The Latest Technology Stack News Directly from EBS Development
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Database Tier / Active Data Guard
January 6, 2011
Offloading (Some) EBS 12 Reporting to Active Data Guard Instances
- Create a physical standby database for business continuity and disaster recovery
- Offload reporting from the production database to the read-only physical standby database
Every E-Business Suite user is assigned one or more responsibilities. These responsibilities govern the E-Business Suite applications (i.e. menu functions) and data that a given user can access. For example, as a manager, I might be assigned responsibilities that allow me to review my employees' compensation and approve their expense reports. I'm also an employee, which means that I can review my own payslips and file new expense reports.
Every time anyone logs into a running E-Business Suite instance, the following things happen:
- Their authenticated credentials are checked against their assigned E-Business Suite responsibilities.
- A user session is created in the E-Business Suite database.
- All activities are logged for audit and tracking purposes, even queries against existing data.
This level of security prevents E-Business Suite unauthorized users from, say, assigning stock options to themselves. It also provides an audit trail in case someone abuses their position by attempting to cook the books in the midst of a financial industry meltdown.
This also applies to the use of external reporting tools like Oracle Discoverer. Discoverer users must log into the E-Business Suite instance, which checks their assigned responsibilities to prevent users from running reports against data that they're unauthorized to view.
What does that mean?
Putting this together:
- Active Data Guard makes a read-only replication of a given database.
- Even the simple act of logging into an E-Business Suite database requires write access.
What's Changed in this new Active Data Guard certification?
In this new certification, it is possible to run a subset of the standard Oracle Reports delivered with the E-Business Suite against the Active Data Guard instance. In some cases, EBS reports also perform writes against the database; those reports will not run in this Active Data Guard configuration. We've made the following changes to support this new configuration:
- Created new Active Data Guard database triggers to redirect minimal required read/write activity back to the primary E-Business Suite database.
- Introduced changes within the E-Business Suite's FND layer to support this new functionality.
- Developed Parallel Concurrent Processing configurations to manage the report executions against Active Data Guard.
Technical Prerequisites
This configuration requires the following prerequisites:
- Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 or later
- Oracle Database 11.1.0.7 or 11.2.0.2 with the Active Data Guard database option
Getting access to this new configuration
Given the new state of this configuration, we'd like to stay very close to customers implementing this in their E-Business Suite environments. Although the documentation is published externally, the required EBS patches are currently being distributed in a controlled availability release. To get access to these patches, please log a formal Service Request with Oracle Support to request a password to access this patch. While working with Oracle Support to obtain the password, you should also send an email to "ebs_adgrel_us at oracle.com" so that we can monitor your Service Request in Development.
References
- Business Continuity for Oracle E-Business Release 12 Using Oracle 11g Physical Standby Database (Note 1070033.1)
- Using Active Data Guard Reporting with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and Oracle Database 11g (Note 1070491.1)
- Comparing Oracle Data Guard vs. Active Data Guard for EBS Environments
- Three Options for Scaling Up E-Business Suite for Reporting
Steven,
That's great news. Given that much of the reporting in R12 has moved to BI Publisher, are you working on a similar feature for BI Publisher?
Regards,
Alan.
Hi, Alan,
We're trying to walk before we run. Not in the short term, but this is something that we'd like to review in the future.
Regards,
Steven
Steven,
Any plans for certification of this feature with Release 11i?
Looks great for Release 12.1.3!
Thanks.
John
John,
No, I'm afraid not. EBS 11i is now in Extended Support, so our strategy will be to ensure that customers on that release will be able to continue using EBS 11i while they plan their upgrades to R12.
We plan to focus on EBS 12 for the delivery of new capabilities like this support of ADG for reporting.
Regards,
Steven
For the paralell Conc Mgrs running a report/job against the DG DB. Will FSG's work against this DG DB? You mentioned only some R12 reports can use this feature.
Jeff,
No, reports generated by the Financial Statement Generator (FSG) are not covered by this configuration. Only a subset of reports created by ReportWriter will run against the Active Data Guard instance.
Regards,
Steven
Its good to know Active Data Guard now supports a subset of reports on the standby instance.
