs may include new applications, performance improvements, security fixes and new or enhanced functionality for existing modules. . You should read the Release Content Documents (RCDs) on My Oracle Support (MOS) to see what changed between RUPs. . Release 12 is constantly changing, and it is the Applications DBA’s job to be constantly vigilant, watching MOS for changes. . You should check MOS often, even if you think you don’t have any problems!. . When you install Release 12, you install all modules, whether you license specific modules or not (over 220+ modules). . Release 11i had 200,000 objects and Release 12 has over 300,000 objects. . You should expect your Release 12 disk space requirements to go up by a minimum of 20% or more over Release 11i because of new modules and functionality (even if you don’t plan to use those new modules or additional functionality) 11.

(12) . Certain additional patches should be applied on a regular schedule (e.g., Quarterly Critical Patch Updates (CPU/PSUs) – For simplicity use the PSU Method for Database and Applications (starting with the January 2010 Quarterly CPU). . Quarterly Release 12 Upgrade Packs (RUPs) can change, add and remove functionality along with adding, upgrading or removing specific technology components – significant testing is required for every RUP. . The Applications Technology (ATG) Group or pseudo product modules are an integrated set of modules used by all of the other modules: FND, OAM, OWF, FWK, JTT, JTA, TXK, XDO, ECX, EC, AK, ALR, UMX, BNE, and FRM. . Oracle now has minimum mandatory patching requirements to ensure Extended Support for both Release 11i and Release 12.0.x. . Oracle announced modified support timelines for Release 11i and Release 12 that allow customers more time to prepare for Release 12 and more time on Extended Support once they have upgraded to Release 12. See Steven Chan’s EBS 11i and 12.1 Support Timeline Changes for more details.. The following chapters fill you in on all of the details for the above basics.. 12.

(13) Chapter 2 – The Architectures EBS Release 11i and EBS Release 12 MultiTiered Architectures If you look at Figures 1 and 2, you can see that Release 12 has changed considerably from Release 11i, specifically within the Technology Stack, or, more appropriately, the Application Tier:. * JInitiator is no longer supported for the Desktop. ** Oracle 9i comes as part of the install, Oracle 10.2.0.5 and Oracle 11.2.0.3 are the latest certified database versions.. Figure 1 – Current Release 11i Architecture Components. * RDBMS Versions 10.2.0.5 and 11.2.0.3 are the latest certified database versions.. Figure 2 – Current Release 12 Architecture Components. 13.

(14) Planned Release 12.2 Multi-Tiered Architecture Release 12.2 will include significant changes. Release 12.2 will replace several of the Application Server technology components with WebLogic components. On the Application Tier, Oracle plans to replace the OracleAS 10.1.3 ORACLE_HOME with Fusion Middleware 11g. Fusion Middleware 11g will include Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and WebLogic Server (WLS). The Database Tier will also change, because it will need to use RDBMS Version 11.2.0.2 or higher to enable Edition Based Redefinition for hot patching, also called online patching. Online Patching will allow users to continue to use the E- Business Suite while a DBA applies patches. This will reduce downtime to minutes instead of hours or days, and will make the downtime windows very predictable. Patches will be applied while the Production environment remains online. Patching will change significantly thanks to an RDBMS Version 11gR2 database feature called Edition Based Redefinition, and cloning will change by necessity because the cloning scripts will need to be rewritten to support WebLogic instead of OracleAS 10.1.3.. * RDBMS Version 11.2.0.3 will be included for Release 12.2. Figure 3 – Future Release 12.2 Architecture Components. 14.

(15) See Minimizing Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Downtimes, Santiago Bastidas, Principal Product Manager, Elke Phelps, Sr. Principal Product Manager, Oracle Corporation for more details about Release 12.2.. What is WebLogic? WebLogic is a tool acquired by Oracle when they purchased BEA in 1998. The E-Business Suite Release 12.2 will replace the 10.1.3 Oracle Home with the Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and WebLogic Server (WLS). OC4J will be replaced by WebLogic. The Application Technology Stack’s 10.1.2 Oracle Home will stay the same. This will be a major technology change and learning challenge for Applications DBAs – even those with years of experience managing and maintaining the E-Business Suite.. WebLogic Benefits End users will experience “always on” applications and services. WebLogic includes comprehensive, low-overhead application monitoring and deep diagnostics. WebLogic will integrate with Oracle RAC to provide the highest levels of application availability. WebLogic will enable rapid development of applications without lost time due to system restarts. Comprehensive tooling will simplify customization development and speed new application delivery.. Do You Need to be a Guru to Support WebLogic? You’ll follow the My Oracle Support upgrade documentation (when it is released) to upgrade to Release 12.2, and that will install WebLogic. You may want to take training to learn how to configure WebLogic to take advantage of more advanced features – you may need a WebLogic Administrator on your staff. Fortunately, there. 15.

(16) are experts in the field – WebLogic is widely used in the industry.. Online Patching Features Online Patching will allow users to continue to use the EBusiness Suite while a DBA applies patches. This will reduce downtime to minutes instead of hours or days, and will make the downtime windows very predictable. Patches will be applied while the Production environment remains online. Online Patching will allow an application to efficiently store multiple editions of its Application Definition in the same database. This will provide an isolation mechanism (The Edition) that allows pre-upgrade and post-upgrade schemas to co-exist. The client code will choose the particular “Edition” that it wants to connect to. To use online patching, users will continue to use the Applications while the Applications DBA creates a Patch Edition, patches it, and synchronizes any changes between the Run Edition and the Patch Edition. When patching is done, the Apps DBA will set the Patch Edition as the new Run Edition and restart the application servers so users point to it. For more details, see Technical Preview of EBS 12.2 Online Patching: Kevin Hudson, Senior Director and one of the Online Patching architects, discusses one of the cornerstone new features in our upcoming Oracle EBusiness Suite 12.2 release. This ground-breaking feature is based upon Edition-Based Redefinition, a new 11gR2 Database feature that was built to Oracle Applications division specifications to allow the E-Business Suite's database tier to be patched while the environment is running. Online Patching combines the use of EditionBased Redefinition and new E-Business Suite technologies to allow patching to the E-Business Suite's database and. 16.

