Sharp-eyed readers of my OAUG Collaborate 06 presentation will have noticed some sneak previews of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12's technology stack buried in an appendix.

• OracleAS 10g 10.1.2.x for Forms and Reports services.  This will replace the elderly 8.0.6 ORACLE_HOME provided by Oracle9i Application Server 1.0.2.2.2 in Release 11i.
  
  
• OracleAS 10g 10.1.3 for Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J).  This will
  replace the aging 8.1.7-based ORACLE_HOME provided by Oracle9i Application Server 1.0.2.2.2 in Release 11i, and herald our switch from JServ to Oracle Containers for Java.

• Updated User Interface for E-Business Suite Release 12
• Project Swan and Release 12, Redux
• E-Business Suite Release 12 to include 10gR2 Database
• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12
• Why Use Two ORACLE_HOMEs for Release 12's Application Tier?

Why use two different OracleAS 10g releases in two different ORACLE_HOMEs for the upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12?  Because you asked for it, of course.  Well, indirectly, perhaps.  You've been asking us when E-Business Suite users can take advantage of the latest Oracle technologies.  So, we're biting the bullet and putting them into our Release technology stack.

E-Business Suite Release 12 will replace Oracle JInitiator with the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE).

• Replacing Oracle JInitiator with Sun's Native Plug-In
  

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 will include the 10gR2 Database (10.2) as part of its Rapid Install. 

It's expected that the E-Business Suite Release 12 will feature an updated user interface, codenamed "Project Swan."  Aside from the unfortunate implication that the existing 11i user interface is an ugly duckling, Project Swan has some very appealing new aspects:

1. Background pattern for branding
2. Base font change to Tahoma 9pt
3. Button style change
4. Background color change
5. Tab style sub-tab layout with gradient background
6. Gradient background for header
7. Icon change
8. Table color update
9. Gradient background for footer
10. Vertical spacing change

And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's an existing Release 11i Form for the Contacts Center:

And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Related Article:

• Project Swan and Release 12, Redux
• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12
  

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. 

I've received a sufficient number of emails on Project Swan, our Release 12 user interface facelift, that we'll take another run at it today.

Just for fun, we'll do a few more before-and-after comparisons.  Here's our Release 11i Login Screen:

Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's an existing Release 11i CRM/JTT screenshot for iSupport:

Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:

Converting From Previous Versions

If you've customized or extended Release 11i screens according to our published customization standards, there shouldn't be significant effort involved in getting to the Project Swan look-and-feel.  This is expected to vary a bit by the type of screen.

Oracle Applications Forms

Project Swan changes for Forms are limited to changing the color scheme and using non-boldfaced fonts for field values. These changes will be made in the technology layer, so no changes need to be made by Forms designers. There will be no change to the position or layout of any fields on the forms.

Oracle Applications Framework Screens

In most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the OAF technology layer. There may be specific cases where the use of custom stylesheets may require additional tweaks.

CRM/JTT Screens

Like OAF, in most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the technology layer. There may be specific cases (e.g. custom renderers, custom stylesheets) that require additional tweaks.

Migration Tools or Documents?

Given that the vast majority of existing screens should automatically be uplifted to the Swan UI, I haven't yet been told whether there will be tools to aid in conversions.  It's likely that we'll provide you with the same internal Swan conversion guidelines that E-Business Suite product teams are using today (albeit with better spell-checking and grammar).

Alternate Colour Schemes

A common question at last month's OAUG conference was whether we would support alternate colour schemes, since many of you distinguish DEV, TEST, and PROD environments with different colours. 

Short answer:  Yes, you'll still be able to customize colour schemes in the new Swan UI.  It isn't clear whether we'll provide you with a preset selection of different schemes, but you'll be able to design your own.

Related Article:

• Updated User Interface for E-Business Suite Release 12
• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12
  

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.

There are many ways of getting information into and out of the E-Business Suite.  Until recently, however, these have been documented in a wild assortment of different places, including product-specific Apps manuals, the Electronic Technical Reference Manual (eTRM), and other unlikely sources.  If you've been subjected to the dubious pleasure of sifting through
our documentation in search of APIs and web services, this article should come as welcome news.

The new Oracle Integration Repository for the E-Business Suite pulls all of those sources into a single place... at last.  Initially intended to catalog service endpoints available via our service-oriented architecture, this repository has since grown into a comprehensive reference for all of the E-Business Suite's business service interfaces. 

You can browse the repository by product family, drilling down into specific modules:

Once you drill into a specific API, there's a concise list of the details you'd expect, including function names, parameters, rules, and so on:

Looking Ahead to Release 12

The Release 11i version of the repository is available online only.  In Release 12, it's expected that the Integration Repository will be part of your Rapid Install.  As your instance is patched, the repository will automatically be updated with content appropriate for the precise revisions of interfaces in your environment.

July 13 Update:  We will also host an online version of the Integration Repository for Release 12, as well.

Related

• E-Business Suite Process, Integration and Events

Apr 3, 2007 Update:  Release 12.0 includes WSRP 1.0-compliant versions of the following E-Business Suite portlets:  Applications Navigator, Applications Favorites, Applications Worklist.

I've briefly alluded to our Release 12 plans for portlets, but your feedback suggests that it's worth discussing our plans in more detail.

What's Possible in Release 11i Today

You already know that the E-Business Suite Release 11i portlets are written to work exclusively with Oracle Portal.  These portlets can't be plugged into third-party portal solutions.  We don't have any plans to rewrite these portlets for Release 11i, so what you see is what you will get for the foreseeable future for 11i.

Before we look ahead to the future and Release 12, here's a two-word reminder of what's possible today in terms of third-party portal integration with Release 11i:  bookmarkable links.

If someone who hasn't logged in attempts to access protected E-Business Suite content, they're automatically redirected to either the E-Business Suite login page or Oracle Single Sign-On, the latter if the environment has been integrated with Oracle Application Server 10g.  Once the user logs in, she's redirected back to the protected E-Business Suite content that she was originally trying to reach.

Links to E-Business Suite content, therefore, can be bookmarked -- either in a browser, or added as links on a third-party portal page.  Admittedly, this might be pretty thin gruel for those of you expecting more, but that's what's available in Release 11i today.

Release 12, JSR-168, and WSRP

We're still in the process of beefing up our portlet infrastructure for Release 12, so I need to preface what follows with the usual disclaimer:  this is subject to change without notice. 

With that out of the way, I can say that our plans are to rewrite our existing Oracle Applications Framework Web Provider to JSR-168 and WSRP standards.  This means switching from the existing Java Portlet Development Kit (JPDK 3.0.9) to the new JSR-168 Oracle Java Portlet Container.

If all goes according to plan, this means that you will be able to plug the Release 12 E-Business Suite portlets into any third-party portal that supports the JSR-168 and WSRP standards.

Curves In The Road Ahead

Given the inherent limitations of web-based protocols, it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that the JSR-168 and WSRP standards aren't quite as feature-rich as the existing JPDK libraries. 

In other words, there are things we can do today with the JPDK that will require considerably more ingenuity to pull off with JSR-168 and WSRP.  For example, dynamic portlet generation and invalidation-based caching have less-powerful equivalents in the new standards.

Until we work through these issues, it's safe to expect that the existing E-Business Suite portlets may look and function a bit differently in Release 12.

Preserving Your Existing Portlets

We're planning to certify and include the latest JPDK 10.1.2 libraries in the Release 12 Rapid Install, too.  If you've invested in building custom JPDK portlets for the E-Business Suite, this means that those portlets will continue to work, providing you with some breathing space during your Release 12 migration. 

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. 

Oracle executives have been justifiably devoting a lot of slides in recent customer briefings to Oracle BPEL Process Manager: it's the cornerstone for our corporate integration strategy.  This begs the obvious question: what's going to be included in Release 12?

Given that the E-Business Suite provides standard SOA web services, all that you'll need to do is to install OracleAS 10g and and BPEL Process Manager on a separate instance and point it to business service endpoints available from the E-Business Suite Release 12. 

Getting Started with BPEL Process Manager and Release 11i

The BPEL Process Manager is considered a standalone tool outside of the E-Business Suite space, so you don't need to wait until Release 12.  You can use BPEL Process Manager and other Oracle Integration connectors with Release 11i today.  That's a good way of getting a headstart if you plan to upgrade to the combination of Release 12 and BPEL Process Manager in the future, or if you'd like to kick the tires and take this for a test drive today.

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. 

The E-Business Suite Release 12 Rapid Install is expected to include Java 5 (J2SE) for the application tier.  In addition, given that AutoConfig will be compiled as Java 5 objects, we'll be delivering Java 5 on the database tier, too.

• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12
• More Release 12 Sneak Previews
  

E-Business Suite Release 12 will include a raft of new SSL-related features, including a new mod_ossl plug-in, use of Oracle Wallet Manager, and optional use of Oracle Certificate Authority for PKI deployments.

Editor Oct 9 Update:  See this article for a small update on upgrade paths.

There's a lot of certification work underway to ensure that it will be straightforward to upgrade to E-Business Suite Release 12.

If you recall, the E-Business Suite isn't explicitly certified with third-party networking components but is expected to work with them. 

• Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4, 10.1.2) Tested Load Balancers, Firewalls and Stand-Alone SSL Accelerators
• Oracle Application Server Enterprise Deployment Guide 10g Release 2 (10.1.2)
  

It's interesting how certain questions seem to surge in clusters.  Lately there's been a bountiful harvest of questions about using Virtual Private Database (VPD) functionality in E-Business Suite Release 11i environments.

• If you report issues that can be reproduced in standard, uncustomized environments, those issues will be resolved via workarounds or patches. 

• If the issues can't be reproduced in standard environments and are isolated to your custom VPD policies, the outcome will be a recommendation to remove or fix your VPD policies.
  

[Editor Update May 21, 2008:  Keith has moved on to another team within Oracle and, sadly, is no longer an active contributor to this blog.  Feel free to direct any questions about his posted articles directly to Steven Chan, instead.]

Oracle has been making big strides in the area of content management. A recent press release touted two new products, Oracle Content Database and Oracle Records Database (or just Content DB and Records DB, for short). In short, Content DB allows you to use a single Oracle database instance as a repository for all kinds of unstructured data, and gives you the ability to use powerful tools like SQL and database privileges to query and manage that data. Records DB offers additional lifecycle management utilities that allow you to apply policies for document auditing, retention, and disposal to meet regulatory compliance obligations.

A Brief History of Content Management at Oracle

If this sounds familiar to you, then you're one of the not-so-many people who's been paying attention to this space over the past few years. Oracle's content management offerings are not entirely new, having undergone several transformations, from iFS, to Oracle Files, to the more recent Oracle Content Services, introduced in Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g. Starting later this summer, this latter incarnation will be rechristened as Oracle Content Database, and will henceforth be available as an option for the Enterprise Edition of Oracle Database 10g.