Just wanted to update you regarding a recent test I've done using "SNAPSHOT DB" that can be opened for Reporting in "READ/WRITE" mode. Basically we can convert the Physical Standby to a SNAPSHOT DB whereby Oracle internally creates guaranteed retention point, open in READ/WRITE mode.
Also the SNAPSHOT DB can be re-converted back to Physical Standby, restart the managed recovery process.
Would like to know if someone has done any testing on 11g SNAPSHOT DB with EBS R12? Also any plans from Oracle to support / certify this for EBS R12?
Thanks!
Ashwin
We haven't done any explicit certification tests combining the E-Business Suite with Snapshot databases. I would expect this to work. If you encounter any issues with this configuration, you can log Service Requests against the Snapshot product directly.
Regards,
Steven
Hi Steven,
Thanks for the thread. I think this new feature would be extremely useful.
My question here is what the current position is in terms of supporting BI publisher reports in EBS 12.1 given that BIP will be the majority in the 12.1 environment.
From your last reply on this topic, I got a feeling that it was not supported back in Jan, 2011. Is that right?
Cheers,
Kurt
Hi, Kurt,
Running BIP reports against this kind of Active Data Guard setup isn't supported yet. It's something that we'd like to be able to support, though -- this is a common request.
We're still working through some technical issues around redirected writes. I'll post more updates here as we make progress on this.
Regards,
Steven
Hi Steven
It is now April 2012, has there been any progress in running BIP reports against ACTIVE DATA GUARD.
Regards
Bernie
Hi, Bernie,
We've been focussed on getting EBS 12.2 out, so we haven't had a chance to work on this yet. It's still on our list of future projects.
Regards,
Steven
Is there an ER out on working with Bi Publisher, or should one be done so it is recorded formally.
Bernie Breski
Hi, Bernie,
No worries: it's recorded formally and is in the queue for evaluation already.
Regards,
Steven
Hi Steven,
My customer looks for running Discoverer report connect to eBSO users on Read-Only database. It is not working.
They saw your Article in this blog, said it is possible.
Could you please share concept of trigger, which table need to be inserting or updating in the trigger?
I log SR with Oracle Support, they said it is not supported to run Discoverer connect to eBSO users on Read-Only database.
Regards,
Jesse.
Hi, Jesse,
Oracle Support is correct. We have not validated running Discoverer reports against an EBS instance on Active Data Guard yet. We expect that certain reports (those that don't require database writes for temporary summary calculations) will work fine. We expect that reports that require writes to the database will not work.
We have plans to test this and document the procedures for this configuration in the future. Stay tuned.
Regards,
Steven
Steven,
Any update on procedures for this configuration? We are looking to run both DISCOVERER and OBIEE against ADG stand-by for EBS. I also assume that saving reports would be a problem unless EUL is defined outside of EBS database. Doing this would also invalidate Responsibility based security. Any help or direction would be appreciated.
Dan,
Thanks for the inquiry. The information as provided in this blog article is still current.
We are researching additional features that would include Discoverer and OBIEE reporting in an Active Data Guard instance. Oracle's Revenue Recognition policies prohibt me for discussing dates.
Please continue to monitor this blog for updates.
Thanks.
Elke
Is it possible to run SQL queries on an Active Data Guard instance?
Thanks
Leon
Leon,
Thanks for the inquiry. Yes, Active Data Guard allows you to open a physical standby database and perform read-only queries while redo is applied to the physical standby database.
Thanks.
Elke
Steven,
Do you have any updates to running Discoverer on ADG, configuration requirements and limitations?
Thanks!
Vie
Vie,
Thanks for the inquiry. We are actively working on a certification project for Discoverer with Active DataGuard for E-Business Suite. Due to Oracle's revenue reconginition policies, dates and time lines cannot be disclosed.
Please continue to watch or subscribe to this blog for new announcements regardging this certification effort.
Thanks.
Elke
Just curious to know Oracle EBS R12.2 is planning to release soon.then what is the role of Oracle Fusion Applications . Do you think both the application will run in the same Organization as co-exisitence solutions is provided by Oracle .
Need to know what is the roadmap of Oracle ,Oracle EBS R12.2 or Fusion application R11.1.4(RUP 3) ?