(17) application tier servers while the environment is being actively used by its end-users. (June 2012). Comparison of the Architecture Tiers for R11i, R12.0/R12.1 and R12.2 Desktop Tier On the desktop tier, Release 11i uses a browser and either JInitiator or the Sun J2SE Plug-In for the user interface, while Release 12 requires Sun’s J2SE Plug-in. There are two types of “forms” that can be accessed when running the Applications. The first is an HTML-based form that looks just like a web page. The second is an Oracle Professional form, and it is accessed using a java applet. Called the Java desktop client, the JInitiator or the Sun J2SE Browser Plugin are automatically downloaded to a user’s PC the first time they log into an Oracle Professional form within the Applications. As Release 11i users prepare for Release 12, there are a number of reasons to get the migration to Sun J2SE Plug-in out of the way early in the upgrade process. First, there are the usual desupport issues: both JInitiator 1.1.8 and JInitiator 1.3 for Release 11i are no longer supported. Most importantly, JInitiator is a modified version of Sun’s original java product and has been desupported by Oracle for quite some time. The Sun J2SE includes all the features that Oracle enhanced for the JInitiator to support Oracle Forms. Be aware that J2SE is software and, therefore can have bugs that affect its functionality – monitor Steven Chan’s blog frequently for the most up to date information at: http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/. 17.

(18) If your company is still using JInitiator, it is time to upgrade to the Sun J2SE Browser Plug-in.. Application (Middle) Tier The Application Tier hosts the many different services that process the business logic and manage communication between the Desktop Tier and the Database Tier. For Release 11i, the Application Tier contains the Web Services, the Forms Server, the Report Server, the Concurrent Processing Server and an Admin Server. Release 11i runs iAS 1.0.2.2.2 (Apache and JServ) for its web services, and the 8.0.6.3 ORACLE_HOME handles the admin, concurrent processing, reporting and forms services. The Release 11i JServ component is a simple Java applications server that supports Java Server Pages (JSP) and Servlets and little else. For Release 12.0 and Release 12.1, the Application Tier contains the Web Services, the Forms Server, the Concurrent Processing Server and an Admin Server. Components of the Web Services, which runs the 10.1.3 ORACLE_HOME, include the Web Listener, OC4J and the Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN). Please note that starting with Release 12.1.2, all Oracleseeded reports utilize the XML (BI) publisher. Release 12.0 and Release 12.1 now use 10gAS Version 10.1.2 for Forms, which replaces Release 11i’s Version 8.0.6 ORACLE_HOME. Release 12.0 and Release 12.1 use 10gAS Version 10.1.3 for the Web Server with Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J), which is the equivalent to Release 11i’s Version 8.1.7 ORACLE_HOME. Release 12.2 will use Fusion Middleware 11g, which includes the Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and WebLogic Server (WLS) in place of the OracleAS 10.1.3 ORACLE_HOME. 18.

(19) 10gAS can run multiple containers of OC4J, not for scalability (which was why you could configure multiple JServ instances), but for division of processing. Each instance of OC4J is used as a compartment to contain one portion of the OAS 10g functionality. This allows the individual instances to be tuned for their actual workload, and helps to prevent them from competing for resources. 10gAS also supports Oracle Identity Management, running Oracle Internet Directory (OID) Versions 10.1.4 and 11g (11.1.1.5.0) for security. With OID, it will be easier to integrate into corporate security infrastructure for companies that use LDAP directories. Oracle is now recommending the Oracle Access Manager (OAM) for Single Sign-on. A key difference between the Release 11i and Release 12.0/Release 12.1/Release 12.2 Application Tiers is that 10gAS positions us to take advantage of new Fusion Middleware features, which in turn prepares us for the next Release after Release 12 – the Fusion Applications. Oracle Process Management and Notification (OPMN). Oracle Process Management and Notification (OPMN) is automatically installed and configured with every Oracle Application Server. This tool is essential for running the Oracle Application Server by providing an integrated way to manage all Oracle Application Server components, including Discoverer and OC4J. OPMN checks to see if a service has terminated and tries to restart the service automatically (this is called death detection). OPMN creates a file for each managed process and can rotate log files. You can customize process management by using Dynamic Resource Management (DRM). For example, you could modify OPMN to spawn an additional OC4J process if. 19.

(20) average response time exceeds a threshold and if there are less than four processes already running. Or you could start an additional OC4J process to run every day at 5pm during peak hours. The Resource Management Directive (RMD) tells DRM when and what to do. Directives are configured in the opmn.xml file. You can see examples of code to do these types of customizations in section 3 of the manual Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server Administrator’s Guide 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.). Note: If you encounter issues with the Oracle Application Server 10.1.3, check out MOS Doc. ID: 454178.1, Oracle Application Server Diagnostic Tools and Log Files in Applications Release 12. This document covers common problem scenarios and Oracle Application Server Diagnostic tools for OPMN, Java Object Cache, Forms Servlet and Class Loads and includes where to find log files for OPMN, the HTTP Server, and J2EE Application Modules. Another MOS Note, Doc. ID: 373548.1, Using Forms Trace in Oracle Applications Release 12, describes debugging tools available for Forms.. Database Tier – Oracle 10gR2 or Oracle 11gR2 The Database Tier for Release 11i runs Oracle 9iR2, but can be upgraded to Oracle 10gR2 (which moved to Extended Support on July 31, 2010) or 11gR2. Release 12.0 and Release 12.1 are certified to run Oracle 10gR2 (in Extended Support) or 11gR1 or 11gR2 (preferred). Release 12.2 will require RDBMS 11gR2 to support Online Patching. Oracle 10gR2 Improvements. Oracle 10g offers a number of improvements over Oracle 9i, including improvements in performance - PL/SQL runs two times faster; manageability, including tools like the 20.

(21) Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) and Automatic SGA Tuning; and optimizer improvements. The latest (and terminal release) version of Oracle 10g, Version 10.2.0.5, is certified with Release 11.5.10.2 and 12.0.X, with later releases (12.1.X) not certified as Oracle 10gR2 moved to Extended Support at the end of July 2010. Oracle 11gR2 Improvements. Oracle’s Database Version 11gR2 offers a number of exciting new features that specifically benefit the current EBusiness Suite Releases (11i and 12), including Database Replay, SQL Performance Analyzer, Data Pump improvements, Advanced Compression, and Active Data Guard. . Database Replay and SQL Performance Analyzer are two tools in Oracle’s Real Application Testing database pack: . Database Replay – Allows you to record all database operations and then replay them, so that you can more effectively test the effects of a change to your database environment. See http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/orac le-database-11g-top-features/11g-replay.html for more details.. . SQL Performance Analyzer – Allows you to capture specific SQL statements and replay them, which can help with performance tuning.. 21.