This marks the first time that a content management product has moved out of being in its own collaboration offering, and into the head-of-the-class database suite. It makes a strong statement about the importance of having access to the right tools for managing the overwhelming amounts of data companies are juggling today. Hopefully making it easier to obtain and install that technology will be a big step toward easing the burden. (Note that shortly after Oracle made this announcement, Microsoft announced that their perpetually elusive WinFS project was being taken out of the operating system track, and integrated into their SQL Server product. Coincidence? One has to wonder.)

I Want It Now!

Today, there are a handful of E-Business Suite products that offer optional integration with Oracle Files and/or Oracle Content Services, including Product Lifecycle Management, Internal Controls Manager, and Oracle Tutor.

For instance, Oracle Document Management is an integral component of PLM that allows product designers & engineers to associate large numbers of files and documents that have their own lifecycle policies. It supports features such as check-in/check-out, major/minor revisions & versions, access control, associations (to E-Business Suite objects), and more...all on top of Oracle Content Services. Going forward, we expect that many more products will be enticed to provide support for both Oracle Content DB and Oracle Records DB.

Now in the Bullpen

To aid in this process, the folks here at Techstack Central are looking at how we can make it easier for E-Business Suite teams to offer such support in their products. Content DB and Records DB will be available starting in August, and our evaluation of these products for integration with Release 12 is already well underway.

Our Mail Filters Are Standing By

We will be making a decision at a later time regarding support with Release 11i, but in the meantime, if this combination is deemed critical for your company (and an upgrade to Release 12 is not in the cards), you can always help us out by letting us know about it, either by adding a comment to this blog entry, or by sending me or Steven an email.

Be sure to tell us which specific products you are interested in integrating with our content management solutions.

[May 27, 2008 Update:  The E-Business Suite is now certified to be IPv6-compatible; see this announcement for details.]

[May 9, 2007 Update:  As of today, this article still represents our latest status on IPv6 certification for the E-Business Suite, for both Release 11i and 12.  We have been briefed on the US Federal requirements for the 2008 changeover.  Aside from those US governmental organizations, if you haven't already contacted us about your IPv6 requirements, please drop me a line.]

A big part of an Apps DBA's job is patching, so I know the Patch Wizard in Oracle Applications Manager is something about which you have a few opinions.  These opinions are sometimes expressed in energetic and colorful language.  It's clear that some of you feel strongly about this area. 

1. Patch Wizard downloads patches which have already been downloaded
   
   This is by design in the current Release 11i version.  Release 12 will download a patch from Metalink only if it doesn't match an existing patch in your staging directory.
    
   
2. Patch Wizard gets some patch prerequisites wrong
    
   This is a known issue, complicated by the interrelationships between patches, Family Packs, and the wide array of bundles that patches can be delivered in.  The issue of handling patch prerequisites more sensibly is being revisited in Release 12.
    
3. Patch Wizard recommends patches included in already-installed patches
    
   This shouldn't happen for patches that are explicitly included, i.e. patches whose definitions directly include specific sub-patches.  If you encounter this behaviour, file a bug with Oracle Support and we'll investigate this.
    
   If a patch is implicitly included (i.e. all files in a patch are included in an already-applied patch), this can happen.
    
4. Patch impact analysis doesn't note when a patch is significantly changing your installed patch level, e.g. from Minipack H to Minipack J.
    
   This is true.  This is functionality that is slated to be improved in Release 12.
    
5. Patch Wizard should show analysis results even when no patches are recommended.
    
   This is a commonly requested enhancement request.  This functionality is slated to be delivered in Release 12.
    
6. There should be better correlation between analysis runs and concurrent requests.
    
   The technology used for concurrent requests places some restrictions on this; we're looking at what's feasible for future releases.
    
7. Analysis runs may take some time to complete.
    
   This is true.  Some of the current analysis being performed by the Patch Wizard take some serious computation time.
   
   It's expected that Release 12 will include some performance gains over earlier releases, partially resulting from avoiding downloads of existing patches, changes in .LDT file packaging, and changes in the logic used by the prerequisite analysis engine.
    
8. Large patches may trigger "out of memory" errors in some rare cases.
    
   If you encounter this behaviour, please file a bug and we'll investigate this. 

• OAM: A Toolbox for E-Business Suite Administrators
• Patch-Related Enhancements in Release 12
  

If you've been keeping up with our E-Business Suite Release 12 sneak previews, you know that this release will include Oracle Application Server 10g for the application tier.  Here are a few more details about identity management for this release.

User password resets - the bane of every sysadmin.  Automating this tedium is a major benefit of integrating your E-Business Suite environment with Oracle Application Server 10g.  By delegating user authentication to Single Sign-On 10g and Oracle Internet Directory 10g, you can take advantage of the latter's automatic password reset capabilities.

• Users can log in externally via Single Sign-On
  
• Users can bypass Single Sign-On and log in locally to the E-Business Suite
• Users can log in via both of the methods above

• Password changes made in the E-Business Suite are automatically sent to Oracle Internet Directory
  
• Password changes made in Oracle Internet Directory must be manually repeated in the E-Business Suite using the E-Business Suite security forms

• Identity Management in Release 12
• In-Depth: Using OracleAS 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11
• In-Depth: Using Single Sign-On 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11i
• In-Depth: Using Third-Party Identity Managers with the E-Business Suite Release 11i

Editor Jan. 12, 2007 Update:  Oracle Identity Management 10g 10.1.4.0.1 is now certified with the E-Business Suite. 

We've now demonstrated that passwords no longer need to be maintained in the E-Business Suite when you've implemented Single Sign-On 10g integration.  What happens to passwords in a configuration that includes a third-party LDAP directory like Microsoft Active Directory, and a third-party single sign-on solution like Microsoft Kerberos?

• Oracle Internet Directory is a mandatory hub for synchronizing user information between a third-party LDAP directory and the E-Business Suite
   
• The third-party LDAP directory is usually considered to be the master "source of truth" for user credentials
   
  
• Oracle Single Sign-On is a mandatory prerequisite for delegating E-Business Suite's user authentication to a third-party single sign-on solution
  

Oracle Internet Directory is a mandatory component in this chain.  Oracle doesn't currently offer any methods of directly integrating a third-party LDAP with the E-Business Suite.

Third-Party LDAP As The Master "Source of Truth"

In the typical configuration, the third-party LDAP directory is the master "source of truth" for the user's credentials.  For example, a change to the user's name would first be made in the third-party LDAP.  The updated user's information would then be sent to Oracle Internet Directory via the Directory Integration Platform.  Once in Oracle Internet Directory, the updated user's information would then be sent to the E-Business Suite via the Directory Integration Platform.

Extending the Chain of Trust

Remember that the E-Business Suite can delegate user authentication to Oracle Single Sign-On, effectively creating a chain of trust between the two components.  When the E-Business Suite is integrated with a third-party single sign-on solution, that chain of trust is extended one level further, like this:

 

• Password Management with Oracle Internet Directory
• In-Depth: Using Third-Party Identity Managers with the E-Business Suite Release 11i
• Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i with Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Single Sign-On (Metalink Note 261914.1)
  

You know, I've never really understood how nicknames are worked out.  It makes sense that Jon can be short for Jonathon.  But how do you get from John to Jack?  And from William to Bill?

Using this approach, the purchasing agent logs into Single Sign-On using his "john.smith" account.  One of the linked accounts is flagged as the default account, and he can easily switch to the other accounts without having to log out and back in again with a different userid.

Not in the Other Direction

This "one-to-many" link is fully supported with both Release 11i and 12.  In other words, you can link a single Oracle Internet Directory account to multiple Apps accounts.

"Many-to-one" links are not supported, however.  In other words, it's not possible to link multiple Oracle Internet Directory accounts with a single Apps account.

Integration with Third-Party LDAP Directories

You might have a third-party LDAP whose userid naming conventions differ from your E-Business Suite environment.  If so, your best approach is to ensure that Oracle Internet Directory is populated with those third-party userids, like this:

Critical or Irrelevant?

I'm interested in hearing how useful this functionality really is for you, so if you're using any of the account linking techniques described in this article, please drop me a line with your experiences.

Related

• Password Management with Oracle Internet Directory
• Password Management with Third-Party Solutions
• In-Depth: Using Third-Party Identity Managers with the E-Business Suite Release 11i
• Identity Management in Release 12
• In-Depth: Using OracleAS 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11
• In-Depth: Using Single Sign-On 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11i
  
• Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i with Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Single Sign-On (Metalink Note 261914.1)
  

[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?

• 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)
  

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

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. 

[Editor Sep 8 Update:  Added section to discuss virtualization recommendations for client/server Apps components]

I don't know if VMware has launched a new marketing campaign recently, but there's been a notable surge in questions lately about support for their virtualization software with the E-Business Suite.

• Oracle will triage and attempt to diagnose issues reported for these configurations. 
  
• Specific problems isolated to virtualization software that cannot be reproduced in standard Oracle environments -- i.e. environments without virtualization software -- may need to be referred to the third-party vendor for advanced debugging and resolution.

• Account Hierarchy Manager
• Applications Desktop Integrator
• Balanced Scorecard
• Configurator Developer
• Discoverer Administrator
• Financial Analyzer
• Financial Dimension Hierarchy Manager
• Financial Services Suite
• Sales Analyzer
• Warehouse Builder
• Workflow Builder
• XML Gateway Client
  

• Virtualization & the E-Business Suite, Redux
  
• Certification & Support for Third-Party Products
• E-Business Suite Recommended Set Up for Client/Server Products
• (Metalink Note 277535.1)
  

I am buried under email following an unexpected multi-week absence.  Combined with OpenWorld preparations, it may be a while before I get scaled up to a regular publishing cycle again.

However, I'll squeeze in a small but important update to a previous article:

• Upgrading to E-Business Suite Release 12

[Editor Oct 18, 2007 Update:  Changed link to detailed information; there's more coming, including the presentation with detailed features and screenshots, during OpenWorld.]

Our hard-working Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g team has just announced that a new set of Application Management Packs will soon be released for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Siebel.

• Automated discovery
• Service Level Management
• Out of box service models & beacon transactions
• Configuration Management
• Topology views
• Integration with Application Server & Database diagnostics
• Cloning automation for production to test environments
• Customized beacon for Forms components

• Oracle Enterprise Manager
  

• Oracle OpenWorld 2006 Application Management Previews
• Using Enterprise Manager with Applications Manager
• OAM: A Toolbox for E-Business Suite Administrators

Ivo Dujmovic is an architect in our hard-working Applications Technology Integration team.  We were lucky to get some of his time at OpenWorld 2006 this year, where he discussed the deep innards of the Release 12 technology stack. 

