Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

[March 19, 2009 Update: Clarified text to emphasize that integrations of OAM, OIM, OVD, ESSO, and OWSM with EBS are supported by the Identity Management group.]

[August 11, 2008 Update: It's technically feasible to integrate the E-Business Suite with Oracle Single Sign-On. Oracle Access Manager (a.k.a. COREid) may, in turn, be integrated with Oracle Single Sign-On to provide additional authentication and integration options. If Windows Native Authentication and Kerberos are also used with this combination -- namely, E-Business Suite, Oracle Single Sign-On, and Oracle Access Manager -- the combined length of the redirected URLs may exceed web browser limits and user authentication will fail. Oracle recommends against the use of this particular combination of technologies for production environments.

[Editor:  Apparently there are some unusual packaging and licencing particulars around Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On and Oracle Web Services Manager.  This article has been updated to reflect these oddities.]

In our recent string of acquisitions, Oracle has made a number of purchases in the identity management space.  These have been rolled into the Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite of products.  The obvious question probably occurs to you:  can you use these with the E-Business Suite?
What's in Oracle Identity and Access Management?

First, it's important to be very clear about which products are included in this suite.  These are:

• Oracle Single Sign-On & Oracle Internet Directory
   
• Oracle Access Manager (formerly Oblix COREid Access & Identity)
   
• Oracle Identity Federation (formerly Oblix COREid Federation)
   
• Oracle Identity Manager (formerly Thor Xellerate Identity Provisioning)
   
• Oracle Virtual Directory (formerly OctetString Virtual Directory Engine)
  

Aug 14 Update:  Within minutes of publishing this article, Oracle staff who pay attention to things like licencing excitedly informed me that the following products have "special" licencing terms.  This being a technical blog and not a marketing one, I'm going to blithely sidestep this discussion.  If you really have burning questions about licencing, I'm sure your neighbourhood Oracle account team will be happy to fill you in on these products:

• Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On (in partnership with Passlogix)
• Oracle Web Services Manager (formerly Oblix COREid Web Services Manager)
  

Supported with the E-Business Suite

All of the Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite products shown above are supported by the Oracle Identity Management group for use with the E-Business Suite Release 11i and the upcoming Release 12.  In other words, you may follow the generic Oracle Identity Management documentation for integrating the above products with E-Business Suite environments; questions about that generic documentation should be directed to Oracle Identity Management Support.

In addition, the E-Business Suite has special certified integrations with Oracle Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory.  The Applications Technology Group has produced specific documentation and patches for these configurations for E-Business Suite customers.

What Happens If You Run Into a Problem?

For an extensive discussion about the distinction between supported vs. certified configurations, see Certification & Support for Third-Party Products.  We support more configurations than we actually certify.

If you run into a problem when using any of the products above with E-Business Suite environments, you have two options for getting support:

1. Log a Service Request against the E-Business Suite
   
   Applications Support Engineers will attempt to isolate the problem. 
   
   If the problem's root cause lies in the E-Business Suite, such as Oracle Financials, then the Service Request will be handled by an Applications Support Engineer.
   
   If the problem is isolated to a product in the Identity and Access Management Suite, then the Service Request will be routed to an Identity Management Support Engineer.
    
2. Log a Service Request against the Identity and Access Management Suite
    
   Identity Management Support Engineers will attempt to isolate the problem.
    
   If the problem's root cause lies in an Identity and Access Management Suite product, such as Oracle Identity Manager, then the Service Request will be handled by an Identity Management Support Engineer.
    
   If the problem is isolated to the E-Business Suite, then the Service Request will be routed to an Applications Support Engineer. 

Passing the Buck

All Oracle products should work together.  If you find yourself in a situation where your Service Request is being bounced around, don't just suffer through it.  Call Oracle Support and escalate to a Duty Manager, who can ensure that your SR isn't treated like the proverbial buck that no one wants to handle.

The above is intended to outline our general product direction.  It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract.   It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decision.  The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.