(22) Figure 4 – Upgrading to 11g Best Practices by Ashish Agrawal, Oracle Corporation. . SQL Plan Management - You can use SQL Plan Management to control resource consumption more effectively than the way we used to do this, with hints, stored outlines, or initialization parameters. With SQL Plan Management, you can create a SQL Baseline of trusted execution plans and then force the optimizer to use those trusted plans or take recommendations provided by the SQL Plan Management feature.. . Data Pump Improvements – Oracle has improved the performance of Data Pump Export and Data Pump Import, particularly compared to the Export and Import utilities. Data Pump uses multiple worker processes and parallelism to use all available resources and maximize throughput. See Oracle Database Utilities 11g Release 2 (11.2), Part Number E10701-02 for more details.. . Advanced Compression – Delivers compression rates of two to four times across all types of data and. 22.

(23) applications. Advanced Compression improves query performance by reading fewer blocks from disk. Savings include the database space itself, as well as improved database and network performance and backup times. If you’re curious to see how much of a space savings you might see, check out the Oracle Compression Advisor. You can run this tool against Oracle 9i to 11g databases to determine the potential impact of advanced compression on your specific data. . Active Data Guard – Use Active Data Guard to offload resource intensive activities from a production database to a synchronized standby database. Active Data Guard also enables fast incremental backups, high availability and disaster recovery. For those customers who have considered Active Data Guard to create a mirror of an E-Business Suite database for hardware or software failure, it would be really valuable to be able to use that database for reporting. For Active Data Guard to work for querying, you would have to break the mirror. However, Oracle has completed a series of enhancements to ADG that allows you to run reads against the real-time copy of the database. This functionality requires either RDBMS Version 11.1.0.7 or 11gR2 with the Active Data Guard database option, and EBS Release 12.1.3. The one catch is that not all E-Business Suite reports will work in this environment; EBS reports that perform writes against the database are not supported. For more details, see Steven Chan’s Offloading (Some) EBS 12 Reporting to Active Data Guard Instances.. 23.

(24) Multiple Oracle Homes These changes in software do not decrease the number of ORACLE_HOMES that you will support – with Release 12 you’ll have at least three ORACLE_HOMEs: 10gAS ORACLE_HOME (10.1.3) on the Application Tier, a 10.1.2 ORACLE_HOME on the Application tier, and a 10.2.0.2 or 10.2.0.3 ORACLE_HOME on the database tier. There is now also an “Instance” specific tier for the database that is using the software. The Instance Top is designated as $INST_TOP and includes the database SID. Supporting and maintaining multiple ORACLE_HOMES is here to stay. In fact, if you use Discoverer, you’ll have a fourth ORACLE_HOME. Oracle has also renamed the Server Partitioned or Split Configuration terminology that we used to describe for the 8.0.6/8.1.7 relationship. Now it is correct to state that you are running a “Mixed Platform Architecture”.. 24.

(25) Chapter 3 – Lifetime Support You’ll notice that this guide does not talk much about Release 12 functionality. For an Applications DBA, if your end user community decides they need to upgrade because of functionality that is included in a higher release, then your decision about whether to upgrade or not is made for you. The area where you may need to influence your company’s decision making comes down to Oracle’s support strategy for the database, technology and EBusiness Suite, called Applications Unlimited, and how much support your company needs or is willing to pay.. Applications Unlimited Oracle offers three types of support, Premier, Extended and Sustaining: Premier Support includes certification with new third party products/versions and Oracle products. Extended Support provides certification with most existing products instead of new third party products / versions and Oracle products. Extended Support may not include certification with some new third-party products/versions. If you’re still running Oracle 9i and have purchased extended support from Oracle, then if you find a new problem with an existing certified configuration, Oracle will help you resolve the problem. Just keep in mind that Extended Support for Oracle 9i ended in July 2010, and Oracle RDBMS 10gR2 moved to Extended Support on August 1, 2010. Extended Support only lasts for three years, so after that if you do not upgrade, you move to Sustaining Support. Sustaining Support does not include new updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes and Critical Patch Updates (CPU/PSUs); new tax, legal and regulatory updates; new 25.

(26) upgrade scripts; certification with new third-party products/versions; or certification with new Oracle products. If you have a question and there’s already an answer on MOS, Oracle Support will point you to it. If you’re still running Release 11.0.3, you’re on Sustaining Support (which ended in January 2009). NEW! Extended Sustaining Support (ESS) for Release 11.5.10.2 was announced at Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) 2012. ESS is an exception to Oracle’s support policies covering the first 13 months of Sustaining Support on Oracle EBS Release 11.5.10 from December 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014. For more details, see Steven Chan’s EBS 11i and 12.1 Support Timeline Changes. ESS includes three components: 1. New fixes for Severity 1 production issues 2. United States Form 1099 2013 year-end updates 3. Payroll regulatory updates for the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia for fiscal years ending in 2014 Note, however, an important caveat – to receive Severity 1 support, you must be on the Release 11i Extended Support Minimum Baseline, covered in MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1, Patch Requirements for Extended Support of Oracle EBusiness Suite Release 11.5.10. If you are not on the minimum baseline, patching current is a significant effort that requires careful planning and testing. You might wonder why support levels are important to you, the DBA. The answer is that if your company hits a technical or functional show-stopping issue and you do not have Premier Support or Extended Support or Extended Sustaining Support from Oracle in resolving it (Oracle cannot reproduce the same error in their support 26.

(27) environments), you might find yourself having to patch or perform an upgrade in a big hurry – and, since patches and upgrades require so much testing, this is certainly not a good position for any customer to find themselves. The following chart shows the current plans for support. If you are still running on Release 11.0.3, the fact that even Sustaining Support has an end date – January 2009 – should be particularly important/alarming to you. If you are running releases prior to Release 11.5.10.2, you should be concerned that Oracle does not offer Extended Support. From our perspective, the biggest issue with staying on these earlier releases is that without Premium Support, you may not be able to stay current on the security patches provided by the Quarterly Critical Patch Updates (CPU/PSUs). But there’s another issue – we’ll talk later in the guide about upgrade paths – the further behind you are, the more complicated your upgrade path will be.. Figure 5 – Oracle E-Business Suite Support – Note that Release 11.5.10 now includes “Extended Sustaining Support” to help ease the transition to Release 12, and Release 12.1 Extended Support has been pushed out to December, 2018.. 27.