• Highlights of new R12 techstack components
• New Application Server 10g (10.1.2 & 10.1.3) ORACLE_HOMEs replacing the 9iAS 1.0.2.2.2 O_HOMEs from 11i
• Switch from JServ to Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) for running servlets, Java Server Pages (JSP), and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
• OC4J Deployment details, including replacements for jserv.conf and jserv.properties configuration files
  
• New R12 filesystem layout, including the introduction of an Instance Home (INST_TOP)
• New use of Oracle Process Manager & Notification Server (OPMN)
  
• New Forms 10g deployment
  
• Comparison of 11i and R12 environment variables
  
• Discussion of relative benefits of Forms Servlet vs. Server (socket) mode deployments
• Disabled mod_plsql in R12 (more about this in a later article)
  
• Things you can do today to prepare for R12
  

• Deep Dive: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 New Technology Stack (PDF, 520K.  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)
  
• Apps Technology OpenWorld 2006 Presentations Now Available

[June 4, 2008 Update:  It should be stressed that the Oracle E-Business Suite is distinct from Oracle Application Server.  Oracle E-Business Suite Development chooses to use specific Oracle Application Server components in the E-Business Suite technology stack.  These decisions by E-Business Suite Development should not be interpreted to represent the release policies or plans for Oracle Application Server. 

It must be emphasized that Oracle is fully committed to supporting mod_plsql as part of Oracle Application Server and as part of the Oracle Database distribution into the indefinite future.]

One of my degrees is in psychology -- cognitive science, to be exact -- so it's interesting when that world intersects with my present work in the IT industry.  A landmark text in grief counseling is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' On Death and Dying, in which she described the general grieving process as proceeding in roughly five stages:

• Denial and isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

• Release 12 will not support the use mod_plsql
  

1. Inform your management about this upcoming change
    
   
2. Prepare a comprehensive inventory of all of your existing 11i mod_plsql customizations and dependencies
    
   
3. Review R12 capabilities with your business users and stakeholders, to see if your customizations are still needed
    
   
4. If yes, budget time in your R12 upgrade cycle for:

• A test install of an R12 demonstration environment to support a functional review with your business users, to see if the customizations can be further weeded out by relying on native R12 functionality
   
  
• Training yourself and your developers in the Oracle Application Framework (OAF)
   
  
• Doing the actual conversion from mod_plsql to the OA Framework model
  

• Four Critical Changes for Customizations in Release 12
  
• Diving Deep Into the Release 12 Techstack
• Oracle Application Framework Release 11i Documentation Road Map (Metalink Note 275880.1)
  

• User interface enhancements, including an enhanced Home and Topology views
   
  
• Automatic discovery of E-Business Suite environments
   
  
• New configuration management capabilities, including views, comparisons, and searchs of configuration information across multiple Apps systems
   
  
• Application Service Level management for Concurrent Porcessing, Forms, Workflow, and Self-Service, with configurable service level alerts
   
  
• JVM usage monitoring, including monitoring of the Application Module pool, locked AOL/J connections, and OA Framework cache components
   
  
• Enhanced cloning and data scrambling capabilities
  

• Oracle E-Business Suite System Management: Release 12 New Features (PDF, 2.6 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)

• New Application Management Packs Coming for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g
• Apps Technology OpenWorld 2006 Presentations Now Available
  

If you're a regular of this site, you might be wondering how to convey all of the latest Apps techstack news to your management.  If so, you'll find Lisa Parekh's OpenWorld 2006 presentation useful. 

• Release 12 technology stack changes, such as the use of Oracle Application Server 10g 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 in different ORACLE_HOMEs and the latest 10gR2 database
  
• Release 12 user interface screenshots
  
• Release 12 supported browsers, including IE 6.0, Firefox 1.5, and Safari 2.0
• OA Framework Personalization enhancements
• Oracle Portal and WSRP support for E-Business Suite portlets
  
• XML Publisher enhancements in Release 12, including the new Data Extraction Engine, Bursting Engine, and other new RTF template features
• Workflow enhancements, including Workflow Flexfields and Workflow Bulk Interface
• Release 12 Integration Repository previews
• Upcoming technology stack certifications for the E-Business Suite Release 11i application and database tiers, such as:
• Secure Enterprise Search
• Database Vault
• Transparent Data Encryption

• Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Updates (PDF, 5.5 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)
  

• Apps Technology OpenWorld 2006 Presentations Now Available

For my last post prior to a Thanksgiving holiday, here's a treat for DBAs looking to squeeze some additional performance out of existing database hardware. 

• Overview of partitioning benefits and some Apps modules that take advantage of this out-of-the-box, and custom partitioning
• Technical advantages, such as backup, index rebuild, and Cost Based Optimization (CBO ) implications
  
• Integration with Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) for data storage on lower-cost storage devices
• Techniques and relative merits of range, list, hash, and composite partitioning
• In-depth discussion of index partitioning methods, including the new Global Hash Partitioned (prefixed) capabilities in 10g
• Useful data dictionary views for partitioning
• Before and after comparisons, and actual customer case studies with real statistics
  
• Review of purging and archiving programs shipped out-of-the-box with the E-Business Suite
  
• Samples of typical customer purging runs
• Review of the latest Purge Portal released with the E-Business Suite 11.5.10
• Sneak previews of Release 12 enhancements to the Purge Portal, like this (I can't resist a screenshot):

• Partitioning and Purging Best Practices for Oracle E-Business Suite (PPT, 2.6 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)
  
• Using Database Partitioning with the E-Business Suite
• Apps Technology OpenWorld 2006 Presentations Now Available
  

With so many Apps releases in the pipeline, it isn't surprising to hear that at least one of our readers might need a
hand sorting them out.   Earlier this year, I committed to keeping this website free of marketing rhetoric.  Confusion over marketing statements, however, can sometimes drown out other signals, so I'm going to take a short detour today to clarify how upcoming Apps releases relate to each other, and point you to some additional resources if you want more details. 

John Wookey, SVP of Application Development, included this slide in his OpenWorld 2006 keynote address:



To summarize what this means to E-Business Suite customers:

• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 is the next major release after Release 11i
   
  
• Release 12 is expected to have its own stream of updates, such as 12.1 and 12.x
   
  
• Oracle Fusion is our next-generation enterprise applications suite, bringing together the best functionality and technology from of all Oracle applications. 
   
  
• Oracle Fusion Applications will be released after Release 12. 
  Fusion Applications is not the same as Release 12.
   
• Under the Applications Unlimited support policy, Oracle E-Business Suite customers have the choice of staying with their current release or migrating to another one.  There are no forced migrations.
  

• John Wookey's OpenWorld 2006 "Applications Unlimited" keynote
   
• Cliff Godwin's OpenWorld 2006 "Technology Directions for Oracle Applications"  session (PDF, 5.8 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)
  

• Release 12 Sneak Previews

• FAQ: Oracle Fusion Applications (PDF,  56K)
  
• Oracle Fusion: Next-Generation Enterprise Applications
  
• Applications Unlimited - No Forced Migrations
  

Patching is an integral part of an Apps DBA's operational duties, and I've previously written about some of the things we're working on to improve the whole Lifecycle Management experience. 

• New Patch Wizard functionality, improving the process of identifying, downloading, and analyzing recommended patches
  
• Registering flagged files to understand a patch's impact on customizations
• Improvements in determining whether given patches have been applied
• Manual Steps Infrastructure (MSI) functionality, reducing the number and complexity of manual steps
• Support for checking codelevels and baselines, reducing the risk of a patch "breaking" other functionality
• Patch filters to tailor patch searches to your specific environment
  
• Central access point for all patch details, including applied patch reports, timing reports, and log files

• Oracle E-Business Suite Patch Management: A Dive into OAM/AD Features (PDF, 1.9 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)

• Release 12 Patch Wizard Improvements

Editor Jan 26 2007 Update:  Revised article to point to latest release information.



Happy New Year, everyone.  I see that the blogosphere is starting to buzz with anticipation over the New York launch event for the E-Business Suite Release 12.

• E-Business Suite Release 12 is Generally Available
  
  

If you're planning to upgrade from the E-Business Suite Release 11i to Release 12, one of your most important preparatory tasks is to catalog all of the customizations you've deployed in production. 

1. mod_plsql
   
   
2. Oracle Reports Server
    
3. Oracle Graphics Integration with Oracle Forms
    
4. Oracle Applications Framework pages in the AK Repository (AK mode)

• Preparing Custom Development for Next Oracle E-Business Suite Release (Metalink Note 374398.1)

• Mod_plsql Not Supported in Release 12

The waiting is over, and that sound you hear is cheering from Oracle Apps Development teams around the world. 

• Oracle Applications Documentation Resources for Release 12 (Metalink Note 394692.1)

• Oracle E-Business Suite: Release 12 Release Content Documents (Metalink Note 404152.1)
  

• E-Business Suite (General)
• Applications Technology Stack
• Intelligence Family
• Customer Relationship Management Family
• Marketing & Sales Family
• Logistics    
• Supply Chain Management Family
• Advanced Planning
• Procurement Family
• Process Manufacturing
• Discrete Manufacturing
• Maintenance Management
• Customer Service Family
• Service Execution
• Projects Family
• HRMS Family
• Financials Family
• Customer Data Management    
• Property Manager
• Product Lifecycle Management    
• Order Management    
• Student Systems

• Technology Components
• New Look and Feel - "Swan" User Interface
  
• Identity Management Integration
• Security
• Oracle User Management
• Functional Administration
• Concurrent Processing
• Oracle Applications Tablespace Model (OATM)
• Oracle Application Framework (OAF)
• Workflow, Messaging, and Integration
• Oracle Applications Manager and Grid Control Plug-in for the E-Business Suite
• Applications Installation and Configuration Management 
  
• Oracle XML Publisher
• Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator
• Oracle Report Manager
• Oracle iSetup
• Oracle Tutor

The sheer amount of available Release 12 documentation can be intimidating.  The R12 Online Documentation Library is over 400 MB.  On top of that, a great deal of information needed by R12 Apps DBAs can only be found in standalone Metalink Notes.  If you're feeling overwhelmed, don't panic:  this is the first of a series of articles highlighting the key documentation that you'll need to get up to speed.

• Installation & Configuration (including AutoConfig, cloning, shared filesystem, load-balancers, and Forms socket mode)
  
• Database & High Availability
• Application Server (including both internal and external OracleAS 10g services such as Oracle Internet Directory, Single Sign-On, Portal, and Discoverer)
  
• Java (including the use of the native Sun J2SE plug-in instead of Jinitiator)
  
• Security (including SSL, demilitarized zones, and Wallet Manager)
  

If you're planning on extending your E-Business Suite Release 12 OA Framework-based  Oracle Applications pages, you'll be pleased to hear that the Oracle JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension (Patch 5856648) is now available for download from Oracle MetaLink.

