Happy New Year 2016

EBS 12.2.7 AD & TXK Delta 7 Features Review

With 12.2.7 AD & TXK Delta 7 - EBS Customers on 12.2 should be seeing improvements and stability. It is time now to review them. Watch this blog for the detailed review.

Some of the key features of Delta 7 are

• Enhanced adop Console Messages
• New adop Monitoring Tool
• New adop 'validate' Option
• Support for Middle Tier EBS Technology Checker
• Support for EBS Installation Central Inventory
• Script to Automate Changing Oracle WebLogic Server Administration User Password
• Simplified Procedure for Changing WLS Data Source
• New 'dualfs' Option in Standard Cloning
• Improved Delete Node and Delete Managed Server APIs
• Mandatory Definitions of Context Variables
• Automatic Execution of ETCC on Database Tier After Cloning
• Various adop Enhancements and Fixes

Exadata Upgrade - Adding X5-2 Half Rack to X3-2 Existing Half Rack

Recently did an Exadata Expansion project on x3 half rack and making it a full rack by adding x5.
this setup is a full exadata rack with two different flavours of engineered system hardware four x3 compute nodes and four x5-2 compute nodes along with seven x3 cellnodes with seven x5 cell nodes.
This topology is supported but there were a lot of work behind.

• First getting the x3 on the supported release 12c , this involved 4 node grid upgrade from 11g to 12c and x3 compute/cell node image to 12c from 11g.
• Next physical racking of x5 hardware into x3 rack space
• Then upgrade x5 to the latest software stack 12c same as x3
• Interconnect both x3 and x5 to co-exisits
• Precheck of the full exadata rack before making them into one cluster
• Next add the four x5 node to the x3 rac cluster using addnode.sh
• Now the storage - x3 had 3TB disk and x5 has 4TB disk , so grid disk has to be the same size.
• following doc "How to Add Exadata Storage Servers Using 3TB/4TB Disks to an Existing Database Machine (Doc ID 1476336.1)" will help.
• the additional 1TB space from x5 cell storage was created into RECO2 for future recovery storage space as the current setup is 80:20 (DATA:RECO)
• Completed cluster verification and return the rack to service 

This whole exercises was so cool and went as documented.
For documentation the below was used (you may have to refer to the latest document for extending exadata)
Oracle® Exadata Database Machine Extending and Multi-Rack Cabling Guide
12c Release 1 (12.1)
E51952-10
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E50790_01/doc/doc.121/e51952/hardware.htm#DBMMR21157

An inspiration to an entire generation, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam - Rest in Peace. The real hero behind Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

An inspiration to an entire generation,  Dr APJ Abdul Kalam - Rest in Peace. The real hero behind Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) 

Oracle GoldenGate Training Index by Senthil Rajendran

Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

GoldenGate Initial Load by Senthil Rajendran

Welcome to the world of replication. Recently have been deep into GoldenGate and here are the series of presentation that can help you to start with GoldenGate



Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

GoldenGate Use Cases by Senthil Rajendran

Welcome to the world of replication. Recently have been deep into GoldenGate and here are the series of presentation that can help you to start with GoldenGate



Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning by Senthil Rajendran

Welcome to the world of replication. Recently have been deep into GoldenGate and here are the series of presentation that can help you to start with GoldenGate



Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

GoldenGate Implementations Essential by Senthil Rajendran

Welcome to the world of replication. Recently have been deep into GoldenGate and here are the series of presentation that can help you to start with GoldenGate



Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

GoldenGate Fundamentals Session by Senthil Rajendran

Welcome to the world of replication. Recently have been deep into GoldenGate and here are the series of presentation that can help you to start with GoldenGate




Index
GoldenGate Fundamentals Session
GoldenGate Implementations Essential
GoldenGate Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Tuning
GoldenGate Use Cases
GoldenGate Initial Load

Supporting a Day Against DRM with PacktPub

What is DRM?

DRM stands for “digital rights management,” a bit of technology that hardware and software manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders use to control the way we use the devices and media that we own. The idea is to limit users’ ability to copy the content without permission, but DRM does much more: it shapes how people tinker with and share devices, software, music, movies, etc. they legally paid for. Have you ever unsuccessfully tried to copy music you “bought” from your computer to your iPhone? Attempted to download an ebook from Amazon only to discover it isn't “compatible” with your device? That’s DRM at work.

To celebrate all eBooks and Videos are available in a lesser price with PacktPub. Please read here http://bit.ly/1KgYlv6

EBS R12.2 Delta 6 Feature Review : Enhancement of adop console messages

ADOP console messages was always something that administrators needed changes. Delta 6 new features talks that there has been more enhancements done and running SQLs are displayed. Yes & True , it does but comparing to Delta 5 there are not much improvements. If you are from a older Delta version 2 or 3 , then Delta 6 upgrade might be interesting.

Instead of displaying the complete update statements , I can see messages like "[STATEMENT] Updating cutover_status=0 for session_id : 67" which are quite meaning full.

Still see a lot of technical names used like "[STATEMENT] Inside createPatchCtxFile()..."

EBS R12.2 Delta 6 Feature Review : EBS Technology Consistency Checker (ETCC)

With EBS R12.2 Delta 6 will not display a warning message when using the ADOP utility. An additional check is made every time ADOP tool is invoked which checks for the  recommended patches that are missing in the instance. This feature is ETCC and you will see something like this on the ADOP logs.