(28) The following chart is from Oracle Lifetime Support Policy for Oracle Software. It shows features that are included in each support level:. Figure 6 - Key Features Provided With Support Levels. Premier Support for Oracle E-Business Release 11.5.10.2 ended November 30, 2010. Some (most?) of us still on Release 11.5.10.2 have moved into the Extended Support window starting December 1, 2010 and can stay on Extended Support for three years (2011, 2012 and 2013) assuming that we apply the minimum technology and application patches (also referred to as the MANDATORY minimum patch baseline) as required by Oracle support (MOS Notes: 883202.1 and 1116887.1). With the recent addition of “Extended Sustaining Support” for Release 11.5.10.2, we have a little more time to do the Release 12 upgrade, but still need to be running The Mandatory baseline patches to receive Severity 1 support.. 28.

(29) There are a significant number of patches to be applied especially if you have not maintained your patch levels. For HRMS customers, there are three additional MOS documents that you’ll want to closely review: R11.5.10.2 – MOS Doc. ID: 111499.1, Oracle 11i Human Resources (HRMS) US and Canadian Payroll Mandatory Patch List, R12.0.x – MOS Doc. ID: 386434.1, Oracle EBS US and Canadian Payroll - 12.0.x Mandatory Patches R12.1.x – MOS Doc. ID: 858794.1, Oracle EBS US and Canadian Payroll - 12.1.x Mandatory Patches. You should track MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1 carefully because Oracle does update it. The Extended Support window fee waiver for Oracle’s EBusiness Suite Release 11.5.10.2 and Oracle RDBMS Version 10gR2 was announced two years ago by Oracle at the Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) Collaborate conference for the first year of Extended Support only for Release 11.5.10.2 AND RDBMS Version 10gR2. Now that Oracle has extended the fee waiver again, customers can avoid additional fees for Release 11.5.10.2. If you stay on Release 11.5.10.2 after Extended Support ends on November 30, 2013 and move to Extended Sustaining Support (ESS), there are no additional fees for Sustaining Support but you then have a significant support and maintenance risk that you have to accept. While Extended Sustaining Support us a much-needed lifeline, customers should begin planning their upgrades to R12.1.3 immediately. This applies to the 10gR2 database support as well; customers should be planning their upgrade to RDBMS 11gR2 now.. 29.

(30) Fusion Middleware Support, Including Discoverer If you use Discoverer, another area that you should track for your environment is the Oracle BI Discoverer Support Policies. Discoverer Support is covered under Oracle’s Fusion Middleware Policy. According to the Oracle Fusion Middleware document of the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy, Oracle will not provide Extended Support for Oracle 10g, and Premium Support ended in December 2011. Discoverer users should consider upgrading to Discoverer 11g as soon as feasible. Premier Support for Discoverer 10g ended on November 30, 2011. There will be no Extended Support. Upgrade to Discoverer 11g or continue with Sustaining Support.. Oracle Database Support Premier Support for the 10gR2 database ended on July 31, 2010. We have moved into the Extended Support window which started August 1, 2010 and we can stay on Extended Support for three years (2011, 2012 and 2013). However, a fair number of customers will, have moved back to the Premier Support window for the 11gR2 RDBMS until January 31, 2015 (The 11gR1 Premier Support window ended on August 31, 2012). To continue with Oracle 10gR2, you must patch to Version 10.2.0.5, the terminal release for Oracle 10gR2.. Mandatory Extended Support Baseline Patching There was a time, not so long ago, when customers could hold off patching their E-Business Suite environments for 30.

(31) as long as they wanted. Those times are gone, not just for Release 11i customers, but also for Release 12 customers. You might think this is an unreasonable requirement by Oracle, but if you’ve ever looked under the hood at your Oracle environment, then you know how complicated the environment has become. Patching one module can affect several others. The software footprint is so large that no DBA can reasonably expect to make rational decisions about which patches really are necessary without spending countless hours investigating how those patches work with the existing codeset. Going forward, these are the rules of patching Oracle’s EBusiness Suite software: For Release 11i, customers should reference MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1. This document tells us: To be eligible for Extended Support of 11.5.10, the customer's system must be patched to the patch levels indicated in the table under Section 1 below, requirements 1 through 6. Additionally, it is important to note that the patch requirements indicated at a product level in Section 2 of this note must also be met. For Release 12, see Steven Chan’s excellent blog entry Heads-Up: Preparing for E-Business Suite 12.0 Extended Support, which states that Release 12.0 will transition from Premier to Extended Support in February, 2012. Release 12 customers are cautioned to apply at least the 12.0.6 Release Update Pack (Note ID 743368.1) and the Financials CPC July 2009 (Note ID 557869.1) by that date. The most likely upgrade path is to upgrade to the latest version of Release 12, currently Release 12.1.3. This too requires a substantial effort in planning and testing.. 31.

(32) These mandatory upgrades for both Release 11i and Release 12.0.X customers mean that we must now plan upgrades in shorter timeframes than was possible in the past.. So What’s the Risk? Well, if you don’t have any issues, then you’re fine. But what if you’re in the middle of year end close and you run into a problem that requires a substantial patch? Say, a Family Pack upgrade? Or, worse, how about if you find out you need to upgrade to RUP 7 to solve your problem? That’s the risk that the business has accepted because of the decision you made not to apply the minimum patches. Realistically, we have to tell you about one more risk. Have you ever applied a patch and had it create problems, rather than fix them all? Your users will have to test your patched environment as thoroughly as they would an upgrade, and it is possible that they’ll find new bugs when they do so.. Can I Pick and Choose Which Patches I Apply? Can you? Well of course you can! Should you? Well, that’s another question entirely. Everything with choosing to selectively patch comes down to risk and your ability to move quickly if you hit an issue. Oracle does offer one “out” in MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1: Extended Support is available on a product family by product family basis. What this means is, a Customer can choose to patch one Applications Product Family area, but not another. This allows a Customer to leave areas of code that might be extensively customized at their current levels, but gives that same Customer the option to receive Extended Support on other modules that are eligible.. 32.

(33) Why are There So Many Patches to Apply? Why is This So Complicated? Here are some more rules: You must apply patches for all Installed, Shared and Pseudo modules. If you run patchsets.sh, you can see the list of products at the top that Oracle thinks you have licensed. In all likelihood, if you’ve been running the E-Business Suite for several years, then the list has more products that your company is actually using. To understand why there are so many patches, particularly in Section 2 of MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1, let’s start with a short history lesson about the origins of the Oracle Applications. In the early days of the Oracle Applications, customers only installed the modules they used. As more modules were released, supporting unique configurations where every customer could have a different set of software installed became too cumbersome for Oracle. There were places where data needed to be shared, and it didn’t make sense to have the same tables associated with each module, so Oracle introduced Shared Modules. Shared Modules may have data, like customer information, that many other modules need to access. This issue is not unique to Oracle – any vendor who offers a suite of functionality will have to deal with this problem. Nowadays, customers install every module, whether used or not. You install everything, but you license only the modules that you have purchased from Oracle. Unfortunately, in the early days of the Oracle Applications, the License Manager often had groupings of modules, in addition to individual modules that could be selected. The groupings were likely bundles that reflected some aspect of Oracle’s sales process. The License Manager interface was confusing, and it was very easy for a customer to inadvertently over-install modules. And, at the time, there. 33.

