Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

Hi,

Does this mean that we cannot use Oracle APEX with Apps 12 ?

Yikes! I'm stil in stages 1-3, so I'm sorry, but I have to ask: mod_plsql is still a supported feature in 10.1.2AS and 10.1.3AS, so if you use a completely different OHS instance (not the one installed with Apps) can't you stll use mod_plsql there?

I completely understand Apps moving away from it, but for those of us not blessed with 4000 programmers, you just can't beat the simplicity of mod_plsql for the "little" stuff...

Steven,

First, thank you for making my job easier. My tech people are much more likely to believe this news when it comes from you. At a minimum, I owe you a fine dinner.

Second, kudos for the unique tongue-in-cheek intro to this post. BTW, I had no idea about your psychology degree. The stories I could tell you from my days in the legal world...

Third, thank you for laying a a road map for moving off mod_plsql. We'll highlight your post at tomorrow's OAUG Fusion Council telecon.

Hi, does that mean that Application Express (Apex;HtmlDb) extensions on top op Apps 12 will not be possible, or not be supported (which they were never, since no code of Oracle)?

If you answer the first option, i go right away for the anger category.

thanks,
thierry

Floyd, always happy to help.  One day I'd be interested to hear your stories (remind me sometime to tell you about a Vancouver law firm I'm intimately familiar with).

We understand that this technology shift may be a challenge for some organizations.  Please let us know if the OAUG Fusion Council team has any other thoughts about this migration.

Regards,
Steven 

Jim, Thierry,

Yes, you can still have a separate mid tier (AS installation) running mod_plsql and other mod_plsql-based tools (Oracle Application Express aka APEX).

It is just that EBS R12.0 code will be associated with a different AS installation.

Thanks,
Ivo Dujmovic
Director of Development, Oracle Applications Technology Integration

Thanks, now I can move on to acceptance :)

Thanks for the great blog Steven.

I'm currently using mod_plsql to request data from Oracle in a specific format, how is the OAF going to help? I have been working with JDev (on EBS) for a while now and I am battling to see how the OAF will help in this regard. I've been using it for Extensions and add-on applications.

Can you point me in the right direction as far as this is concerned?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback, David.

One major use of mod_plsql has been to deploy customizations to the E-Business Suite, hence our recommendations to redeploy those customizations via OA Framework. 

If you've been using mod_plsql for data extraction, OA Framework won't do much to help you with that.  OA Framework is intended as a development and deployment platform for HTML-based applications.

In your specific case, it may be worth investigating whether other APIs or web services can meet your data requirements.  One way of researching options is our Integration Repository, which I've described here:

• Integration Repository for the E-Business Suite

We use the standard Oracle APIs to get data to and from the interface tables to various eBusiness products, via the mod_plsql gateway. We also have some custom packages for inserting into the interface tables, submitting concurrent requests etc. Now that the plsql gateway is being removed we need to find a new way to make those calls through the web server. If we already have a library of packages, how easy/appropriate would it be to just build some sort of jsp front end to our packages, rather than rewrite our server code, and would the OA Framework be appropriate or should we be looking for some other technology.

There is no GUI component to our tools, we just need to make some PL/SQL calls through the web server. I am sure there are lots of people in our boat, who have invested a lot into a PLSQL library and just need to put a jsp "wrapper" around it. The OA Framework is all about modifying the GUI, so I struggle to see how this is the technology to use. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

Steve,

Sorry for the long delay in responding to this.  I've been working through my post-conference backlog, and a number of urgent things popped to the fore.

I'm trying to get a more detailed recommendation from someone with more expertise in this area than me.  I'll post  an update here as soon as possible.

Regards,
Steven 

Hi Steven,

I've been having a look at the Integration Repository as you suggested. Sadly this is not really what we are looking for. My problem is very much the same as comment by Steve West.

Have you managed to speak to the relevant people about this yet? A post would be most appreciated. Maybe if you could put us in touch with the correct people, I could take this forward.

Any help would be great.

Regards

David

David, Steve,

I've confirmed that Ivo Dujmovic's statement (further above in this comment thread) still holds true:

Although mod_plsql is no longer hosted as part of the standard Release 12 technology stack infrastructure, it's still possible to use it, in albeit a configuration that requires more diskspace.

You can have a separate Oracle Application Server 10g installation, either in a separate ORACLE_HOME on an existing server, or on a physically separate machine.  You can use mod_plsql and other mod_plsql-based tools (such as Application Express) on that instance to access the E-Business Suite Release 12. 

I believe that the generic Oracle Application Server 10g mod_plsql documentation covers such a configuration, with the possible proviso that you may need to add the external Oracle Application Server 10g instance's IP address to a list of machines authorized to access the R12 instance.  I'll follow up on that.

Regards,
Steven

Hi Steven,
Thanks for your comments, but what you are suggesting is back-end configuration to re-enable something that was disabled for security reasons, so we would rather move away from MOD_PLSQL altogether. We are not asking you for the answers to this, just a forum to go to, or a person to ask who would know about these things. All of the avenues we have tried so far have come to nothing.

Thanks for your time,

Steve

Steve,

I hear you.  I'm still chasing this internally.  One of the difficulties I'm encountering is that we have rather restrictive policies on public discussions of security-related topics.  Getting authorization to discuss certain details here is a pretty involved process in itself.

