[Nov. 8, 2016 update: We are no longer evaluating the use of Golden Gate for EBS upgrades or platform migrations]

Oracle GoldenGate provides real-time capture, transformation, routing, and delivery of database transactions across heterogeneous systems.   The GoldenGate Administrator’s Guide shows six supported topologies for generic databases.  Oracle GoldenGate is certified for a subset of three those methods in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and 12 environments:

  1. Unidirectional (Reporting Instance):  From the E-Business Suite to a reporting instance
  2. Broadcast (Data Distribution): From the E-Business Suite to multiple external databases
  3. Consolidation (Data Warehouse/Mart/Store): From multiple sources, including the E-Business Suite, into a single external database
Three supported GoldenGate topologies in E-Business Suite environments

Procedures for replicating information from the E-Business Suite using GoldenGate to a secondary system are documented in:

Unidirectional reporting only

Unidirectional replication only for EBS

GoldenGate is an extremely powerful solution, and one of its most-interesting features is the ability to provide data replication in both directions.  In some scenarios, you can choose to make alterations to replicated data on the external instance and have those changes updated back in the source database.

That’s an exceedingly-slick GoldenGate feature, but that’s not supported in E-Business Suite environments.  You can use GoldenGate to replicate EBS data to an external database, but you cannot move that altered data back into the EBS database.  GoldenGate’s ability to read data in EBS databases is certified, but it must not be used to write to EBS databases.

“How” But Not “What”

GoldenGate is akin to a scalpel.  You’re free to use it, but you must learn how to perform open heart surgery yourself.

The document above describes how to use GoldenGate to replicate data from the E-Business Suite to another system.  It doesn’t provide any guidance about which database objects to replicate.

The E-Business Suite data model is vast, as you’d expect of something that has supports the integrated functioning of over 200 functional product modules.  GoldenGate is a development tool, and like all development tools, requires an expert-level understanding of the E-Business Suite data model for successful use.  Here’s a good EBS data model resource:

What’s Not Certified Today

The use of GoldenGate is not certified for:

  • Upgrading E-Business Suite databases from one version to another
  • Migrating E-Business Suite databases from one operating system platform to another

Why not?  Oracle GoldenGate doesn’t (yet) support the replication of all of the datatypes that are used by the E-Business Suite.  That means that attempting to use GoldenGate to migrate or upgrade an entire E-Business Suite database will require a combination of GoldenGate and other manual steps to preserve referential integrity.  Naturally, the work required to research, create, test, and document those steps will require a formal certification effort. 

This certification effort is under consideration but is not formally scheduled yet.

Your feedback is welcome

Our GoldenGate is eager to hear about your experiences with this newly-certified E-Business Suite configuration.  If you post any comments here or send me an email directly, I’ll make sure that I pass it on to the GoldenGate team.

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