I’m (still) highlighting OpenWorld 2008 presentations that cover some of the most popular E-Business Suite technology stack topics. A catalog of all of the Applications Technology track sessions with links to the presentations is available here:

E-Business Suite sysadmins know that there are a lot of different ways to deploy their system in production.  You can split EBS services across multiple application tier and database tier server nodes, you can scale up with load-balancers and Real
Application Clusters, you can integrate your E-Business Suite instance with optional external services like Oracle Single Sign-On and the Oracle SOA Suite, and much, much more.

Sample physical architecture diagram showing E-Business Suite integrated with Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory with firewalls separating DMZs

The number of architectural options can be pretty bewildering, and it can be difficult to get a high-level overview of the relative benefits of each option.  We have lots of detailed documentation and introductory blog articles on, say, implementing
RAC, but it’s very difficult to get a sense of whether you can combine a reverse proxy in front of a load-balanced cluster with a RAC-enabled database tier (this is feasible, by the way).

Sample architectural diagram showing E-Business Suite with demilitarized zones DMZ RAC and an Oracle Application Server 10g integration

Clearly, there’s a pressing need to summarize what’s possible in a quick and easily digestible overview.  If you like architecture diagrams, here’s an attempt to overload you with more physical architectures than you might have seen before in a single
place.  Ivo Dujmovic is a Director and architect in our Applications Technology Integration group, and a contributing author for this blog.  Ivo and I presented the following session at OpenWorld:

Examle physical architecture diagram showing E-Business Suite PeopleSoft and Siebel sharing a central Oracle Identity Management instance

Ivo and I covered the following topics in our session:


  • An overview of EBS Architectural goals:

    • Ensuring maximum security

    • Ensuring maximum performance & scalability

    • Ensuring business continuity

    • Providing “extra” services to end-users

    • Integrating with other systems

    • Providing dynamic capacity

  • Options for ensuring maximum security

    • Demilitarized zones (DMZ)

    • Reverse Proxy Servers

    • Enabling Single Sign-On capabilities

    • Feasible combinations of DMZs, reverse proxy servers, and Single Sign-On configurations

  • Options for maximizing performance and scalability

    • DNS and HTTP Load-balancers

    • Active-Active versus Active-Passive configurations

    • Real Application Clusters (RAC)

    • Web Cache clusters

    • Feasible combinations of load-balancers, reverse proxies, DMZs, and RAC configurations

  • Options for ensuring business continuity

    • Active-Passive architectures for the E-Business Suite

    • Routing to backup data centers via DNS-based LBRs

  • Options for providing “extra” services to end-users

    • Single Sign-On, Oracle Access Manager, Oracle Internet Directory, Oracle Web Center, Oracle Portal, Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Business Intelligence Applications

    • Feasible combinations of some of the above, including RAC, DMZs, load-balancers, and the kitchen sink

  • Options for integrating with other systems

    • Via Oracle Integration, Oracle SOA Suite

    • Integration with third-party LDAP and authentication systems via Oracle Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory

    • EBS and other Oracle ERP systems like PeopleSoft sharing a central Oracle Identity Management system for Single Sign-On

    • Feasible combinations of these technologies

  • Considerations and future plans around dynamic capacity provisioning

    • Cloud computing

    • Options for deploying E-Business Suite environments in cloud environments

    • Implications, possible benefits, and glimpses into future functionality

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