Hang in there -- I'll try and get more information to you soon.

Regards,
Steven

Steve,

One of the recommendations that I just received from our security team is to register your custom PL/SQL programs in Concurrent Manager. 

Procedures for doing this for Release 11i are published in Metalink Note 216589.1, Step By Step Guide to Creating a Custom Application in Applications 11i.  I don't think an equivalent of this Note has been published for Release 12 yet, so I've asked some of our team members to look into adding this to their documentation queue.  The approach should be similar for Release 12 (let me know if you encounter any issues with differences between the two releases).

Does this approach meet your requirements?

Regards,
Steven 

Thanks Steven, I don't see this as a security issue, but a technology migration issue. What would be nice is some concrete guidelines like "if you do this with the PL/SQL gateway you should migrate to this framework; if you do that with it then go to another framework", with some good examples. However I don't think this space is mature enough yet for people (in Oracle or outside of Oracle) to have actually built things in real life, and then publish the results , so I am frankly not too hopeful.
We understand the need for and are prepared to do some basic research ourselves, I guess if someone in your position cannot access the answers then we just have to pull apart an R12 and see what makes it tick! I will let you know what we come up with, in the meantime keep up the blog, it is really interesting and informative.

Steve

Steve,

Thanks for the comments.

I've been trying to escalate this class of concerns internally within our team for a while.  I agree with you:  we're going to have to augment our documentation with more information for the various scenarios.  The existing documentation doesn't discuss Java wrappers, Concurrent Manager programs, or even the basic external integration architecture that's feasible.

We're a bit backlogged right now, so this one gets added to the queue.  I'll post updates here if some meaningful documentation updates come out of this.

Regards,

Steven 

Sadly I am late to this party and must now move rapidly through the cycle.
I understand the denial part, its impossible to believe that Oracle can be that stupid. ANGER follows extra-ordinarilly quickly when we consider the cost of migration (its cheaper to re-implement in SAP!). Bargaining with Oracle has always been a waste of time, then bang the depression hits!
The of course I realise that I have always expected this to happen, and we built an isolation layer to keep our mod-plsql code isolated from Oracle's and that provided their is still equivalents to FND_GLOBAL and other security packages, then I can neatly avoid the entire issue and continue down the economically viable path of using mod-plsql.
This is where you have the chance to send me back to depression, by telling me that my dream is pure wishful thinking, and that the entire security structure has been moved to OAF, and I should sack my team of non-java, business experienced, programmers and get in some idiots who have no idea about business processes.

Hi, Andrew,

Thanks for your feedback -- it obviously comes from the heart.  I've passed it on to our architects for this area.

One of the viable options that's been covered earlier in this comment thread is that you can still host mod_plsql on an external instance and connect that to the E-Business Suite.  That way, your existing extensions will continue to work. 

I don't think that FND_GLOBAL has been deprecated, but it'd be worth checking the Release 12 Integration Repository (part of the R12 Rapid Install) to verify that.

As for staffing policies, it might be cheaper but I've never found it productive to hire idiots.  My practice is usually to hire folks who are smarter than me.  Some people might assert that that shouldn't be all that difficult.  ;-)

Regards,
Steven

I've been reviewing our mod-plsql code and the hinge point in 11.5.10 for security integration with Oracle Apps is the ICX_SEC package, from an API perspective, the ValidateSession function. Assuming this has been deprecated, there would need to be another way of confirming user has logged on and the current responsibility. Provided that is documented for use by mod-plsql, then the whole thing really just becomes a minor irritation! and that makes acceptance very easy!
Rewriting our code is not an option, we started using mod-plsql when it was the plsql cartridge in OWS, with Apps 10.7, because Oracle told us we would be "future-proofing". It is a great way to generate data intensive web pages and not having it will be a major reason not to upgrade to R12.

Andrew,

I'm trying to confirm whether ICX_SEC and ValidateSession are still supported and documented in R12.  I'll post an update here as soon as I track this down.

Regards,
Steven

Steve,

I was wondering what are all the changes that have been incorporated in R12 for OAF. It seems from your post that R12 documentation is not publicly available. Any information in this direction would be helpful in planing for migration to R12.

Mohammed.

Mohammed,

I don't have a lot of visibility into OAF, unfortunately.  I'm not entirely certain where a full list of R12 OAF *changes* might be.  One possibility:  check out the R12 TOI Training for OAF, accessed via Metalink Note 403349.1.

Otherwise, our official R12 documentation published here will cover the high-watermark of everything (not just the new changes) in R12's OAF:

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B34956_01/current/html/docset.html

Regards,
Steven 

Mohammed,

I've answered a similar question in this article, which addresses the criteria that I'd use if I were debating between Release 11i and 12:

• Choosing Between Release 12 or 11i

Thanks Steve.

I guess by the time R12 is adopted in the market Fusion apps will already be there. How good would it be for now to migrate to R12 or wait for some more time till Fusion apps gets released. My understanding is migrating is OAF will be discontinued in Fusion and will be replaced by ADF.

Your comments and inputs would be appreciated.

Thanks
Mohammed.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but for those who have release 10gR2 or higher of the database isn't the simplest solution to call their procedures via XDB's Embedded PL/SQL Gateway instead of OAS's mod_plsql?

--
Joe

Hi, Joe,

Hmmm... this particular option hasn't come up before.  I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with this approach.

Regards,
Steven