Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

Running E-Business Suite on Exadata V2

By Steven Chan on November 12, 2009 11:34 AM

The Exadata Database Machine Version 2 was released at OpenWorld 2009 to great fanfare. Since its unveiling, I've been getting a steady stream of questions from E-Business Suite customers who are intrigued by Exadata V2's potential. All 11gR2 Database Applications are Compatible The E-Business Suite and other OLTP applications will run on the Exadata V2 system if they're certified with the 11gR2 Database on Linux. Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i is certified on the 11gR2 database, so it can run on Exadata V2 today.

Comments (0)

Database 11gR1 11.1.0.7 Certified With EBS 12.1.1 on Windows Server 2003 (x64)

By Steven Chan on October 26, 2009 12:34 AM

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 is now certified with Oracle Database Server 11gR1 version 11.1.0.7 on Microsoft Windows x64 (Windows Server 2003).

Comments (0)

11gR2 Database Certified with E-Business Suite 11i

By Steven Chan on October 8, 2009 8:30 PM

I'm very pleased to announce that the 11gR2 Database version 11.2.0.1 is certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i version 11.5.10.2. Existing Apps 11i environments currently running Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0), Oracle 10g Release 10 (10.1.0), Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0), or Oracle 11g Release 1 (11.1.0) may be upgraded to the 11gR2 Database.

Comments (5)

Database Vault 11.1.0.7 Certified for E-Business Suite on Windows Platforms

By Steven Chan on October 1, 2009 11:34 AM

Our Applications Platforms Group continues to round out our E-Business Suite certification matrix for Oracle Database Vault 11gR1. Oracle DB Vault 11gR1 11.1.0.7 is now certified with E-Business Suite for the following Windows platforms: * Microsoft Windows Server (32-bit) * Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit)

Comments (0)

Using Transportable Database 11gR1 with E-Business Suite

By Steven Chan on September 30, 2009 11:09 AM

Platform migration is the process of moving a database from one operating-system platform to a different operating-system platform. There are two supported methods for doing this: 1. Export the data from the database on the old platform, create a new database on the new platform, and import the data into the new database. 2. Use the Transportable Database feature You can expect a 50% or greater reduction in the time it takes to complete a platform migration using Transportable Database when compared to traditional export/import methods. Transportable Database 10gR2 was certified for the E-Business Suite last year. I'm pleased to announce that our Applications Platforms Group has certified this for the next database release -- Transportable Database 11gR1 -- with the E-Business Suite.

Comments (2)

Recommended Database Parameters Updated for EBS 12

By Prasad Akkiraju on September 15, 2009 11:53 AM

Close on the heels of our recent updates to the recommended EBS 11i Database parameters, our database and applications performance architects have published updates for EBS Release 12. The updated note is now available here: * Database Initialization Parameters for Oracle Applications Release 12 (MOS Document ID 396009.1)

Comments (3)

Thirteen New E-Business 12.1.1 Database-Tier Only Certifications for 10gR2

By Steven Chan on September 10, 2009 12:56 AM

Our Applications Platforms Group has just released a flurry of new platform certifications for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 for the 10gR2 10.2.0.4 Database Server. The following operating systems are now certified for database-tier only deployments: * Sun Solaris x86-64 (Solaris 10) * IBM: Linux on System z (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise System 9 and 10) * IBM: Linux on Power Systems (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise System 9 and 10) * Linux Itanium (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise System 9 and 10)

Comments (2)

Interim Update: Certifying the 11gR2 Database with the E-Business Suite

By Prasad Akkiraju on September 6, 2009 12:55 AM

New database updates from Oracle are the mostly closely-watched releases across our Oracle user community. The 11gR2 version 11.2.0.1.0 is the next major release after 11gR1 version 11.1.0.6.0. This version -- for Linux x86 32-bit and 64-bit platforms only -- is now available for download on the Oracle Technology Network.

Comments (1)

Turbocharging Your EBS 12.0 Techstack Upgrade

By Prasad Akkiraju on August 27, 2009 2:39 PM

All three of the major new technology stack components included in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 are also certified with Release 12.0. You could upgrade each of these R12.0 techstack components individually. But now that Release 12.1.1 is out, why bother with that older time-consuming and labour-intensive approach when there's a better way? You can use the EBS 12.1.1 Rapid Install to upgrade just the application and database tier technology stack components in your existing EBS 12.0 instance. Your technology stack components are upgraded to the same versions delivered with EBS 12.1.1 while leaving your EBS 12.0 product code (e.g. Financials, Supply Chain) untouched.