Full details on Oracle standards for personalizing and extending OA Framework-based applications in E-Business Suite Release 12 can be found in this documentation roadmap:

• Oracle Application Framework Documentation Resources, Release 12 (Metalink Note 391554.1)

• OA Framework Forum (Oracle Technology Network)
  

One of the most frequently asked questions at OpenWorld was, "Should I upgrade to 11.5.10 or Release 12?"  Release 12 wasn't available at that time, and we couldn't even discuss possible release dates, so the answer was further complicated by the uncertainty of when an upgrade could actually be started.  Now that Release 12 is available, the answer is a bit simpler. 

1. What's the prioritized list of applications that your business users use today?  What are the differences in Release 11i and Release 12 functionality for those applications?
    
   
2. What business advantages, process improvements, and new organizational capabilities will be possible with the new Release 12 features?
    
   
3. What are the new architectural or deployment capabilities in Release 12?  How will these new capabilities improve system performance, scalability, availability, manageability, and security?
    
   
4. What investments have you made in adapting your organization to Release 11i, and vice versa?  This might include:
• Employee, partner, vendor, and supplier training
• Customizations and personalizations, including custom Forms, OA Framework screens, workflows, concurrent programs, and reports
  
• Integrations with third-party systems
   
  
5. Which of your customizations, extensions, and personalizations can be replaced with new Release 12 features?  What savings will these represent?  How much of those investments will carry over to Release 12? 
    
   
6. How will Release 12 help reduce your operational costs?  What are the incremental costs of Release 12 infrastructure, relative to your current Release 11i infrastructure costs?  These costs might include server, storage, and networking hardware and licencing

• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
• Launch Event for E-Business Suite Release 12
• E-Business Suite Release 12 is Generally Available

The JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension was recently released for use with the E-Business Suite Release 12.  Following on that theme of extending and personalizing Release 12, you might find it useful to review Sara Woodhull's excellent presentation on this topic from OpenWorld 2006.

• OA Framework Model-View-Controller architecture and key features
• Personalizations features, including:
• The ability to hide and show page items and regions, reordering page items, adding new items, adding corporate branding
  
• Importing and exporting personalizations with the Personalization Document Manager
• New user interface for creating personalizations
• Matching the Release 12 colors and fonts to match your corporate website
• Using simple expression (SPEL) bindings for more control over fields, items, and regions
•  Extensibility features, including:
• The ability to add new business logic to existing screens
• Durability of extensions, allowing them to be preserved across upgrades
• Use of Oracle JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension to support J2EE development and integration with Release 12
  
• Support for service interfaces, standalone components that can be deployed as web services, EJB session beans, or as co-located Java APIs

• Oracle Application Framework (OAF): Architecture, Personalization, and Extensibility in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (PDF, 1 MB)
  (Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)
  

• JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension Now Available
• OA Framework Forum (Oracle Technology Network)

I've noticed a curious effect over the years of working in the Applications Technology Group:  the volume of incoming questions about the E-Business Suite's technology stack is inversely proportional to the quality and availability of our formally published documentation. 

• Oracle Application Server with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Frequently Asked Questions (Metalink Note 415007.1)

• General configuration & installation with Oracle Application Server 10g
  
• Discoverer 10g integration
  
• Portal 10g integration
• Single Sign-On & Oracle Internet Directory 10g integration
• Integration with third-party authentication systems and LDAP directories
• Security

• How is Oracle Application Server 10g integrated with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12?
• What versions of Oracle Application Server 10g can be used with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12?
• What are the certified configurations of Oracle Application Server 10g with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12?
• Can E-Business Suite Release 12 be integrated with third-party authentication systems?
  
• Can E-Business Suite Release 12 be integrated with third-party LDAP directories?
• Can Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 be integrated with third-party portals?
• What is the latest Discoverer version that works with Release 12?
• Does the Release 12 Rapid Install include an OracleAS 10g Infrastructure?

The AutoConfig utility provided with E-Business Suite Release 12 automates a wide variety of deployment options. However, there are a number of optional configurations that AutoConfig doesn't automate yet.  In this initial release, implementation of some of these optional configurations requires additional manual steps or the installation of additional patches.

• Hardware-based load-balancing routers (Note 380489.1)
  
• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) (Note 376700.1)
• Demilitarized Zones (DMZ) and reverse proxies (Note 380490.1)
• Multiple domain names for the same E-Business Suite environment (Note 380490.1)
• Integration with Oracle Application Server 10g, including:
• Single Sign-On & Oracle Internet Directory 10g (Note 376811.1)
  
• Portal 10g (Note 380484.1)
  
• Discoverer 10g (Note 373634.1)
  
• Web Cache 10g (Note 380486.1)
  
• Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Automatic Storage Management (ASM) (Note 388577.1)
  

• Getting Started with the Release 12 Technology Stack
• FAQ: Using Oracle Application Server 10g with E-Business Suite Release 12
• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Technology Stack Documentation Roadmap (Note 380482.1)
  

Editor May 7, 2006 Update:  It's been pointed out that the relative positioning between Oracle Application Manager and the Oracle Application Management Pack could stand to use some elaboration.  Oracle Application Manager is still present and bundled with both Apps 11i and 12.  The Oracle Application Management Pack is a purchased add-on for Oracle Enterprise Manager.  They're related but distinct products.

If you've used previous versions of Oracle Applications Manager (OAM), you'll be pleased to hear that the latest generation of systems management tools has just been released:  the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available.  This new product plugs into Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10gR3, and is available for Linux platforms in its initial release.

• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
  
• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i (11.5.10 with ATG Family Pack H Rollup 4)

• Automated cloning: Using the pack, Enterprise Manager Grid Control can be used to clone an Oracle E-Business Suite system (both 11.5.10 and Release 12) automatically.

• Service Level Management (SLM):  Monitor the E-Business suite infrastructure and application service's availability and performance, and capture activity and performance metrics for trend analysis.  

• Configuration Reports:  Over a hundred reports on E-Business suite configuration details.  Reports can be viewed, searched, and compared from within Enterprise Manager Grid control.

• Getting Started with the Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite (Metalink Note 394448.1)
  
• New Systems Management Capabilities for Release 12
• Oracle Enterprise Manager (Oracle Technology Network)
  
• New Application Management Packs Coming for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g

Editor Mar 15 Update:  There are a number of mixed platform architectures that are supported for Release 12 today, although certification of additional platforms is still pending.  More details added below.

Editor Update:  It turns out that our official nomenclature for these types of configurations has evolved between releases.  In Release 11i, these were called "split configurations."  In Release 12, these are now called "mixed platform architectures."

Here's a quick update for those of you who might be interested in "mixed platform architectures," where the E-Business Suite's database and application servers are deployed on different operating system platforms. 

• HP-UX Itanium
  
• HP-UX PA-RISC
  
• IBM AIX
  
• Linux x86 and x86-64 (32-bit OS)
  
• Linux x86-64 (64-bit OS)
  
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
  
• Sun Solaris Operating System (SPARC)

• IBM System z Linux
  
• Linux Itanium
  
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64
  
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Itanium

• 10gR2 Database Split Configurations for Release 11i
• 64-bit Support for the E-Business Suite
  

If you're working with Release 12, you'll be pleased to hear that our Applications Technology Group Security team has just published a new document detailing our best practices security recommendations for this release.

Like its Release 11i cousin, this document covers the following topics for Release 12:

• A framework for securing different segments of your E-Business Suite deployment, starting with the operating system
• Pointers to essential Apps security reference materials, security alerts to monitor, and recommended patches
  
• Guidance
  for securing internal deployments, including the database at the schema
  level and for database net access, the Apps web tier, and end-user PCs
• Tips for hardening your EBS security setup
• Monitoring security through Oracle Applications Manager (OAM)
• Guidance
  for securing externally-facing deployments in DMZs, including the use
  of Responsibility filters, URL filters via the URL firewall, noise
  filters via mod_security

• Best Practices for Securing Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Metalink Note 403537.1)

• Securing Your E-Business Suite 11i Deployment
• Best Practices for Securing Oracle E-Business Suite (Metalink Note 189367.1)

If you're looking for something to listen to on your iPod for your commute, I'd recommend dropping into our Oracle E-Business Suite AppCasts center, which has a range of podcasts about Oracle Applications.  These podcasts are hosted by Cliff Godwin, senior vice president of the Applications Technology Group, who manages to pack a lot of information into these interviews with his guests.

• Oracle 10gR2 Database
  
• Oracle Application Server 10g (10.1.2 for Forms & Reports, 10.1.3 for HTML & Java)
  
• OA Framework and the new user interface
• Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J)
• Oracle Personalization
• Extending R12 with JDeveloper 10.1.3
• Integration Repository
• XML Publisher

• Technology Advances for Oracle E-Business Suite R12 (MP3, 10 MB)

[Editor Mar 27 , 2007Update:  Updated with more information about loopback requirements for internal and external applications.]

[Editor Mar 16 , 2007 Update:  Added loopback diagram and updated test section with additional comments.]

An area that seems to be perennially troublesome for E-Business Suite architects and sysadmins is that of multiple domain names, virtual IPs and loopback issues.  Here's a quick primer on some of the key concepts that you should be familiar with.

• partners.company.com for external users
  
• employees.company.com for internal users
  

In this architecture, the load-balancer has two virtual domain names, each of which serves as the "web-entry point" for the respective domains:

• Traffic from User 1 for partners.company.com goes to the external pool of application servers, either Node 1 or 2
  
• Traffic from User 4 for employees.company.com goes to the internal pool of application servers, either Node 3 or 4
  

Technical Requirements for E-Business Suite Environments

Virtual IPs and multiple domain names are supported for E-Business Suite, for both Release 11i and Release 12.  A number of basic requirements need to be met:

1. Each virtual domain name must have its own virtual IP address, and your end-users should be able to access those IPs in your DNS. 
    
2. E-Business Suite technology stack components need to be able to access the load-balancer's virtual IPs, too, due to loopback requirements (see below).

If your load-balancer is capable of it, you should enable additional features such as resource monitoring, fail-over, and immediate returns of failed traffic.  For more details about our recommendations for those features, see the Metalink Notes below.

What are Loopbacks?

For reasons too arcane to delve into here, some components in the E-Business Suite technology stack sometimes need to call other techstack components (or themselves) at various times.  They do so by sending those calls to the web-entry point -- the load-balancer or reverse proxy for their domain -- which forwards those calls to the requested technology stack component, as shown in the following diagram:

Loopbacks in Internal and External Applications

Some E-Business Suite modules can be deployed for external use.  These include iSupplier Portal, Oracle Sourcing, iRecruitment, iStore, iSupport, and others listed in Appendix A of Metalink Note 287176.1.  These applications do not require loopbacks.

