Oracle E-Business Suite

Release 11i & Release 12

Apps DBA 101

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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

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Other trade and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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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 Whats 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

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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 CANT 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

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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

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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 Plug-

in (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.

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For more details about E-Business Suite patching, check

out our latest book:

Available at:

http://www.redriversolutions.com

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Chapter 1 The Basics Well 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

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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 DBAs job to be constantly vigilant, watching MOS for changes

You should check MOS often, even if you think you dont 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 dont plan to use those new modules or additional functionality)

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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 Chans 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.

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Chapter 2 The Architectures

EBS Release 11i and EBS Release 12 Multi-Tiered 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

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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

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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 Stacks 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?

Youll 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

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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 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. 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 E-

Business 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 Edition-

Based Redefinition and new E-Business Suite technologies

to allow patching to the E-Business Suite's database and

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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 Suns 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 Plug-

in are automatically downloaded to a users 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 Suns 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 Chans blog frequently for the most up to date information at:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/

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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 Oracle-

seeded 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 11is 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 11is 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.

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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

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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 Administrators 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

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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

Oracles Database Version 11gR2 offers a number of exciting new features that specifically benefit the current E-

Business 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 Oracles 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.

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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

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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 youre 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 Chans Offloading (Some) EBS 12 Reporting to Active Data Guard Instances.

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Multiple Oracle Homes

These changes in software do not decrease the number of

ORACLE_HOMES that you will support with Release 12 youll 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, youll 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.

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Chapter 3 Lifetime Support Youll 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

companys decision making comes down to Oracles support strategy for the database, technology and E-

Business 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 youre 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

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upgrade scripts; certification with new third-party

products/versions; or certification with new Oracle

products. If you have a question and theres already an answer on MOS, Oracle Support will point you to it. If

youre still running Release 11.0.3, youre 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 Oracles 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 Chans 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 E-

Business 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

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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 theres another issue well 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.

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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.

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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 youll 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 Oracles E-Business 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.

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 Oracles 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

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 youve 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 Oracles E-Business 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 Chans 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.

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 Whats the Risk?

Well, if you dont have any issues, then youre fine. But what if youre 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?

Thats 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 theyll 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, thats 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.

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 youve 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, lets 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 didnt 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

Oracles 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

34

werent that many modules, so over-installing didnt seem like a big deal.

Years later, many of Oracles 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? Thats where risk is introduced how can you tell for sure that there isnt 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 weve noticed that users are logging SRs asking if they need to patch specific

modules. It cant 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 were talking about here. Weve 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, youll 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, youd be taking on quite a big risk. What if youre wrong? What if theres something in a module that really is used by your other modules?

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

youll know if you can do so within your companys downtime window is to try it out. The biggest issue, once

youve 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 weve 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

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 Oracles 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 wouldnt 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,

37

11gR1 and 11gR2. All of these database versions are

stable, so in theory, if you arent experiencing technical problems, you dont 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. Oracles support plans are detailed in their Lifetime Support Policy at:

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-support-

technology-069183.pdf

Knowing what is included with Oracles 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.

38

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 Oracles 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. Youll 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!

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

Oracles 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 havent already converted to the Oracle Applications Tablespace Model (OATM), youll 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

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,

youll 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 years 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, youll choose the range of periods of historical data you want to upgrade before you

42

run the Release 12 upgrade, and youll run a pre-upgrade concurrent program. After youve finished your upgrade, youll 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.

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 Plug-

in, 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.

44

Lifecycle Management

Lets start by discussing the reason you might need all these tools. Lifecycle Management is Oracles 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

cant 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

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, youll have an integrated suite of tools that provide end-to-end monitoring and management for your entire E-

Business 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:

46

Figure 7

Figure 8 - Choose "Dashboard" from the list under Oracle

Applications Manager

If youre 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

47

instances, or for applying changes to multiple instances at

the same time.

Applications Patching with OAM

Applications patching is Oracles 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, youll use the AutoPatch (adpatch) tool.

You can use OAMs 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 youll need to know to patch your applications.

OAMs 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 Oracles patching format, interfacing with Source Control Software, and change

control are accomplished using the E-Business Suite

Plug-in.

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/ for the Database Tier. AutoConfig Template files have

named tags that are replaced with instance-specific

information located in

/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

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 theyve 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

50

production. Or perhaps youd 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 thats 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 its too easy to make mistakes. A thorough and time-

consuming test of each migration would have to be

included in your project plan.

2. FNDLOAD Oracles 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, youre working from a Unix account and have to have a thorough

understanding of the objects that you want to move.

Youll still need to do a thorough test of the objects that youve migrated, but errors are less likely than if you hand-typed the information.

3. iSetup iSetup is a module provided within the E-Business Suite that allows you to easily migrate setups

using a user-friendly interface. Youll work through E-Business 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.

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 dont alter data or setup, and the latest patch is included in

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:

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.

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)?

Lets 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 environments:

Hardware configuration (CPU, memory, storage, network, etc.)

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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. Thats 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 isnt 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.

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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, youll need to consider adding another product to your toolset the E-Business 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. Well also discuss the value add of the Plug-in.

