An important area that E-Business Suite systems architects and DBAs need to monitor are Oracle’s Support Coverage windows for different parts of their environments.  Even if you do keep track of these things, however, it can be tricky to understand how different support windows relate to each other, and some of the implications might not be immediately obvious.

Critical Reading for Upgrade Planning


Despite its somewhat innocuous and misleading title, the following document contains specifics
about support coverage dates for E-Business Suite releases, Database
releases, and Fusion Middleware releases.  It also contains the definitions for critical terms such as Premier Support, Extended Support, and Sustaining Support.

This is mandatory
reading if you’re evaluating upgrade options and schedules for your
Apps 11i environment:
Premier Support Coverage Ending in 2007 for 9iR2

Here’s the E-Business Suite Release 11i table from that document:

Applications Support Coverage:


And here’s the Database table from that document:

Database Support Coverage:


Unraveling This Skein

If you’re running your Apps 11.5.9 or 11.5.10 environment on the 9.2 database, you should begin planning your upgrade to the 10gR2 database as soon as possible.  Since that upgrade path is available for your Apps release, Premier Support for the 9.2 database for your environment will end in July 2007, as shown above.

If you’re on Apps 11.5.8, it’s a little trickier.  As you can see, Premier Support coverage for the 9iR2 (9.2) database and Release 11.5.8 both end in 2007, but at different times:
  • 9.2:  Premier Support ends July 2007
  • 11.5.8:  Premier Support ends November 2007
However, the tricky part is that 11.5.8 users can’t upgrade their 9.2 database, since the use of the 10gR2 database requires 11.5.9, at minimum.

In a situation like this, Oracle’s general support policy has you covered:  E-Business Suite 11.5.8 users running the 9.2 database will automatically be eligible to receive Premier Support for database issues until November 2007.  However, if you’re still on 11.5.8, it may be worthwhile upgrading to 11.5.10 well-before November 2007.

Safest Policy:  Staying Current

It might sound obvious, but this underlines our general recommendation to stay current with the latest releases of the E-Business Suite and associated technology stack components.  Users on the latest releases (i.e. Apps 11.5.10 and the 10.2 database) don’t have to worry about these kinds of complexities around timing of support coverage windows.

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