Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

Hi Steve,
That's great news. Do you have an ETA on when Linux x86-64 will be certified?

Thanks,
Sriram

Sriram,

As I noted in the article, I can't provide dates for upcoming certifications like this. You're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates, which I'll post as soon as soon as they're available.

Regards,
Steven

Hello,
Steven,
Does this certification include Windows x64?

Thank you,
Eric

Hello Steve,

Just wondering what your advice would be regarding a new implementation of EBS on Linux (64-bit). Would you stick with V11.5.10.2/10g for now or would you go with V12/10g ? I think version 11 of the database, although certified, would be nice and would avoid an upgrade in a year or so, but maybe a bit too bleeding edge at this stage. Thanks for your thoughts.

David Browne

Hello, David,

If this is a new implementation, I'd choose Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 without hesitation. R12 has the latest new features, user interface, and technology stack components (e.g. it's built on Oracle Application Server 10g, whereas Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i is built on Oracle9i Application Server 1.0.2.2.2).

Oracle itself is running on R12, which should be strong evidence of our own feelings about this release. In case you missed it, I highlighted Oracle's own experiences upgrading from 11i to 12 here:

Case Study: Oracle's Own Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Upgrade -
http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2008/07/case_study_oracles_own_oracle_ebusiness_suite_rele_1.html

As for the 11g Database, well, we're in the final stages of this certification for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 right now. You're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates, which I'll post as soon as soon as they're available.

From an implementation strategy perspective, I'd recommend doing a proof-of-concept installation of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 today, to give your business users something to evaluate. That environment would be built using the 12.0.4 Rapid Install, which includes the 10.2.0.3 database.

You can always layer on an 11g Database upgrade at a later date.

We have some excellent E-Business Suite specialists in the UK, by the way. I'm sure that they'd be delighted to work through implementation options with you. If you're interested, I can pass on your contact information to them for a follow-up conversation.

Regards,
Steven

Hello, Eric,

Not yet. Our Windows x64 certification is still underway. You're welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates on this platform certification, which I'll post as soon as soon as they're available.

Regards,
Steven

From proof-of-concept perspective, do we need to buy the license from Oracle for R12.

Satya,

I'm in Development and not Sales, so I don't have the sufficient background in licencing to comment on this. You should give your Oracle account manager a call to verify the licencing terms for any proof-of-concept implementations for EBS Release 12.

Regards,
Steven

Hi,

I have been tasked with supporting a 11i environment where beta and prod share a single db oracle home. I have opened an SR asking how to clone or db refresh from source to target when both share the same db oracle home. SR tells me that this is not supported. What are the affects of running two 11i environments on a single db oracle home?

Does this issue go away with R12, or a specific patch or version level of 11.5.10.2?

thanks
brh

Hi, Brian,

I'm afraid that Support's right: we don't currently support the notion of a shared ORACLE_HOME for the database components. This restriction exists for both Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12.

This means that a single DB ORACLE_HOME cannot currently be shared between multiple E-Business Suite instances, or even between multiple servers in a Real Applications Cluster configuration for the same E-Business Suite instance.

This is something we're considering for a future certification. There are some low level changes that need to be made first. I'll post more details on this future configuration when they're publicly available.

Regards,
Steven

Thanks! This helps.

brh

Steven,

Is it good to upgrade to 10g2 database and then upgrade to OracleAS 10.1.2.2 which is certified to EBS 11i?

Thanks
Prabhu

Prabhu,

It's possible to upgrade your EBS database to 10gR2 10.2.0.4.

It's also possible to integrate your EBS 11i environment with an external OracleAS 10g 10.1.2.2 instance to use modules like Oracle Single Sign-On.

Remember, though, that your EBS 11i environment runs Oracle 9iAS 1.0.2.2.2 internally on the application tier. This internal application server cannot be upgraded to OracleAS 10g 10.1.2.2. It must remain at the 9iAS 1.0.2.2.2 level.

If you wish to run EBS on OracleAS 10gR2 internally for Forms and OC4J support, you must upgrade your EBS environment to EBS Release 12.

Regards,
Steven

Any word on 10.2.0.4 on Linux x86-64 in a split tier config?

Hi, Matt,

It's definitely still coming, but I don't have a date that I can publish here. Feel free to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates, which I'll post as soon as they're available.

Regards,
Steven

Hi Steven

I would like to point your attention to apparent contradiction between Database and Apps Support policies.

As per Error Correction Support policy, available at https://metalink.oracle.com/cgi-bin/cr/getfile.cgi?p_attid=209768.1:284348

"You have up to one year from the initial release of the patch set to install the new patch set, and can receive new bug fixes for the previous patch set during that time. This grace period is effective with the release of 10.2.0.4 (i.e. 10.2.0.3 is supported for the duration of the 10.2.0.4 grace period). "

As 10.2.0.4 was released in Feb. 2008, 10.2.0.3 will go out of ECS support by Feb. 2009.

This, along with absence of Apps certification of 10.2.0.4 on 64-bit platforms presents customers with a really difficult choice:
1) Upgrade to 10.2.0.3 and be unsupported by February or
2) Stick to even earlier releases - e.g. 10.1.0.5

App certification process has already eaten up 8 months out of 1 year given by database support team - leaving just a couple of months to customers (at best) to execute all functional and performance testing once certification is completed - and that is not enough time for large production systems that have long release and testing cycles.

We'd really appreciate your perspective.

Thank you
Dragan

Hi, Dragan,

I appreciate the uncomfortable situation that our certification cycles cause for some E-Business Suite platforms. This is particularly acute for some of our 64-bit platforms, which, for a variety of reasons, sometimes take longer than the base platform certifications.

Informally speaking, there is some flexibility around those stated database support policies for E-Business Suite users, understanding that a certain amount of that "1 Year N-1 Support Grace Period" is absorbed by our certification activities.

If I were in your shoes, I'd always opt to use the latest certified release (e.g. 10.2.0.3) instead of the previous ones (e.g. 10.1.05). We always have more latitude in accepting one-time emergency patch requests with later versions than earlier ones, regardless of whether you're in the grace period or not.

Regards,
Steven

Hi Steven

Thank you for your answer.

Unfortunately going with 10.2.0.3 is not an option for us as our testing has proven it a very unstable release with a lot of one-off patches, which we don't think is capable of running massive production system, while our confidence in 10.2.0.4 (based on running non-eBS systems) is much higher.

In our experience, Oracle Server support is also usually not as flexible as you are implying, and it takes days and weeks of escalations to force support analysts to even consider logging any bugs with development for a release that is out of ECS/Premier support - and then a similar escalation route for the bug itself to be reviewed.

Since my post I have verified that 10.1.0.5 (which we are now running on) is going out of Premier support in January, so...

10.1.0.5 goes out of support in January.
10.2.0.3 goes out of support in February.
10.2.0.4 is not certified yet.

This, in my view, is a very uncomfortable situation for the customers to be in and I really hope that Oracle will fix the certification process next time around.

Thank you
Regards
Dragan

Thanks for your feedback on this, Dragan. I've passed your comments on to the ST Management team that establishes support policies for the N-1 release.

We're painfully aware that certain platform certifications are uncomfortably longer than others. We're looking into ways of accelerating this certification process through use of some of the latest tools such as Database Replay. I'll post an update on that in the near future.

Regards,
Steven