Comments (7)

OPatch Essentials for Apps Sysadmins

By Prasad Akkiraju on August 25, 2009 1:12 AM

All EBS administrators must become very familiar with the OPatch utility. OPatch is used to patch the ORACLE_HOMEs in EBS Application and Database tiers. Security fixes delivered for these ORACLE_HOMEs through Critical Patch Updates are also applied using OPatch. It updates the central and per-product inventories with the details of each patch applied. Apart from the Oracle Universal Installer (which internally also uses OPatch), this is the only tool authorized to patch ORACLE_HOMEs. Although it once had a reputation for being somewhat arcane, OPatch has evolved over the years into a more user-friendly and better-documented tool. I'll cover the essentials of using OPatch in this article.

Comments (2)

Recommended Database Parameters Updated for EBS 11i

By Steven Chan on August 13, 2009 10:54 AM

Experienced Apps DBAs know that there are often compelling reasons to tweak the E-Business Suite's database initialization parameters from the defaults. The master source-of-truth for whether certain parameter settings will help or hurt your EBS environment performance is published here: Database Initialization Parameters for Oracle Applications Release 11i (Note 216205.1) Our EBS database architects have just released an updated version of that Note. Recent updates over the last month include a number of important changes and additions to our recommendations

Comments (15)

Confused About E-Business Server vs. Desktop Operating System Certifications?

By Steven Chan on August 12, 2009 1:40 PM

The E-Business Suite is designed with a three-tier architecture, with functions running on a client tier, an applicatione server tier (also called a middle tier), and a database tier. I handled a customer question on an internal Oracle mailing list today that confused our certification policies for these tiers. I then realized that I've answered variants of this question many times lately, so it's clearly of broader interest. These two questions are mirror images of each other: * Can I install the E-Business Suite on a desktop operating system like Windows Vista? * Can I run end-user E-Business Suite functions on a server operating system like Oracle Enterprise Linux?

Comments (6)

Can E-Business Users Apply Database Patch Set Updates?

By Steven Chan on August 10, 2009 11:13 PM

The Oracle Server Technologies' division introduced a new release vehicle in late July 2009: Patch Set Updates (PSU). Patch Set Updates are cumulative patches containing between 50 to 100 recommended bug fixes for the Oracle Database. Patch Set Updates include: * Field-tested fixes for critical technical issues that may affect a large number of customers * Critical Patch Update fixes

Comments (18)

Oracle Universal Installer Inventory Essentials for Apps Sysadmins

By Nick Quarmby on August 8, 2009 5:25 AM

We see quite a few Service Requests (SRs) where E-Business Suite customers have gotten into difficulty with the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) Inventory.  It's important to note the Oracle Universal Installer Inventory has nothing to do with the Oracle E-Business Suite Inventory product (product code INV).

The Oracle Universal Installer Inventory is a component of the OUI and creates a record of the Oracle homes, products and patches you have installed on a node. Whilst it's not part of the E-Business Suite, as an Applications DBA it's inevitable that sooner or later you will have to look after the Inventory. This article will focus on issues relating to the OUI Inventory specifically within the context of Oracle Applications.

An Overview of the OUI Inventory

The Oracle Universal Installer Inventory comprises three main components:

• The Pointer File
• The Central (Global) Inventory
• The Home (Local) Inventory

Comments (6)

10gR2 10.2.0.4 Certified on Solaris x86-64 and HP Tru64 for EBS 11i

By Steven Chan on July 21, 2009 9:43 AM

Our Applications Platforms Group continues to round out our certification matrix for supported operating systems for the E-Business Suite.  They've released two new platform certifications for Apps 11i on the 10gR2 (10.2.0.4) database:

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i (11.5.10.2) is now certified with Oracle Database Server 10gR2 version 10.2.0.4 on Sun Solaris x86-64 (64-bit).  The Solaris x86-64 certification is for Solaris 10 and is a database tier only certification (also known as a "split configuration"), where the application tier must be on a certified Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i platform.

E-Business Suite Release 11i (11.5.10.2) is now certified with Oracle Database Server 10gR2 version 10.2.0.4 on and HP Tru64.  This certification is for HP Tru64 5.1b and is a fully-certified configuration for both the application server and database tiers.

Comments (0)

Database Vault 11.1.0.7 Certified with Oracle E-Business Suite

By Prasad Akkiraju on July 17, 2009 1:15 AM

Oracle DB Vault allows security administrators to protect a database from privileged account access to application data.  Database objects can be placed in protected realms, which can be accessed only if a specific set of conditions are met.  