(34) weren’t that many modules, so over-installing didn’t seem like a big deal. Years later, many of Oracle’s customers have a long list of over-installed modules. And since the database sees them as Installed, Shared or Pseudo modules, those modules have to be patched. You might ask, “Can I just patch the ones we use?” That’s where risk is introduced – how can you tell for sure that there isn’t some code or data that is part of what you consider an over-installed module that is necessary for you to run the Applications? It would be nice if Oracle could help you out here, and we’ve noticed that users are logging SRs asking if they need to patch specific modules. It can’t hurt to ask, but if you have dozens of modules, it may take Oracle a while to come up with an answer, and you may not be satisfied with what they tell you. The standard response is, if you installed it, you must patch it. You might wonder just how many patches we’re talking about here. We’ve actually gone through the exercise for Release 11i for the worst case scenario, where you patch every module listed in MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1 for a Release 11i Vision instance, and we came up with more than 400 patches, though that included pre-requisite and post patches. Most customers have dozens of patches to apply, rather than hundreds, but the research (yes, you’ll have to read every Readme as you search for pre-requisites and post patches and superseded patches) is tedious and time consuming.. Can I Unlicense Modules? Oracle does not provide that functionality. And, in terms of risk, you’d be taking on quite a big risk. What if you’re wrong? What if there’s something in a module that really is used by your other modules?. 34.

(35) Chapter 4 – Upgrading the Database Why Upgrade to Oracle 11gR2? In addition to the new features available with 11gR2, one of the most compelling reasons for upgrading to Oracle 11gR2 is that it is in Premier Support until January 2015, while Extended Support for Oracle 9i ended in July 2010, and Oracle Premium Support for Oracle 10gR2 ended in July 2010. Additional good news is that Oracle 11gR2 appears very stable.. Should We Upgrade Everything at Once? You could argue that upgrading everything at once – your database as well as your Applications - comes down to two issues: timing and risk. You absolutely can upgrade the database and applications at the same time. The only way you’ll know if you can do so within your company’s downtime window is to try it out. The biggest issue, once you’ve ensured that you can complete all the tasks within that timeframe, is the potential underlying risk that something may go wrong and you may not be able to isolate if the issue is a database upgrade or an applications upgrade issue. An argument in favor of splitting up your upgrade and completing the database upgrade first is that it will allow your technical staff to work with the new database version and try out some of the new features that we’ve described, separately from the applications upgrade. This is the time for your DBAs to take 11gR2 training, to experiment with test instances, and to consider modifications to your current database environment – perhaps fine tuning backups, for example, and practicing cloning and recovery. DBAs might find that by implementing Advanced Compression and Active Data Guard in advance of the applications upgrade, and using Data Pump as part of the applications upgrade for 35.

(36) data that needs to be migrated separately, the upgrade performance time could be improved and the downtime window reduced. If you add the performance improvements that Oracle’s new tools provide to their recommendation to preserve as much information about performance as you can before the upgrade, you may be able to avoid an issue that Oracle says affects many customers after the upgrade: “90% of highly visible problems attributed to an upgrade do not occur while upgrading but appear as unanticipated performance degradations days or weeks after the upgrade” (Upgrading to 11g Best Practices, by Ashish Agrawal, Oracle Corporation). If your DBA gathered information about current performance, they could then use Database Replay and SQL Performance Analyzer to quickly respond to those unanticipated performance issues that appear after the upgrade. Note, however, that if you separate the database upgrade from the applications upgrade, your users will have to test both upgrades. With a single database/applications upgrade, the business users test only once. Testing for the database upgrade, though, is considerably different for users than testing for the applications upgrade. For the database upgrade, rather than worrying about functionality issues within the applications, users will focus primarily on performance issues. And wouldn’t it be nice to get some of those issues out of the way ahead of time?. Must We Upgrade? The Database Tier for Oracle E-Business Applications Release 11i installs Oracle Database Version 9iR2, but should be upgraded to Oracle Database Version 10gR2 or, preferably, 11gR2. Oracle E-Business Applications Release 12 is certified to run Oracle Database Version 10gR2, 36.

(37) 11gR1 and 11gR2. All of these database versions are stable, so in theory, if you aren’t experiencing technical problems, you don’t have to upgrade. However, you must keep in mind that your database represents the inner workings of your company. Eventually, Oracle must move their attention and support to newer releases of the database, so eventually Oracle stops supporting earlier releases. Oracle’s support plans are detailed in their Lifetime Support Policy at: http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-supporttechnology-069183.pdf Knowing what is included with Oracle’s Extended Support and Sustaining Support, and at what price, is important for customers to understand. With Extended Support, you can still log a P1 problem - but there's no guarantee that the resolution will come quickly - it might take months. Even within Premier Support, Oracle supports only the current and previous database releases for 12 months after the current database has been released. That's a subtle point that could cause big issues for customers - if you are running Oracle Database Version 10.2.0.5, you were supported with Premier Support until July 2010 now that database Version 11gR2 is generally available. If you are running Oracle Database Version 10.2.0.3, thinking you are supported based on what you read on the support page, you aren't - that support stopped in February, 2009. These policies override the E-Business Suite support agreements.. 37.

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(39) Chapter 5 – Upgrading the Applications Should We Upgrade to Release 12? The E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10 software is 8 years old this year. There are no plans to add another CU (Consolidated Update #3), so the only way to stay current is to apply Family Packs to Release 11i. E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10 Premier Support lasted six years from November 2004. That means at the end of November, 2010, Premier Support ended and all customers still on Release 11i (11.5.10.2) moved to Extended Support. To stay supported on Oracle’s E-Business Release 11.5.10.2 after that, you would normally have to pay an additional fee for support to run in "Extended Support," but Oracle waived the fees. Oracle strongly recommends not running production in Extended Support mode unless you have no other choice. There is also a “Minimum Patch Baseline” for the software that must be met for the Extended Support. You should review MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1 and 1116887.1 to make sure that you are staying at the minimum patch baseline. Also, Oracle updates these documents, so you should recheck them periodically. In terms of functionality, Release 12 includes new and improved modules. In fact, the biggest difference for Release 12 is on the functional side; much more so than on the technical side. Release 12 uses a new user interface called the Swan Interface. If you are planning an upgrade, you should consider upgrading to Release 12.1. You’ll be positioned to upgrade to the Fusion Applications when an upgrade path is provided. If the software is stable, always upgrade to the latest release if you need the new features and functionality. Release 12.1 is stable! 39.