Thanks
Saroj
Saroj,
Thank you for the inquiry. EBS has strong roadmap and dedicated development team as part of Oracle’s Application Unlimited commitment for continued support and innovation for all of its application product lines. EBS is working on the next major release 12.2, which is targeted for delivery in the next 12 months.
EBS plans for many releases after the initial release of EBS 12.2, with rollup packs (RUPs) targeted every 8-12 months, which will include functional enhancements, user interface modernizations, and technology updates to lower the cost of ownership and improve performance.
EBS customers should look at Fusion Applications to fulfil any business requirement that cannot be met today with the EBS footprint. There are a number of good co-existence scenarios of Fusion Application modules with the EBS deployment. Typical Fusion co-existence modules include Fusion Talent Mgt Cloud, Fusion CRM Cloud, and Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO) with pre-built integration between EBS and these Fusion Apps.
Oracle’s general recommendation to EBS customers is to:
o Upgrade to the latest release - EBS 12.1.3
o Leverage new capabilities of 12.1.3
o Extend the EBS footprint with new EBS solutions to meet their business requirements
o Evaluate co-existence of Fusion Application modules with their EBS deployment
Thanks.
Elke
Thanks Steven for the thread.
I am looking for your advise of whether it has become supported to run Discoverer connect to eBSO users on Read-Only database.
Regards,
Murad
Murad,
Thanks for your inquiry. We are actively working on a certification project for Discoverer with Active DataGuard for E-Business Suite. Due to Oracle's revenue reconginition policies, dates and time lines cannot be disclosed.
Please continue to watch or subscribe to this blog for new announcements regardging this certification effort.
Regards,
Elke
Using Active Data Guard Reporting with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and Oracle Database 11g (Doc ID 1070491.1)
says EBS to be at 12.1.3.
So my question is if we just use it for reporting database part also do we need to be at 12.1.3 or is there any other option or work around.
Hello, Guest,
This document has been certified with EBS 12.1.3 environments. We have not validated it for earlier EBS environments (e.g. 12.1.1). If you report any issues with, say, 12.1.1 that cannot be reproduced in 12.1.3, our default recommendation will be to apply 12.1.3.
Regards,
Steven
Hi Steven,
We would like to use Discoverer 11.1.1.7 to use R12.1.3 Active data guard. Please let me if this scenario is certified .
Thanks!
Thy
We would like to offload Discoverer reporting to a standby database. We are currently using 12.1.3 and database level 11.2.0.3
Guest,
For Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1, you can offload Discoverer reporting to an Active Data Guard database instance. Please refer to the following for requirements and additional information:
http://support.oracle.com/rs?type=doc&%3Cspan%20id=1070491.1
Thanks.
Elke
Is OBIA using OBIEE certified with 12.1.3 and Active DataGuard in RDBMS 12.1.02
Guest,
Oracle E-Business Suite development does not certify OBIA or OBIEE with Active Data Guard. Please open a service request with the OBIEE support team to inquiry regarding this certification and perhaps log an enhancement request for the same.
Regards,
Elke
Is there any documentation which says how to verify if the concurrent program actually offloaded to standby ?
Hello, Manas,
Thank you for your comment. We updated Note 1070491.1 with a new Appendix H with details about how to verify this. Thanks for helping us improve our documentation!
Regards,
Steven
Hi Steven
Recently we go through your blogs and know about ADG Wih 12.1.3 for offloading reporting.Could you please let me know if we will implement than how can we put the data with stakeholder for analysis.How can we check that it will helpful for our environment after implement ADG
Regards
Chandan
Steven, Considering in-memory column store is supported on the active standby side for reports and analytic from 12cR2, Does Oracle have a plan to support Oracle Business Suite Information Discovery (endeca extensions) on ADG standby.
Thanks,
-Malathi
Malathi, Information Discovery does not have a dependency on in-memory column store in DB so that aspect is orthogonal to the use of the ADG standby database.
Theoretically the ADG node can be used to build Endeca data domains for EBS especially when running full loads. We have not explored that option in detail yet.
About offloading Discoverer 11.1.1.7 report to Active data guard using EBS 12.2.4. Is this scenario certified?
Thanks!