Applications that aren't on this list are intended for internal deployments.  These applications may require loopbacks.  In some internal architectures, the internal web-entry point is separated from the actual application tier server node by a firewall.  In the diagram above, E-Business Suite techstack components in the application server pool used by internal users will send their loopback requests to the HTTP LBR2 device.  It's not shown in the diagram, but one can envision an architecture where a firewall exists between HTTP LBR2 and Web Nodes 3 and 4.  If this firewall blocks outbound loopback traffic from the Web Nodes to the load-balancer, then the techstack services for internal applications that depend on those loopback connections will start to fail... sometimes in puzzling ways.

Firewall Rules & Production Rollouts

This is a major source of problems that I see reported when moving from testbeds to production rollouts.  Testbeds usually include only one or two machines and they're never separated by firewalls.  However, production systems are usually spread across multiple physical servers, each separated by firewalls. 

Making the situation even more entertaining, networking, security, and E-Business Suite administrators are often in different groups.  Invariably, one team forgets to fill in the other team on their networking requirements.  The E-Business Suite (which worked fine in the testbed environment) seems cranky and unstable in pre-production.  The production rollout gets hung up until the problem is diagnosed and appropriate firewall rules are tweaked.

Don't let that happen to you.  Identifying a loopback problem is really simple:  on each of your application servers in each of your domains, use either ping or telnet to hit each domain's web-entry point.  Likewise, from both an internal and external end-user desktop, ping the respective internal or external E-Business Suite domain name.  If you get a response in all cases, then your firewall rules are
configured correctly.  If not, then give your network and security
teams a call.

Update:  It's been pointed out that the ping test alone is a necessary but not sufficient test, since it doesn't prove whether a given port is accessible to the calling client or application tier service.  Additional tests such as using wget or telnet (the latter documented in the latest updates to Metalink Note 217368.1) may also required to demonstrate that a particular port is accessible through one or more firewalls.

Related

• In-Depth: Load-Balancing E-Business Suite Environments
• Advanced Configurations and Topologies for Enterprise Deployments of E-Business Suite 11i (Metalink Note 217368.1)
• Using Load-Balancers with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Metalink Note 380489.1)

[Unrelated postscript:  Possibly due to sunspots, the lunar cycle, or global warming, any emails you sent me on March 11 or March 12, 2007 may be delayed, possibly indefinitely.  If you sent me anything in that time, I'd recommend resending it.]

[Nov 8, 2007 Update:  Vista is now certified with IE 7 for E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12.  See this article for full details.]

[Oct 11, 2007:  See the latest Update #5: Vista Certification with the E-Business Suite]

We haven't received a lot of responses to our informal survey about your plans for upgrading to Microsoft Windows Vista.  However, the requests for updates on our pending Vista certification are gradually becoming more commonplace, so here's a quick summary of where we are today for Release 11i and 12 certification of that desktop client.

As of today, we're still working on certifying both Release 11i and 12 with Vista.  This configuration is expected to require the use of Sun's J2SE 6.0 plug-in, but we're also evaluating the use of the J2SE 5.0 plug-ins, too.  At this stage, I suspect that it's unlikely that we'll be certifying JInitiator with E-Business Suite clients running on Vista, but that's also still under investigation.

In the process of our testing, we've identified a Sun J2SE bug that affects E-Business Suite environments for Vista deployments.  This is a critical issue, unfortunately, and we're working with Sun to get this into a future J2SE release.  As of today, we don't have a firm schedule for the next J2SE release containing this fix.  As a result, we don't have a firm schedule for the completion of our Vista certifications for either Apps 11i or 12 right now, either.

I'll continue to post updates on this certification and the configurations that we expect to support as soon as I have more details that I can share here.  Stay tuned...

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. 

Database sizing for the E-Business Suite can be a tricky business.  Doing sizing estimates for major upgrades, like moving from Apps 11i to 12 can be even tricker, given the degree of data model changes involved.

• Tablespace and schema sizing information
• Information on required post upgrade concurrent jobs
• Upgrade timing
  
• Some best practices to manage the upgrade of Release 12

• Oracle Applications Release 12 Upgrade Sizing and Best Practices (Metalink Note 399362.1)

• Oracle Applications Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12 (OTN, 1.6 MB)

Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an already existing Oracle Applications system.  Cloning is a regular part of an Apps DBA's responsibilities, so you're probably already familiar with the latest Rapid Clone utility and its predecessor,  adclone.pl, the original AD Clone Utility.  If you've used those tools in the past, you likely also know that overall cloning process requires some user intervention for things like the APPS password and so on. 

1. Shut down the PROD environment for both the application server and database tier
2. Do an offline preclone of both tiers
3. Copy both tiers to another server (the sandbox environment)
   
4. Restart the PROD environment
   
5. Do an offline postclone of both tiers for the sandbox environment
6. Start the sandbox environment

• Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite Now Available
• Cloning Oracle Applications Release 11i with Rapid Clone (Metalink Note 230672.1)
  
• Cloning Oracle Applications Release 12 with Rapid Clone (Metalink Note 406982.1)
  

I often receive questions similar to the following, regarding personalization of E-Business Suite (EBS) HTML-based pages:

"How can we quickly determine if particular E-Biz pages support personalizations?"

First of all, I assume we're talking about the Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Administrator personalization, not Personalized Views (Saved Searches).

All pages built using OA Framework are personalizable by default--the page developer has to do something specific to make the page be non-personalizable.  One thing a developer can do to make a page (usually just a region or field) non-personalizable is to set a specific property to false during development.  The other is to create regions or fields programmatically (so they don't exist in the page definition that is stored for using with personalizations).  These are generally the exception cases.

Some HTML Products Don't Support OAF Personalization

In 11.5.10 (11i), many E-Business Suite CRM products and some other products were built using a different technology stack (JTT/JTF), so they couldn't use OAF personalization.  In EBS Release 12, most of these have been rebuilt using OAF. 

EBS Business Intelligence products have their own version of personalization, and they do not use the OA Framework feature even though they are built with OAF.  Business Intelligence products have somewhat different implementations of their personalization depending on whether you are looking at a dashboard or a report page.  But the way to tell if it's a BI page is to look in the upper corners.  If you see an Actions dropdown, it's a BI page.



But Which Ones Are Built Using OA Framework?

Sometimes people have trouble telling which pages are created using OA Framework.  Here are several ways I use to tell if a page is built using OAF:

The best and easiest way I know of is to look for "OA.jsp" in the URL of the page.



You can also use the About this Page feature to confirm if a page is an OA Framework page.  If you don't have it already, you'll need the FND: Diagnostics profile option set to Yes (you may need your administrator to set this).  Go to a product page (I'm using iProcurement here) and click on the About this Page link:



If you see that the first line of the page definition is "pageLayout", it's an OAF page.



Beyond looking at each page individually, you can use the About this Page feature to get a whole list of pages built with OAF, all at once.  Since you're already there, simply go look at the page context (menu), as follows:

About this Page > Page Context > Menu (Expand All)

Most of the functions in the menu display a URL, so you can see at a glance which ones start with "OA.jsp":



Another way to check for a single page is to use View Page Source in the browser.  Early in the source, you will see the following for an OAF page:

<!-- METADATA_SOURCE - JRAD -->

You can also list the pages (and more) using the JDR_UTILS package.  It is described in the "Inspecting the MDS Repository Content" chapter of the Oracle Application Framework Developer's Guide for your release version (available on MetaLink).

Finally, you can set the "Personalize Self-Service Defn" profile option to Yes to allow personalization, and then look for the Personalize Page link on the top of each page.  Of course you can also use the link to see the personalization hierarchy page (or the context page if you are using 11.5.9 up to 11.5.10 CU1--it changed in 11.5.10 CU2).

Note that all of this applies to both Release 11.5.10 and Release 12 of the E-Business Suite.  It also applies to EBS 11.5.9 if you applied OAF 11.5.10 to it as part of a patch.

To learn more about OA Framework Personalization, see the Oracle Application Framework Personalization Guide in the Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library.

Here's an Extra Tip: Hidden Fields Between the Fields 

Some product teams build features into their pages that are hidden by default because they expect most customers won't use them.  These include extra fields for special purposes, hidden Additional Information regions containing descriptive flexfields, and so on.  We recommend to product teams that they explicitly document places in their applications where customers are expected to personalize the pages.  Check your product's documentation for such updates.  I know that iProcurement, at least, mentions such hidden fields directly in the text of their implementation manual.  I found one on page 2-17 of the Oracle iProcurement Implementation and Administration Guide, Release 12, Part No. B31402-01.  Also, the Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide and Oracle Workflow User's Guide both have appendices highlighting some of the personalizations for Workflow pages that customers may be most interested in using.

Happy personalizing!

Related

• Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library (OTN)
  
• Forms Personalization - Get It While It's Hot!
• Personalizing and Extending Release 12
  

A new Rapid Install startCD, patch 5885627, for E-Business Suite Release 12 is now available for download from Metalink.  This new Rapid Install startCD (Version 12.0.0.22) fixes a dozen installation-related issues for Release 12.

• 5939781 : INVALID ORACLE HOME NAME FORMAT (HYPHEN)
• 5947071 : CONVERT
  CHARACTER SET (ADDCCNV.SQL) FAILS WITH ORA-600

• 5757402 : EDIT PATHS FORM NOT RETAINING PATHS IF YOU NAVIGATE
  BACKWARDS
• 5769619 : ADAUTOSTG.PL MENU ENHANCEMENT
• 5735127 : CURRENT
  INSTALL MECHANISM DOES NOT SUPPORT FOR NEW OS VERSIONS
• 5754396 : RI.RIW:
  RAPIDWIZ DOES NOT PRESERVE VALUES ON TRAVERSING
• 5860525 : UNINSTANTIATED
  VARIABLES TEST FAILS
• 5916075 : SILENT INSTALL IS FAILING ON
  WINDOWS
• 5893147 : POST CHECKS FAIL AFTER USING RAPID INSTALL TO UPDATE
  CONFIGURATION
• 5922016 : JDBC CONNECTION TEXT SHOULD BE GENERIC
• 5893659 :
  SILENT INSTALL IS FAILING WITH JAVA EXCEPTION
• 5934198 : AT RAPIDWIZ SESSION, ADDBCCNV.SQL
  : ORA-01012: NOT LOGGED ON
  

• Getting Started with the Release 12 Technology Stack

I was startled by the results of an informal survey taken in an Apps security-related session at Collaborate 07 last week.  The majority of session attendees indicated that they were two or more Critical Patch Updates (CPU) behind the latest release.