In Figure 12, you can see that OEM, OAM, and the E-

Business 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, youll 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 wont be updated.

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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

birds 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

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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 E-

Business System.

You can read more about System Management for E-

Business Suite in MOS Doc. ID: 1224313.1, Getting

Started with Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in, Release 4.0,

and on Steven Chans blog, Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 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

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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 wont 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-ins 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

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availability of critical business functions. You can set up

alerts to notify you when there is a problem, and identify

common issues and diagnose causes of failures. For those

companies who provide internal Service Level Agreements,

the Service Level Monitoring feature can be particularly

helpful in determining if you are meeting those agreements.

Cloning

You can clone an E-Business Suite instance using

RapidClone or the E-Business Suite Plug-in. RapidClone is

the most commonly used tool for cloning. Oracle continues

to refine it and releases new patches periodically. See MOS

Doc. ID: 406982.1, Cloning Oracle Applications Release

12 with Rapid Clone, to stay current on available patches.

MOS Doc. ID: 603104.1, Troubleshooting RapidClone

issues with Oracle Applications R12 is also highly

recommended.

The intention with the E-Business Suite Plug-ins cloning feature is to provide automated cloning that will also

support cloning with data scrambling (data masking). The

Plug-in allows the following methods of cloning:

Clone Source to Target: the source system data is extracted and applied on to a target system. On

completion of the clone process, the source and target

systems will have the same data and patch set level.

The benefit of this procedure is that it creates an

identical copy of production system.

Clone Source to Image: the source system data is extracted and stored. The image extracted can be

applied to any number of target systems. The benefit of

this procedure is that it facilitates periodic backing up

of the source system.

Deploy Image to Target: an image is deployed on to a target system. The benefit of this procedure is that it

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allows for rapid deployment of standard pre-configured

target systems.

Hot Mode Clone Source to Target, Source to Image and Image to Target, where the source system does not need

to be shut down.

A Clone Status page shows the status of all clone jobs (In

Progress, Scheduled, Saved, Completed). You can add

comments to the status of any clone job, and the cloning

procedure includes a step-by-step interview process.

With the Plug-ins Smart Clone capability, you can use a database target cloned using an external solution (EMC,

NetApp FlexClone, certain IBM tools) as an input to the

Plug-ins cloning procedures. Smart Clone also supports more complex, advanced E-Business Suite deployments,

including configuring a single instance database, a RAC

database, cloning a single-node applications tier to a single-

node applications tier, creating a scale-down clone of a

multi-tier applications tier with a shared file system node to

a single-node applications tier, and creating a scale-down

clone of a multi-tier applications tier without a shared file

system node to a single-node applications tier.

Dealing With Customizations, Patching and Setup

The E-Business Suite Plug-in provides a feature that has

been sorely needed in the Applications world: a

sophisticated tool that manages changes introduced by

customizations, patches and functional setups during

implementation or maintenance activities. This tool shows

that Oracle recognizes that its customers do, in many cases,

have to customize the Applications, and that providing a

framework to help track and manage those changes will

make upgrading to new releases simpler, and easier to

accomplish. The Plug-in also allows DBAs to apply

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patches simultaneously across multiple instances, and

includes a Change Approval mechanism so that both

customizations and Oracle-provided patches can be applied

using a rigorous approval process. The Plug-in also uses

iSetup to migrate changes between Applications

environments.

The Plug-in includes three toolsets: Customization

Manager, Patch Manager and Setup Manager.

Customization Manager With Customization Manager, you can monitor and manage E-Business

Suite changes, register new custom applications, and

track and validate existing custom applications in a

standard way. Reporting options include the ability to

report on a single package, compare two packages, or

compare a package against an instance. Customization

Manager integrates with most source control systems,

and includes a change approval framework that

provides an audit trail which can be particularly useful

when preparing to upgrade, and improves user

productivity by automating change deployment. This

tool validates customized code against software coding

best practices, and packages changes so they can be

applied like any other Oracle application patch.

Patch Manager automates applying application patches across multiple instances. Patch Manager recommends

application patches, provides details about what a patch

will change, and shows what patches have modified a

specific file. A unique feature is Prerequisite Patch

Impact Analysis, which determines if there are

prerequisites, and allows adding prerequisites to the

patch job if they arent already available. Patch Manager also allows scheduling application patch

application, and allows you to enter comments in the

Patch Run Details, including the Patch Run Name,

Description, Justification, Requester, and Notification

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E-mails. Patch Manager is integrated with

Customization Manager as well as with My Oracle

Support, which makes downloading patches a simple

task.

Setup Manager is the next generation of iSetup. You can extract and load data from one E-Business Suite

instance to another, use Projects to control the sequence of a load, schedule timing of a load, and

manage simultaneous loads to multiple instances. Setup

Manager also allows Offline Transformation users can download setup data into Excel, edit or add to it,

and then upload it.

What Can You Do Without the E-Business Suite Plug-in?

You dont have to buy the Plug-in. In all likelihood, youve developed your own set of procedures to deal with

managing the E-Business Suite. For example:

Customization You can continue