(40) Must We Upgrade to Release 12.1? Oh for the days when we could linger on an E-Business Suite release for years and years! Those days are over, mostly because Oracle is constantly changing the Applications, as much to add new functionality as to correct issues with existing functionality. With the need to apply security patches added into the mix, your company will need to consider what your overall patching strategy will be, and then plan to follow that strategy. Decisions about how long to wait to upgrade will affect the cost for Oracle’s support, as well as how difficult the upgrade will be. Stragglers on releases earlier than Release 11.5.7, for example, will have to follow a much more complex upgrade path than those who have stayed more current with patching.. Upgrade Paths There are two upgrade paths for upgrading to Release 12.1; the two phased and single phased upgrades. Two Phase - Unfortunately, if you are running a release prior to Release 11.5.7, you must first upgrade to Release 11.5.10.2 and then upgrade to Release 12.1. If you are not already running Oracle 10g or Oracle 11g, then you must upgrade the database before upgrading to Release 12.1. This upgrade path is called a dual phase upgrade. The good news is, the two phases do not have to occur during the same critical downtime. As part of this upgrade, if you haven’t already converted to the Oracle Applications Tablespace Model (OATM), you’ll need to convert your data at some point in the near future. Although it is not a requirement as part of the upgrade, all of the new product modules are in the OATM format. OATM features include automatic restart of the generation and execution of migration commands, configurable default extent size and a new “Tools” tablespace for products such 40.

(41) as Oracle Portal, Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On. Single Phase - If you are running Release 11.5.7 or later, you’ll need to upgrade to Oracle 10g or Oracle 11g and Release 12.1 during the same critical downtime. For both upgrades, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest certified version of Oracle 11g (currently 11gR2), and that you upgrade to the latest certified version of Release 12 (currently 12.1.3).. Should You Wait for Release 12.2? The new technical features of Release 12.2 are exciting and will have a significant impact on patching downtime, but Oracle does not recommend that you wait. Upgrade to 12.1.3, and when Release 12.2 is released, consider the timing and training requirements and plan accordingly.. Upgrade by Request Upgrade by Request is an option that allows you to limit how much data you upgrade during the Release 12.1 upgrade. The default is about six months of a fiscal year’s data. You can come back to the remaining data and upgrade it later. If you have a narrow upgrade window, Upgrade by Request can help you reduce the scope of the upgrade and then process less essential historical data later, after the upgrade is complete. Currently, Upgrade by Request covers historical data within financials and procurement, projects, supply chain management, and CRM. The upgrade depends on which module you are upgrading. For some products, only SLA data is upgraded, while for others, both transactions and accounting data will be upgraded. To use Upgrade by Request, you’ll choose the range of periods of historical data you want to upgrade before you 41.

(42) run the Release 12 upgrade, and you’ll run a pre-upgrade concurrent program. After you’ve finished your upgrade, you’ll run an SLA post upgrade concurrent program to complete the processing for the rest of your data. The details for Upgrade by Request are covered in Appendix G of the Release 12 Upgrade Manual.. 42.

(43) Chapter 6 - Release 12 Administration and Maintenance Tools: OEM, OAM and OCM E-Business Suite Administration and Maintenance Tools Oracle offers a number of tools to manage the E-Business Suite environment, including Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), Oracle Applications Manager (OAM), Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM), the E-Business Suite Plugin, Patch Wizard, AutoConfig, AutoPatch, iSetup, OPatch, and napply CPU/PSU, Diagnostics, and Oracle Integration Repository (iRep). Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), Oracle Application Manager (OAM) and Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) are included free with the database and Applications software. Oracle Applications Manager integrates with several tools that are also provided free, including AutoConfig, AutoPatch, iSetup, Diagnostics and Oracle Integration Repository. There are a few tools that are still run from the command line, including adadmin, OPatch and napply CPU/PSU. And, finally, there is the Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0 for OEM 11g (11.1.0.1), which used to be two separate additional cost Management Packs, the Application Management Pack and the Application Change Management Pack. The E-Business Suite Plug-in integrates with Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Applications Manager to add additional functionality. This chapter focuses on the features, functionality and utilities provided by Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Applications Manager, and Oracle Configuration Manager. The next chapter will describe how the e-Business Suite Plug-in fits into the picture. And the chapter after that will cover the tools that are still run from the command line. 43.

(44) Lifecycle Management Let’s start by discussing the reason you might need all these tools. Lifecycle Management is Oracle’s term for how we install, maintain, monitor, manage and upgrade our E-Business Suite Applications. Because the Applications are so complex, they require a number of different tools. Over the years, many of us have written our own sets of scripts and procedures to deal with the different tasks necessary for managing the Applications. Third party vendors have also offered products to simplify certain tasks. And Oracle provides a number of tools to help. Some of the tools, like OEM and OAM, are included with the Applications licenses. Others, called Management Pack Plug-ins, like the E-Business Suite Plug-in, cost extra. To understand whether the E-Business Suite Plug-in is necessary for your environment, we need as a foundation to understand how the different tools work together, what you can do without the E-Business Suite Plug-in, and what you can’t do unless you have licensed the E-Business Suite Plug-in.. What is Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM)? Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control and OEM 11g Grid Control allow you to monitor E-Business Suite performance, availability and configuration changes. You can monitor multiple E-Business systems and drill down into Oracle Applications Manager (OAM). You can read more about OEM in MOS Doc. ID: 787749.1, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control Release Notes for Solaris (SPARC) 10g Release 5 (10.2.0.5), which includes details about known problems. OEM features described in The Oracle Enterprise Manager Concept manual for 10g Release 5 (10.2.0.5), Part Number B31949-10 include enhanced management and monitoring. 44.

(45) support for new 11g features including ADDM for RAC, Real-time SQL Monitoring, Partition Advisor, Automatic SQL Tuning, Database Replay, Cloning, Enhanced Data Masking, High Availability features and security features. Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control includes additional features, including My Oracle Support integration, the Oracle Virtual Manager (VM) Pack, and the ability to discover and monitor WebLogic domains. See http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11857_01/em.111/e1 1982/whats_new.htm for more details about Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control new features. In addition to all these features, OEM is also integrated with the E-Business Suite Plug-in that we will describe later. If you choose to implement the E-Business Suite Plug-in, you’ll have an integrated suite of tools that provide end-to-end monitoring and management for your entire EBusiness Suite environment.. What is Oracle Applications Manager (OAM)? Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) is a tool included with the E-Business Suite that extends your Applications management capabilities. To run OAM, log onto the applications as the System Administrator responsibility and then choose from the list of Oracle Application Manager options:. 45.