• July 17, 2007
• October 16, 2007
• January 15, 2008
• April 15, 2008

The first major update for Apps Release 12 is now available for download from Metalink:

• Oracle E-Business Suite 12.0.1 Release Update Pack (Patch 5082400)

• Applications DBA (AD):  Note 420263.1
• Applications Technology:  Note 420081.1
• Customer Relationship Management:  Note 418150.1
• Financial Services:  Note 418125.1
• Financials:  Note 418121.1
• HRMS:  Note 417916.1
• Intelligence:  Note 419835.1
• Procurement:  Note 418126.1
• Projects:  Note 418167.1
• Supply Chain Management:  Note 420030.1

• Oracle Alert - R12.ALR.A.Delta.1  
• Oracle Application Object Library, which includes:
• Oracle Applications Manager
  
• Oracle Application Framework
  
• Oracle CRM Technology Foundation
  
• Oracle Workflow
  
• Oracle Applications Technology Stack
  
• Oracle e-Commerce Gateway
  
• Oracle Common Application Components
  
• Oracle Common Modules
  
• Oracle iSetup
  
• Oracle Report Manager
  
• Oracle User Management
  
• Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator
  
• Oracle XML Publisher
  

• Oracle E-Business Suite 12.0.1 Release Update Pack Readme (Note 417917.1)
• New Rapid Install StartCD for Release 12
• Critical Patch Update for April 2007 Now Available

[Editor Update May 21, 2008:  Nilesh has moved on to another team within Oracle and, sadly, is no longer an
active contributor to this blog.  Feel free to direct any questions
about his posted articles directly to Steven Chan, instead.]


Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 integrates many technology stack components with each other.  These components communicate with each other via a large number of ports, and preventing conflicts between port settings for various components can be a major deployment and management task.  For E-Business Suite sysadmins, this task is simplified by the use of port pools.  Understanding how port pools work is a key part of managing multiple E-Business Suite instances on the same physical server.

• Determining a default base value for each type of port

• Handling formatted values, which often contain multiple ports or a range of ports

• Determining a unique value for each pool

Depending on whom you ask, the E-Business Suite has somewhere around 200 functional applications products, clustered into larger product families such as Oracle Financials.  A subset of those products are specifically certified for deployment in an externally-facing configuration via demilitarized zones (DMZ).  For example, products certified for these types of "external" deployments include iRecruitment, iStore, and iSupplier Portal.

The diagram above shows a common DMZ configuration for the E-Business Suite Release 11i.  All of the points I'll make in this article apply equally to Release 11i and 12.

• Metalink Note 287176.1 for Release 11i
  
• Metalink Note 380490.1 for Release 12
  

1. It uses loopbacks and is not certified for external use in a DMZ configuration
   
2. It hasn't been tested in a DMZ configuration, and may or may not use loopbacks
   

• Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 287176.1)
• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 380490.1)
  
• In-Depth: Demilitarized Zones and the E-Business Suite
• Loopbacks, Virtual IPs & the E-Business Suite
  

[Editor Apr 30 Update:  Overloaded acronyms... >sigh<   Corrected entry from Oracle Learning Management to Oracle Lease Management.  Support is only for Release 11i presently.]

Two new Oracle Lease Management (OKL) modules in the Financials product family are now certified for external use in demilitarized zone (DMZ) configurations:

• Customer Self-Service
  
• Vendor Self-Service
  

• What Does a "DMZ Certification" Mean?
• Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 287176.1)
• In-Depth: Demilitarized Zones and the E-Business Suite

Unlike Release 11i, E-Business Suite Release 12 no longer requires Oracle Jinitiator for its Forms-based content.  In theory, it will be possible to use any version of the native Sun J2SE Runtime Engine (JRE) plug-in to access Forms-based content in this Applications release.

1. Enable the Java Console on your PC through the 'Java Control Panel' by clicking on the 'Java' icon within your desktop's 'Control Panel'.
    
   
2. Select the 'Advanced' Tab and expand the 'Java Console' field, then ensure the 'Show Console' option is selected.
    
3. Select the 'General' Tab and click the 'About' button.
   

• Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-erdist-b20061221)
  
  You have the special version that includes the focus fix required for use with Release 12.
   
• Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-b03)
   
  You have the standard version of 1.5.0_10 that does not include the focus fix.  If you wish to use Forms-based content in Release 12, you need to uninstall this version and install the special 1.5.0_10-erdist version included with Release 12.

• Upgrading Sun J2SE (Native Plug-in) with Oracle Applications 12.0 for Windows Clients (Metalink Note 393931.1)
  
• Replacing Oracle JInitiator with Sun's Native Plug-In
• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12
  

I had a chance conversation with an Apps sysadmin late in the evening at the Collaborate conference.  He wearily noted that he had to somehow cover increasing maintenance costs with reduced levels of staffing.  The conversation suggested that our support for shared E-Business Suite application tier file systems may be one of our better-kept secrets.  If you haven't come across this yet, here's a way of reducing the amount of time that you spend patching.

• Different nodes must be running the same operating system and the same O/S patches
  
• You must be on a UNIX platform (Windows doesn't support shared file systems)

• Sun StorageTek QFS or Sun Solaris ZFS
  
• Red Hat Linux Global File System
• Symantec / VERITAS File System (VxFS)
  
• Network File System (NFS) mounted disk or a disk array

• Certification & Support for Third-Party Products

• Sharing the Application Tier File System in Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (Metalink Note 233428.1)
• Sharing the Application Tier File System in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Metalink Note 384248.1)
  
• In-Depth: Load-Balancing E-Business Suite Environments
• Advanced Configurations and Topologies for Enterprise Deployments of E-Business Suite 11i (Note 217368.1)
• Using Load-Balancers with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (Metalink Note 380489.1)
  

Performance tuning is an art that should be executed systematically.  I assume almost everyone has heard this from others talking about tuning, but it's often repeated because of its fundamental truth.

Whenever there's a response time issue for the E-Business Suite, it is initially treated as a performance problem.  I would go a step further and say that poor performance is not a problem by itself.  It is a result of a root cause which lies somewhere else.

Let's dig into each of the possible places for this root cause in the E-Business Suite's technology stack.  Oracle Applications has the following layers:

• Operating system
• Database
• Techstack components (Concurrent tier, Forms tier and iAS techstack)
• Application code (Forms, Jsp etc)

This article will touch on performance-related issues for the database layer. 

Possible Causes for Database Layer Performance Issues

Possible issues include:

• Core optimizer issues
• Known performance-related database bugs
• Incorrect statistics to the cost-based optimizer (CBO), which is responsible for SQL optimization
• Incorrect System Global Area or Program Global Area sizing

Other areas like locking and latching affect performance, too.  For the limited purposes of this article, we'll focus on these four setup-related areas.

Core Optimizer Issues

Most of the E-Business Suite database's recommended parameters are listed in:

• Database Initialization Parameters and Configuration for Oracle Applications 11i (Metalink Note 216205.1)

Setting the values of memory-related parameters as is not a one-time job.  We recommend that you periodically review your Statspack and AWR reports to find if the your current settings meet your current load requirements.

For recommended database init.ora parameters, refer to Note 216205.1.  Pay attention to mandatory parameters.  Based on our benchmarks, we recommend that your Apps setup adhere to the init.ora parameters listed in the note.
 
Known Performance-Related Database Bugs

For issues with the Oracle optimizer and database, most of the known performance-related bugs and their recommended patches for E-Business Suite environments are listed in:

• Recommended Performance Patches for Oracle E-Business Suite (Metalink Note 244040.1)

Incorrect Statistics to the Cost-Based Optimizer (CBO)

Now comes the most complex -- and paradoxically, the easiest to solve -- area:  ensuring that the cost-based optimizer works with accurate metadata.

Before going into the details, I'll remind you that the rule-based optimizer (RBO) is no longer supported.  Don't use it in your E-Business Suite environments.  If you have an optimizer-related issue that appears in the cost-based optimizer but not the rule-based optimizer, log a Service Request with Oracle Support.

Maximizing the Benefits of Cost-Based Optimization

The cost-based optimizer is not infallible, but it's a DBA's responsibility to ensure that correct metadata is available to the optimizer.  There are two things that system administrators should do:

1. Set all of the optimizer-related parameters, following Note 216205.1
2. Gather statistics for all database objects

Gathering Statistics for Database Objects

There are many different ways of gathering statistics:

• Use the Analyze command
• Use Dbms_stats
• Use Fnd_stats

For Oracle E-Business Suite environments, we recommend using fnd_stats.

A Short Digression:  What is fnd_stats?

Fnd_stats is a wrapper around dbms_stats that suits most of the E-Business Suite's requirements.

We recommend using fnd_stats over dbms_stats for Apps environments because of the former's support for restarts.  Starting with the 10g version of the database, dbms_stats has also this feature.

If the Gather Schema Statistics concurrent program is used, fnd_stats does the bookkeeping for the run.  Should the run fail for any reason, the next run of the program starts from where the previous run was stopped. This saves lot of time.

We also recommend  fnd_stats because of its support for histograms.  Histograms are useful when:

1. A table's column is used in an equality or equi-join predicate AND there are  skews in the column.
2. A table's column is used in a range or like predicate AND there are  skews in the column.

Oracle Applications' data distribution is dependent on the functionality of the specific product modules.  Based on our benchmarks, a number of columns are useful for histograms.  These columns are listed in the FND_HISTOGRAM_COLS table.

When Gather Schema Statistics is executed, it reads FND_HISTOGRAM_COLS and builds the histograms.  

Back to Gathering Database Statistics

When gathering the statistics for the entire applications database, we must use the Gather Schema Statistics concurrent program.  Only the Gather Schema Statistics and Gather Table Statistics should be used. Do not use the Gather Column Statistics program.

When Should You Gather Statistics?

There is again no hard and fast rule for the interval between gathering statistics.  A general rule-of-thumb is is to run the statistics collection after a 10% increase in the database size. 

Having said that, other factors may come into play.  From 11.5.10 onwards, fnd_stats was enhanced to gather only the statistics for those objects, which have undergone a predefined percentage of data increase, or for objects that have no statistics.  The latest versions of fnd_stats identifies STALE and EMPTY statistics and gather the statistics for those objects only.  This saves lot of time and allows sysadmins to set flexible statistics gathering intervals. 

Although there are a number of options that you can set, we recommend selecting  the GATHER AUTO option.

Incorrect System Global Area and Program Global Area Sizing

SGA_TARGET sets the maximum size of the System Global Area (SGA) for your E-Business Suite instance.  Parameters like db_cache_size and shared_pool_size affect the database buffer cache and shared pool for that instance.   PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET determines the maximum value for the Program Global Area (PGA) for the instance.