Database Vault 10gR2 was certified last year with Oracle E-Business Suite.  We're pleased to announce that the latest Database Vault 11gR1 Version 11.1.0.7 is now certified with E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12.

You can now enable Database Vault 11gR1 on your existing E-Business Suite 11.1.0.7 Database instance.  If you already have DB Vault 10gR2 enabled in your E-Business Suite environment, you can now upgrade to the 11gR1 Database.  We also support EBS patching with Database Vault 11.1.0.7 enabled. Our DB Vault realm creation and grants-related scripts have been revised to reduce patching downtimes.

Comments (0)

Tablespace Encryption 11.1.0.7 Certified with EBS 12

By Allison Sparshott on July 15, 2009 2:35 AM

Oracle Advanced Security is an optional licenced Oracle 11gR1 Database add-on.  Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) offers two different features:  column encryption and tablespace encryption.  We certified the TDE column encryption feature with the E-Business Suite last year.  We're pleased to expand our 11gR1 Database certification to include the tablespace encryption feature.  This option was recently certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i, and now Tablespace Encryption 11.1.0.7 is certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.

What is Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) ?

Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) allows you to protect data at rest. TDE helps address privacy and PCI requirements by encrypting personally identifiable information (PII) such as Social Security numbers and credit card numbers.

TDE is completely transparent to existing applications with no triggers, views or other application changes required. Data is transparently encrypted when written to disk and transparently decrypted after an application user has successfully authenticated and passed all authorization checks. Authorization checks include verifying the user has the necessary select and update privileges on the application table and checking Database Vault, Label Security and Virtual Private Database enforcement policies.

Existing database backup routines will continue to work, with the data at rest remaining encrypted in the backup. For encryption of entire database backups, TDE can be used in combination with Oracle RMAN.

Comments (2)

Latest DSTv11 Timezone Patches Available for E-Business Suite

By Steven Chan on July 10, 2009 11:16 AM

For reasons mysterious to me, world governments apparently like to change their timezones on a regular basis.  If your E-Business Suite Release 11i or 12 environment has been configured to support Daylight Saving Time (DST) or international time zones, it's important that you keep your timezone definition files up-to-date.  They were last changed in February 2009, and they've been updated once again:  DSTv11 is now available and certified with the E-Business Suite.

Comments (0)

Choosing a Shared File System for Oracle E-Business Suite

By Steven Chan on July 8, 2009 3:18 PM

It's possible to scale up your E-Business Suite environment with multiple application tier servers to improve fault tolerance and performance.  It's also possible to share a single filesystem between them: all application tier files are installed on a single shared disk resource that's mounted from each application tier node.  In Release 12, that would look like this:

This allows you to apply patches once to the central filesystem, rather than maintaining each application tier server node individually.  We recommend this approach; it reduces maintenance overheads for those multiple servers and shortens your patching downtimes. 

Beginning with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, we also allow you to share an applications tier file system between multiple E-Business Suite database instances, too. For more details about this advanced option, see this article.

Customers embarking upon this path inevitably ask, "Which shared filesystem do you recommend?"  The short answer is that we don't recommend any specific filesystem, but there's more to it than just that.

Comments (12)

Comparisons of E-Business Suite Release 12 Rapid Install Techstacks

By Steven Chan on July 3, 2009 1:09 PM

A reader recently asked where she could find a summary of the E-Business Suite Release 12 technology stack components for different R12 releases.  As it turns out, there's a long answer to this deceptively-simple question.  This level of information is spread in a variety of release-specific Notes, making it tricky to compare which components were delivered as part of each Apps 12 Rapid Install. 

Here's a high-level architectural diagram showing an overview of the major techstack components in R12:

It's possible to add on additional database options not shown above, including 11g Advanced Compression, 11g Advanced Security, and others. 

Here's a summary of the versions for the important major techstack components that were included in the Rapid Install footprints for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12:

	EBS Release 12 Rapid Install Version
	12.0.0	12.0.4	12.1.1
Database	10.2.0.2	10.2.0.4	11.1.0.7
OracleAS 10.1.2 Forms & Reports	10.1.2.0.2	10.1.2.2	10.1.2.3
OracleAS 10.1.3 OC4J	10.1.3.0.0	10.1.3.0.0	10.1.3.4
App Tier Java (JDK)	1.5.0_10	1.5.0_13	1.6.0_10
Desktop Client Java (JRE)	1.5.0_10-erdist	1.5.0_13	1.6.0_u10

Comments (11)