(46) Figure 7. Figure 8 - Choose "Dashboard" from the list under Oracle Applications Manager. If you’re an old hand at managing the E-Business Suite Applications, then you probably know the commands to run several of these tools from the command line. OAM provides a framework to make it simpler to manage your Applications. Notice that OAM is focused on managing one instance. While it does have some summary reporting capabilities, it does not have features for comparing 46.

(47) instances, or for applying changes to multiple instances at the same time.. Applications Patching with OAM Applications patching is Oracle’s way of releasing code fixes, functionality enhancements or new functionality. Patches can update or create new file system objects like forms, reports and sql scripts. Patches can also execute code within the database to change seeded data. To upgrade an E-Business Suite environment from Release 11i to Release 12, or to apply a Release 12 RUP, Family Pack, Mini-Pack, or other applications patch, you’ll use the AutoPatch (adpatch) tool. You can use OAM’s Patch Wizard with the Patch Information Bundle (PIB) file to help decide which patch to apply and to determine what code or data it will change. The PIB file is updated nightly by Oracle and a current copy of the file should be downloaded before any patch impact analysis. You can also use the Patch Application Assistant to help track and apply manual patch steps. Oracle has a new manual called Oracle Applications Patching Procedures that covers the details you’ll need to know to patch your applications. OAM’s Patch Wizard helps you determine what patches to apply, what code the patches will change, and can download the patches. You then use AutoPatch to apply patches. Tracking customizations, packaging a customization into Oracle’s patching format, interfacing with Source Control Software, and change control are accomplished using the E-Business Suite Plug-in.. 47.

(48) AutoConfig with OAM AutoConfig automatically configures an Oracle Applications Release 12 instance. All the necessary information is saved in the Applications Context File or the Database Context File. The Applications Context File is an XML repository in $INST_TOP that contains the configuration information for the Applications tier. The Database Context File is an XML repository in the RDBMS ORACLE_HOME that holds database tier information. AutoConfig logfiles are stored under $INST_TOP/admin/log for the Application Tier and $ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/log/<CONTEXT_NAME > for the Database Tier. AutoConfig Template files have named tags that are replaced with instance-specific information located in <product_top>/admin/template. Note that this file should not be edited. You can create a custom template file by copying the template file and then editing it. To do so, create a directory named “custom” in the same directory as the template file you are customizing. Copy that customized template file into the directory you just created and AutoConfig will recognize that it is a custom template that supersedes the original template file. When AutoConfig detects a custom template file, it uses it. AutoConfig comes with a set of scripts that include: . adchkcfg.sh – run this program before running AutoConfig to review changes. It generates a report showing the differences between the current and modified AutoConfig file. . adtmplrpt.sh – provides information about the location of AutoConfig templates. 48.

(49) . restore.sh – use this script to roll back an AutoConfig session. See MOS Doc. ID: 387859.1, Using AutoConfig to Manage System Configurations in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 for more details about AutoConfig. Changes to AutoConfig configurations can be made through OAM (highly recommended), or by manually making changes to files and running scripts.. Figure 9 – Use OAM to make changes to your AutoConfig context files. iSetup with OAM So – your developers have been working on creating some new concurrent programs in your test environment. Or perhaps they’ve got some new request groups, printer setups, new responsibilities or other customized objects that need to be migrated out of the test environment and into 49.

(50) production. Or perhaps you’d like to add users to a test environment that are already set up on production. It turns out you have three options: 1. Manually - Open up a screen pointing to your test environment and a screen pointing to your production environment, and manually copy (type) everything you want to move. Uggh – that’s how we did it in the olden days, but it is certainly not how we want to do it today. Manually making the changes takes too long, and it’s too easy to make mistakes. A thorough and timeconsuming test of each migration would have to be included in your project plan. 2. FNDLOAD – Oracle’s command line utility can be used to download application data from an Oracle Applications instance into a portable, editable text file (.ldt file). The data in the FNDLOAD .ldt file can then be uploaded into another Oracle E-Business Suite instance. With FNDLOAD, you’re working from a Unix account and have to have a thorough understanding of the objects that you want to move. You’ll still need to do a thorough test of the objects that you’ve migrated, but errors are less likely than if you hand-typed the information. 3. iSetup – iSetup is a module provided within the EBusiness Suite that allows you to easily migrate setups using a user-friendly interface. You’ll work through EBusiness Suite screens rather than at the Unix level, so you do not have to be a programmer or DBA to feel comfortable using this tool. iSetup includes templates that make it easy to move commonly migrated objects, and, unlike our other two options, iSetup documents the configuration changes to allow you to compare changes across instances and timelines.. 50.

(51) OAM allows you to use iSetup to make configuration changes. The E-Business Suite Plug-in supports simultaneous iSetup changes across multiple E-Business Suite instances.. License Manager with OAM You can run License Manager from OAM to enable licensed E-Business Suite modules.. Figure 10 - You can run License Manager from OAM. You can use License Manager within OAM, or you can manually run License Manager scripts from the command line.. Oracle eBusiness Suite Diagnostics with OAM The Oracle eBusiness Suite Diagnostics are free utilities. New diagnostics are delivered in a standard Oracle Patch and are applied using AutoPatch. The diagnostics don’t alter data or setup, and the latest patch is included in 51.

(52) Release 12.1.3 (Patch 9239092). While Diagnostics were not initially required, Oracle now expects you to have the Diagnostics installed and will often ask you to run a particular Diagnostic to help problem solve a Service Request (SR). You should stay current on Diagnostic patches, as the Diagnostic programs are useful in troubleshooting. To Run Diagnostics: 1. Login to the E-Business Suite using an account that has the “Oracle Diagnostics Tool” responsibility 2. Select the "Oracle Diagnostics Tool" responsibility 3. Choose a diagnostic test from the Test Summary list. You can see which tests are available for an Application by clicking on the number under “Registered Tests”:. 52.

(53) Figure 11 - Diagnostics. 4. Enter input parameters if there are any for the test that you have selected 5. Click on the 'Run Test' button 6. To review the test output, click on the 'Report' icon displayed in the status line Access Diagnostics through OAM.. 53.