Note 216205.1 lists the minimum values for these parameters. These values might need to be varied depending on the actual load on your environment.  In the same way.  If these are values are:

• Set too high:   memory on the server is not utilised to the maximum
• Set too low:  there will be performance issues

To find out whether these parameters are set properly on your system, you can run a Statspack or AWR report.

Interpreting Statspack or AWR Reports

Covering this area comprehensively is beyond the scope of this article, but here's some things to remember about interpreting your Statspack report:

Total Response time = Service time + Wait time

Service Time is generally the amount of "CPU used by this session".  From the 9.2 database version and upwards, this is reported in the Statspack.  You can use this to derive the Wait Time.

For example:

Using a Statspack report with a 9.2 or higher database, examine the figures reported for CPU time.  If it's 70% of the total time, then the wait time is 100-70=30%.

Total Response time = 70% CPU time + 30% wait time

Once we have identified the time taking component, look into the specific component.  For memory-related areas, look at the Advisory Statistics section.  This shows details about the sizing of SGA (cache and shared pool) and PGA (M-pass executes should be as small as possible for a optimal PGA). 

Based on this type of analysis, you can vary your SGA and PGA settings accordingly.

Getting Support for Performance Issues

As you can see, investigating performance issues can be tricky, especially if you find the topics briefly described here to be daunting.  Take heart:  you're not on your own.  We have teams that specialize in these areas, so if you run into any performance-related issues, log a Service Request via Metalink and we'll jump in to help.

In Summary

A quick recap of database setup-related issues and recommendations for tracking down performance-related issues:

• Database Parameters:  Refer to Note 216205.1 for mandatory settings, and then check your Statspack/AWR reports periodically to see whether your memory-related parameters are set correctly.
   
• Apply the Recommend Performance-Related Database Patches:    Refer to note 244040.1
   
• Keep Your Statistics Fresh: Use the Gather Schema/Table Statistics concurrent program regularly.  The GATHER AUTO option can be of great help here.

It's possible to dive much deeper into database or instance tuning topics.  If you'd like me to go into more details, feel free to post a comment here.

Related

• Latest JVM Tuning Recommendations for Apps 11i
• Master Class in Apps 11i Performance Tuning

Identifying performance bottlenecks can sometimes be a black art with any distributed computing system.  It is sometimes difficult to know where to start.  This article gives some high-level guidance on the sort of information you may need to gather in order for Oracle Support to assist you with this task for the E-Business Suite.

Performance issues can potentially occur across any or several different areas of the Technology Stack, or may be restricted within Functional Code. For example (but not restricted to)

• Architecture issue (e.g. high latency WAN, firewall)
• Operating System problem or resource constraint
• SQL or general RDBMS configuration issue
• Database Deadlock
• Apache Listener

Types of Performance Issues

"Simpler" Problems

These issues will hopefully be relatively straightforward to define and investigate.  For example: -
Single report consistently slow, SQL trace discovers one or more SQL statement(s) taking the majority of the elapsed time

More complex issues

These can take more work to be able to confidently define the real issue and often involve complex investigations involving different parties and much data gathering and analysis

For example :-
Any intermittent issue, System wide issues, Issues where SQL trace time represents only a small proportion of the elapsed time

Gathering Data for Performance Issues

It's helpful to follow a systematic process for investigating performance issues.  First steps include identify the nature, scope and extent of the problem. 

1. Identify the Extent of the Problem

Determine whether the extent of the problem is:

• System Wide
• Confined to one Technology Are. For example does it only happen in one of the Self Service, Forms or Reports areas
• For a specific Product Area(s) For example, were it to only occur in HR, GL or iStore
• Single Report/Form/Page
• Which Instance or instances is the problem observed. Can it be reproduced in UAT/TEST instances

2. Narrow the Scope Further

Determine whether the problem occurs for:

• All users
• Only one geographic location
• Only for users with certain Browser/type of PC
• Only during peak periods

3. Qualify the Nature of the Problem

• Is the problem intermittent or reproducible?
• Is the problem due to slow performance or a process hanging or spinning?
• When was the last time the process was completed without experiencing poor performance?  Document any changes since then.
• Is there a workaround available?   For example, restarting Browser or restarting Apache.
• What is the frequency of occurrence?

4.  Capture Additional Clues

• Document and differentiate factual information from user perceptions. Example - users may say "it's always slow" but reality may be that it takes 10 seconds most of the time, but 40 seconds between 10am and 11am (peak load).
• How long does it take for the process to complete when running slowly?  How long did it previously take (before having the performance issue)?  What is the expected performance for this process?
• What is load on server(s) when issue occurs (CPU/Memory/Network)?  Is there any unusual activity when problems occur?  For example, memory used suddenly growing or CPU at 100%.
• Is the problem reproducible with other browsers, such as Firefox, as well as with Internet Explorer?

5.  Identify likely causes and eliminate other possible causes

• Are there any customizations?  If so, can they be eliminated for testing purposes?
• If the problem only occured since patches have been applied or any configuration changes have been made, can these be reverted?
• Do you have any Resource Limits enabled on the database that may be effecting the Applications users runtime or Concurrent Manager?
• Does the number or frequency of certain Concurrent Requests correlate to performance issues occurring?
• Have the database parameters been configured as per the current recommendations in Database Initialization Parameters and Configuration for Oracle Applications 11i (Metalink Note 216205.1)?
• Does AWR or Statspack show anything unusual for Top waits, Top buffer gets, etc?
• Have you searched Metalink generally, but specifically reviewed Recommended Performance Patches for Oracle E-Business Suite (Metalink Note 244040.1) for any known performance issues, tuning guidelines and/or patches?

Getting Help from Oracle Support

Once you understand the issue and reach the point where you need Oracle Support involved, it may be useful for you to review the "Performance Tuning" section of:

• Working effectively with Oracle Support (Metalink Note 166650.1).

The first key decision you need to make is selecting a product code for your Service Request (SR): 

1. If the issue is with an individual Form/Report/Page or only in one product area then log the SR for that particular product support team
2. If issue seems to be with the Technology Area or System wide then log the SR with the AOL team (Oracle Application Object Library)

It is very important to provide a good problem definition (nature, scope, extent) so be as verbose as needed to give a good description of the issue.

It is also very important to reproduce the issue on a non-Production instance. If you are able to reproduce the problem outside of your Production instance, then any recomended patches or changes can be quickly assessed for their impact and any detailed debug or tracing required to identify the issue can be easily implemented.

A Quick Aside:  One issue per Service Request

You may need several issues investigated simultaneously and may be reluctant to raise different SRs or have different people investigating. Unfortunately, even similar-looking issues can have different root causes, which means they will need to go to different support teams or have different SR statuses. This is why it is important to ensure each issue is raised as a separate SR.

Performance Issues with Specific Forms, Reports, or Pages

For these "simpler" types of issues, we can generally track down the issue with the following information:

• Form, Report or Page name, version and navigation path
• Full versions of Forms, Reports or Framework as well as the iAS and Database versions, including rollup or interop patches applied
• Relevant Family Packs or Maintenance Packs applied
• Description of symptoms, what have you tried, your investigations, conclusions and/or thoughts/ideas
• Does it reproduce constantly, in other environments as well?
• When did you last run "Gather Schema Statistics" and at what percentage?
• When did you last run any relevant purging processes?
• SQL trace with binds and waits (raw file and TKPROF output)
• Wall clock time elapsed from user perspective
• What are the target and acceptable times for this process?
  

Performance Issues for Other Areas

These are the more complex issues and will normally require additional information (and patience) to resolve.  We will need the same information as listed above, but also:

• Description of your System Architecture and network diagram
• Technology Stack configuration files (Apache, Forms, Reports and Database, as relevant to the problem)
• List of any Metalink notes or product documentation you have reviewed already, and what steps you implemented from this documentation
• List of any patches applied specifically to try to address this issue
• Details of profile options or configuration settings you have tried changing, explaining why you tried these settings and what effect they had (if any)
• AWR or Statspack output for "good" and "bad" performing time periods
• Details about your pinning, purging and gather schema statistics strategy
• Relevant Log files
• Debug and trace files

Good starting points for collating all this information are:

• Project Documentation Summary for Tuning Oracle Applications (Metalink Note 165300.1)
• FAQ and Troubleshooting for Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) (Metalink Note 369619.1) as this provides an automated way to provide Oracle Support with much of this information

Additional Tips for Troubleshooting for Apache / JVM problems

• Add "%T" to the access_log for timing information as discussed in Proactive Monitoring on an Apps 11i Web Tier Server.
• Use Oracle Application Manager to monitor for any "Potentially Leaked" JDBC connections and other information in the "JServ Usage" link
• Review Latest JVM Tuning Recommendations for Apps 11i to confirm you have the recommended number of OACoreGroup JVM processes

Additional Tips for OA Framework-related issues

• It is often useful to enable "STATEMENT" level logging (for ONE user only!) using the FND:Debug% profile options if you have a reproducible test case

Conclusion

Performance issues can sometimes be tricky to isolate, particularly those having more than one root cause.  This article has presented some ideas about the approach to take, in addition to the sort of information Oracle Support would likely be asking for if you need to log a Service Request.

If there is sufficient demand, I can write further articles in future, expanding on the topics introduced here.

Related

• Performance Tuning the Apps Database Layer
• Master Class in Apps 11i Performance Tuning
• A Holistic Approach to Performance Tuning Oracle Apps (Metalink Note 69565.1)
• Troubleshooting Oracle Apps Performance Issues (Metalink Note 169935.1)
• Tips and Queries for Troubleshooting Advanced Topologies (Metalink Note 364439.1)

Operating system vendors such as Hewlett Packard, IBM and Sun are increasingly promoting the use of their own virtualization solutions for reasons primarily related to the need for IT consolidation and better hardware utilization.

• Oracle will triage and attempt to diagnose issues reported for these configurations. 
  
• Specific
  problems isolated to virtualization software that cannot be reproduced
  in standard Oracle environments -- i.e. environments without
  virtualization software -- may need to be referred to the third-party
  vendor for advanced debugging and resolution.

• Virtualization & E-Business Suite
  
• Running Oracle Database in Solaris 10 Containers - Best Practices (MetaLink Note 317257.1).  This Note is applicable for E-Business Suite Releases 11i and 12 environments.
  
• Support Status for VMWare (MetaLink Note 249212.1)

A group of users at the recent OAUG Collaborate conference in Las Vegas pooled business cards after a Release 12-related session.  Their goal:  "to share their thoughts, upgrade feedback, and driving forces for moving to R12." 

• Upgrading to EBS R12
  

Keeping database packages in the Oracle database's System Global Area (SGA) shared pool is a common practice.  This is also called pinning.  One common misconception is that pinning is not useful or needed in later Oracle database versions such as 10g and above, since those releases offer automatic shared memory management.  This isn't completely accurate for all cases, for reasons which I'll discuss below.

An Introduction to the System Global Area (SGA)

The Oracle database's System Global Area contains various pools of memory used to satisfy particular classes of memory allocation requests:

• Shared pool:  used for caching shared cursors, stored procedures, dictionary caches, etc.
• Buffer cache:  cache of disk data
• Large pool:  large allocations
• Java pool:  Java allocations and for caching java objects
• Log buffer:  in-memory buffer for redo generation
• Streams Pool:  new in 10g, for buffering inbound and outbound logical change records
• Fixed SGA:  bootstrap section of the SGA

SGA memory is allocated in units of contiguous memory chunks called granules.  The size of a granule depends on your operating system platform and the SGA's total size. On most platforms, if the estimated SGA size is:

• Less than or equal to 1GB, the granule size is 4 MB
• Greater than 1GB, the granule size is 16 MB

A Primer on Space Allocations in the Shared Pool

One of the important components of the SGA is the shared pool.  The
shared pool was introduced as a feature of the Oracle Database in
Version 7, primarily as a repository for shared SQL and PL/SQL.  The
shared pool has come a long way since its original release.

The Oracle database requires contiguous space.  For example, if a request for 4 K of memory is made, the database cannot allocate separate 3 K and 1 K chunks.  It must allocate a 4 K block of contiguous free memory to satisfy the request.  If there is no free memory, it will scan the Least Recently Used list to free some memory.  The heap manager will try to free as many objects as possible before giving up.  If the shared pool has no space to satisfy the request for memory, an ORA-4031 error is thrown.

With the advent of automatic shared memory management, we need not configure the size of the shared pool via the shared_pool_size parameter.  Automatic shared memory management requires one parameter to be set:  sga_target.  The Oracle database's automatic memory allocation is superior to manual memory management. This prevents ORA-4031 errors in most cases.

When Large Objects Jump in the Shared Pool

Imagine a large package (or any object) has to be loaded into the shared pool.  Large PL/SQL objects present particular challenges.  The database has to search for free space for the object.  If it cannot get enough contiguous space, it will free many small objects to satisfy the request.  If several large objects need to be loaded, the database has to throw out many small objects in the shared pool. 

Finding candidate objects and freeing memory is very costly.  These tasks will impact CPU resources.

One approach to avoiding performance overhead and memory allocation errors is to keep large PL/SQL objects in the shared pool at startup time.  This process is known as pinning.  This loads the objects into the shared pool and ensures that the objects are never aged out of the shared pool.  If the objects are never aged out, then that avoids problems with insufficient memory when trying to reload them.

What's in Your Shared Pool Now?

Objects are 'kept' in the shared pool using the dbms_shared_pool package that is defined in the dbmspool.sql file. 

For example:

To view a list of all objects that are kept in the shared pool, one can query the v$db_object_cache:

The SQL query above will list all of the objects that are 'kept' in the shared pool using dbms_shared_pool.keep.

Identifying Candidate Objects for Keeping in the Shared Pool

To identify candidates that should be kept in the shared pool, first run the following query:

The query above will return something like this:

Next, query the x$ksmlru table, using:

select * from x$ksmlru;

The x$ksmlru table keeps track of the current shared pool objects and the corresponding number of objects flushed out of the shared pool to allocate space for the load.  These objects are stored and flushed out based on the Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm.  Here's what the table looks like:

     Name           Null?    Type                       
     -------------- -------- --------------             
     ADDR                    RAW(4)
     INDX                    NUMBER                      
     KSMLRCOM                VARCHAR2(20)                
     KSMLRSIZ                NUMBER                      
     KSMLRNUM                NUMBER  

• KSMLRNUM  shows the number of objects that were flushed to load the large object
• KSMLRISZ shows the size of the object that was loaded (contiguous memory allocated)
  

Note:  This is a fixed table: once you query the table, the database will
automatically reset the table.  Make sure that you spool the output to
a file so you can capture it for analysis.

Analyze the x$ksmlru output to determine if there are any large allocations that are flushing other objects.  If this is the case, analyze the v$db_object_cache to identify the objects with high loads or executions.  These should be kept in the shared pool.

Keeping Objects in Oracle Applications Databases

All E-Business Suite DBAs should do some analysis to assess whether pinning can improve the performance of your Apps environment.  Arriving at the objects to be pinned varies from setup to setup.  Objects have to be pinned after each instance startup, and ideally immediately after the startup.

The $AD_TOP/sql/ADXGNPIN.sql script is provided to pin the packages in Oracle Applications.   This script pins all Oracle Applications objects, which is generally not completely necessary or advisable.  You should modify this script based on your analyses of v$db_object_cache and x$ksmlru to identify the right objects to be pinned for your environment. 

For more information about this script (and the related ADXCKPIN.sql script, used for listing objects in the shared pool), see the appropriate manual for your Apps release:

• Oracle Applications Maintenance Procedures (Release 11i) (OTN, PDF, 2.5 MB)
• Oracle Applications Maintenance Procedures (Release 12) (OTN, PDF, MB)
  

Related

• Diagnosing and Resolving Error ORA-04031 (Metalink Note 146599.1)
  

[June 8, 2007 Update:  Clarified background on the second set of benchmarks]

A few questions have been raised in our new Release 12 Upgrade Forum about the differences in network bandwidth requirements between Release 11i and 12.

• Benchmark Comparison Test with Jinitiator 1.3.1.23 and Java Plug-In 1.5.0_05 - Performance Whitepaper
  

1. 11.5.10.CU2 vs. 11.5.10.CU2 with on the Release 12 ATG Rollup
2. 11.5.10.CU2 vs. Release 12
   

[June 8, 2007 Update:  The section above is generating a lot of similar questions, perhaps understandably.  Here's the scoop:  the comparison above shows the additional overhead associated with the
new R12 technology stack running the same Applications code.  This
would be the equivalent of running the 11i versions of these screens in
Release 12.  Our Applications Performance team is very meticulous about comparing equivalent things.  No "apples to oranges" comparisons for them.

They deemed it important to distinguish between added network bandwidth overhead in Release 12 due to new code at the Apps layer vs. new R12 technology stack requirements.

So, their baseline for network bandwidth was the Release 11i.5.10.CU2 environment.  They then ran benchmark tests with the same Applications code and the new Release 12 ATG components.  Important note:  this configuration isn't documented, supported, or recommended -- it was strictly a Development-only configuration used for benchmarking purposes.  You cannot apply the Release 12 techstack to an E-Business Suite Release 11i environment, and we don't provide any patches to do so.]

Here's a thumbnail of the second comparison (click on it to see the full-size version, which is admittedly low resolution):

The table above compares a Release 11i environment with a full E-Business Suite Release 12 environment.  The Release 12 environment includes not only the ATG changes but also all of the Apps code changes.  You'll see that the page sizes did increase, but these increases were mainly due to Apps code changes and user interface changes.  The new OA Framework (Swan) changes accounted for less than 4%.

New Functionality Trumps All

As Apps technologists, it's tempting for us to get caught up in these types of discussions.  "Look -- the login page is X bytes larger!" 

It's always worth remembering that your end-users don't really care much about such things, however.  They're more likely to remark on the fact that the login page now has two new capabilities:  reminding them of their password, and reminding them of their userid, too. 

It's been my experience that new functionality trumps all, at least in the eyes of your users.  My recommendation:  go ahead and consider these benchmarks as part of your Release 12 evaluations, but more meaningful comparisons will come from spending some quality time with your end-users in assessing and prioritizing the new functional benefits in R12.

Related

• Applications Performance Group Benchmarks
  
• Getting Started with the Release 12 Technology Stack
• Choosing Between Release 12 or 11i

When I was younger, I thought I could change this world.  Now I no longer think so but for emotional reasons I must keep on fighting a holding action.

1. It requires too much downtime
   
2. Testing is too expensive for end-users
   
   
3. It's too complicated
   
4. We don't have enough staff
   
5. It ain't broken; why fix it?

1. To add new functionality
   
2. To improve stability
   
3. To improve performance
   
   
4. To improve security

• How much downtime is currently caused by unplanned outages due to unpatched stability bugs?
  
• How much downtime is needed to bounce your application servers due to unpatched JVM memory leaks?
  
• How much downtime would be required if an attacker takes advantage of an unpatched security risk?

• How much productivity is lost for all end-users -- not just the testers -- due to unpatched performance, stability, or security bugs?
  
• How much could productivity be improved by new features?

• Top 7 Ways of Reducing Patching Downtimes for Apps
  

[June 14 update:  Fusion Intelligence displays its analytic content based on the responsibilities assigned to each user.  This applies regardless of whether Oracle Single Sign-On is installed or not.  Rearranged existing points to avoid confusion about this.]

Oracle Fusion Intelligence for the E-Business Suite is now available for both Release 11i and 12.  Sorting out what this means for Apps sysadmins and architects might be a bit entertaining.  You need to know three things to before I jump into the details about Fusion Intelligence:

• Oracle acquired Siebel
• Siebel Business Analytics was renamed to Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10.1.3.2 (for those of you in-the-know, this was formerly codenamed "Maui")
  
• Oracle offers a product family called Daily Business Intelligence for the E-Business Suite
  

• Financials
• Governance, Risk,
  and Compliance
• Human Capital Management
• Procurement
• Service
• Supply Chain
• Order Management
• Sales

• About Oracle Fusion Intelligence for E-Business Suite, Release 12.0 (Metalink Note 427835.1)
• About Oracle Fusion Intelligence For E-Business Suite, Release 11i, Family Pack H (Metalink Note 406004.1)
  

[Nov 8, 2007 Update:  Vista is now certified with IE 7 for E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12.  See this article for full details.]

[Oct 11, 2007:  See the latest Update #5: Vista Certification with the E-Business Suite]

I've been receiving questions from a relatively small number of large enterprise customers who are planning Vista upgrades for their end-users.  Unfortunately, I have no information that I can share about certification dates, either publicly or off-the-record, for reasons I've discussed in the past.  But I can give you an update on our progress.

1. Oracle Forms-based components of the E-Business Suite running in Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE) plug-in on Vista, for both IE7 & Firefox
2. HTML/Javascript-based components of the E-Business Suite running in IE7/Firefox
3. Client/server administration components of the E-Business Suite running on Vista

• We had conducted early pre-certification tests with Vista release candidates last year.  These went well, for the most part.
• Our Vista certification was hung up when we discovered that a serious focus-related issue in Sun's JRE occurs in Vista, too.
  
• Sun has just released JRE 1.5.0_12.  This appears to contain the fix we've been waiting for.