(54) Other OAM Tools You can also use OAM to administer concurrent managers and workflow components, including starting and stopping concurrent managers and controlling workflow services. OAM includes Diagnostic Wizards for Concurrent Manager Recovery, Service Infrastructure, GCS and Forms Monitoring, CP Signature and Dashboard Collection Signature. The Dashboard Collection Program collects metrics for many services, web components and other features of an Oracle Applications instance. OAM includes a Dashboard Setup Wizard that can be used to enable or disable the monitoring of individual metrics. The CP Signature Wizard performs many key Concurrent Processing related data collections and gathers important configuration and log files to be saved to the Support cart for more efficient interaction with Support. Release 12.1.1 added Advanced Configuration Wizards that Enable/Disable HTTP load balancing, SSL, and SSL Accelerator to reduce the SSL traffic and workload off the web servers, and Forms Socket Mode (R11i) and Servlet Mode (R12).. What is Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM)? Let’s face it, the Oracle environment is a complicated beast. Now, imagine how hard it must be for Oracle Support to draw important information out of a person who has logged a Support Request. Does everyone in your company who might log a Support Request know all the configuration information about your environment? Do they know your environment’s: . 54. Hardware configuration (CPU, memory, storage, network, etc.).

(55) . Operating System patches, kernel parameter settings and installed packages. . Oracle software (databases, middleware and applications) details such as patches, patch sets, init parameters and configuration settings. . Oracle Application Server details such as patches, patch sets, components and configuration settings. . Oracle WebLogic Server configuration settings such as ports in use, resource usage settings, deployed applications and JDBC resources. Probably not. That’s why Oracle includes another toolset that gathers information about your Oracle configuration; the Oracle Configuration Manager. This toolset gathers the information, and when you log a Service Request, you can either automatically or manually upload the information to Oracle Support. While the tool isn’t mandatory yet, Oracle Support will often request that you run it when you log a Service Request, so you might as well make sure you have the latest version and start using it.. 55.

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(57) Chapter 7 - How Do OEM and OAM and the E-Business Suite Plug-in Work Together? OEM Grid Control allows you to monitor multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems from a single console. You can drill down into Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) to control, configure, troubleshoot, and maintain individual EBS systems. If you want to have the ability to take a step back and see and manage all of your instances, you’ll need to consider adding another product to your toolset – the EBusiness Suite Plug-in, Version 4.0, which was formerly called Application Management Pack (AMP) and the Application Change Management Pack (ACP). Implementing this set of tools can help lower your maintenance and administration costs for the highly complex E-Business Suite environment. We will cover the features and functionality available in Version 4.0, the most recent version of the E-Business Suite Plug-in. We’ll also discuss the value add of the Plug-in. In Figure 12, you can see that OEM, OAM, and the EBusiness Suite Plug-in work together to provide end-to-end management and monitoring of E-Business Suite environments. To make all three products work together, there are a few caveats: 1. If you license the E-Business Suite Plug-in, you’ll need to apply an interoperability patch on OEM to make the Plug-in update information that comes from OAM. 2. You need to set the Preferences global link in OAM, or metrics won’t be updated.. 57.

(58) Figure 12 - Based on Application Management Pack and Application Change Management Pack 3.1 Now Available, by Steven Chan, Oracle. Also see Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite An Introduction, by Ken Baxter, Biju Mohan, Oracle. What is the E-Business Suite Plug-in? With Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) setting out to show the big picture in monitoring your Oracle environments, and Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) giving you a detailed view of each E-Business Suite instance, it seems only natural for the E-Business Suite Plug-in to integrate OEM and OAM together to provide a bird’s eye view of your entire environment. The E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0 extends Oracle Enterprise 11g Grid Control to help monitor and manage EBS systems and provide a consolidated end-to-end E-Business Suite management solution (the earlier release, Version 3.1 of AMP and ACP, works with Oracle Enterprise 10g Grid Control). It integrates Oracle Application Manager with Grid Control and provides advanced features to monitor. 58.

(59) and manage EBS systems, including Cloning, Application Service Level Management, Extended Performance Metrics, Data Scrambling and links from Grid Control to OAM. The Plug-in has six main features: Discovery, Monitoring, Cloning, Customization Manager, Patching Manager, and Setup Manager. The E-Business Suite Plug-in monitors the Oracle Applications Service, the Oracle Applications Infrastructure Service, the Concurrent Processing Service, the Forms Applications Service, the Concurrent Manager, Workflow, Custom Objects, and Patch Information. The Plug-in monitors your system for security problems, usage characteristics, configuration changes and performance. Its key capabilities include automated cloning, including cloning of very complex configurations, automatic discovery of E-Business Suite Systems, configuration management, service level management, extended performance metrics, and links from OEM Grid Control to OAM. It includes the ability to use either the Enterprise Manager Grid Control User Interface or a Command Line Interface to discover and register components of the EBusiness System. You can read more about System Management for EBusiness Suite in MOS Doc. ID: 1224313.1, Getting Started with Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in, Release 4.0, and on Steven Chan’s blog, Oracle E-Business Suite Plugin 4.0 Released for OEM 11g (11.1.0.1).. Discovery The Discovery Wizard dashboard uses OEM Grid Control to discover/register each database instance. The Discovery Wizard will by default enable discovery and monitoring of Workflow and create an Oracle Workflow Service, Forms Service, SSA Service, Patching Information Object, Custom Objects, and Order Management Services. The 59.

(60) Wizard adds a new Oracle Applications tab under the Targets tab of Grid Control, and once you apply the Oracle Applications Enterprise Manager interoperability patch, you can drill down to OAM. In addition to applying the interoperability patch, you need to set the Preferences global link in OAM, or metrics won’t be updated. The Discovery Wizard locates the Database Context and Applications Context, and then discovers the Oracle Forms and JVM Usage for the Applications Context.. Monitoring The E-Business Suite Plug-in’s monitoring features include the Concurrent Processing Dashboard, which provides a detailed overview of the efficiency of Concurrent Managers and Programs. You can build a watch list of specific concurrent managers and concurrent programs. The Plug-in also allows end to end tracing, including the ability to analyze the E-Business Suite database load. You can also easily trace top database sessions back to the end user. Another unique feature of the Plug-in monitoring is the ability to view and compare E-Business Suite configurations. You can see what products are installed, take advantage of new internal system alerts, review which patches have been applied, see site level profile options that have changed, and see which context files have been edited. Because the Plug-in is integrated with OEM, you can drill down to the OEM Grid Control host and drill down to OAM as well. A feature that is relatively new to the Plug-in is Service Level Monitoring. You can define Service Models that represent business functions or applications in your enterprise, and then measure the performance and. 60.

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