    [PROCEDURE] [START 2015/04/27 14:27:57] Performing database sanity checks
    [WARNING]   ETCC: The following database fixes are not applied in node vmohstest001
                  14046443
                  14255128
                  16299727
                  16359751
                  17250794
                  17401353
                  18260550
                  18282562
                  18331812
                  18331850
                  18440047
                  18689530
                  18730542
                  19472320
                  19487147
                  19896336
                Refer to My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 1594274.1 for instructions.
    [PROCEDURE] [END   2015/04/27 14:27:57] Finished performing database sanity checks

Recommendation is to review the below note and get all recommended patches applied.

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2: Consolidated List of Patches and Technology Bug Fixes (Doc ID 1594274.1)

Note : please refer to the recent product documentation to know the latest changes.

EBS R12.2 Delta 6 Feature Review : Single File System Instance

With one of the main feature in 12.2 dual file system, there was always a need about having a single file system in 12.2 like 12.1.x and get away with the ADOP patching cycle. With Delta 6 AD and TXK you can. It is important to understand the feature and know its limitations.

There are two advantages of this single file system feature in 12.2

• no more synchronization of run and patch file system
• save storage

Still it operates with same ADOP engine and it is NOT CERTIFIED for PRODUCTION.

This feature will be interesting for development team where they need an EBS 12.2 instance where they can test their custom code.

Here is how to setup 

• Install R12.2 Instance with dual file system or Clone an existing environment with dual file system. No option available in the Rapid Installer to select single file system instance.
• Remove the PATCH_BASE using operating system remove command rm -rf $PATCH_BASE
• Apply the patch using in ADOP downtime mode and run cleanup phase as required

So what is not possible ?

• You cannot clone the single file system to build another environment.
• You cannot enable the dual file system back and start a patching cycle

Note : please refer to the recent product documentation to know the latest changes.

EBS 12.2 do not ignore the database patches on top of AD Delta 5 and TXK Delta 5

Make sure all the recommended patches are in place as a part of the bundle patch. Your EBS 12.2 ADOP cycle could go unstable with out the database patches.

EBS 12.2 Essential Bundle Fixes for AD Delta 5 and TXK Delta 5 (Doc ID 1934471.1)

EBS 12.2 Essential Bundle Fixes for AD Delta 5 and TXK Delta 5 (Doc ID 1934471.1)

if any of the below features are interesting to your deployment then please review the doc and apply the essential bundle patches on 12.2.5 environment. Hope this helps to stabilize your environment.

Section 4: Features and Fixes in the Current Code level
The bundle fixes include implementation of the following AD and TXK features and fixes.

4.1: AD Features and Fixes

• The database connection module has been enhanced such that the former multiple connections during adop execution have been reduced to only two connections for all embedded SQL actions.
• Concurrency issues during multi-node configuration have been fixed.
• Redundancy issues have been addressed:
• When calling validation on all nodes.
• Unnecessary calls to the TXK API, have been removed from the cleanup phase.
• Time-consuming database actions have been centralized, instead of being performed on all nodes.
• Multinode logic has been changed to depend on a new table, adop_valid_nodes, instead of fnd_nodes.
• An issue where AD Admin and AD Splice actions were not synchronized on shared slave nodes has been fixed.
• Reporting capabilities have been improved for:
• Abandon nodes and failed nodes.
• Uncovered objects not being displayed after actualize_all in adopreports.
• Out of sync nodes during fs_clone and abort.
• Cutover improvements:
• Restartability of cutover.
• An obsoleted materialized view has been removed from processing during cutover.
• xdfgen.pl has been enhanced to support execution against Oracle RAC databases where ipscan is enabled.
• Support for valid comma-separated adop phases has been provided.
• Several database-related performance issues have been fixed.
• Improvements have been made in supporting hybrid, DMZ, non-shared, and shared configurations.
• The adop utility has been enhanced to support host name containing the domain name.

4.2: TXK New Features and Fixes

• Enhancements have been made to the provisioning tools used in multi-tier environments to perform operations such as adding or deleting nodes and adding or deleting managed servers.
• An enhancement has been made to allow customization of the s_webport and s_http_listen_parameter context variables when adding a new node.
• Performance improvements have been made for cloning application tier nodes, particularly in the pre-clone and post-clone phases.
• Fixes related to cloning support for Oracle 12c Database have been provided.
• Performance improvements have been made for managing application tier services, including implementation of the Managed Server Independence Mode feature (-msimode parameter to adstrtal.sh) to allow application tier services to be started or stopped without the WebLogic Administration Server running.
• On a multi-node application tier system configuration, remote connectivity is no longer required for packaging the Oracle E-Business Suite WebLogic Server domain.
• JVM heap size (-Xms and -Xmx) has been increased to 1 GB for the WebLogic Administration Server and all managed servers.

EBS 12.2 Blocking a Concurrent Program while Online Patching

Will there be a need to Blocking a Concurrent Program while Online Patching in EBS 12.2 , if so then here are the steps.

• Use the Concurrent Program window or page to edit your concurrent program definition.
• Select the Incompatibilities button to open the Incompatible Programs window.
• Add a new global incompatibility rule for your program with the following program:
• Application Name: Applications DBA
• Program Name: Online Patching In Progress (internal name: ADZDPATCH) concurrent program

EBS 12.2 Validation Scripts for Prepare, Cutover and FS_Clone Phases

Are you going to run Prepare, Cutover or FS_CLONE , then before you start the phases using ADOP tool if you would like to validate the instance if it is ready for those phases then here is a simple script.

export RUN_CONTEXT_FILE=/testi/inst/fs1/inst/apps/testi_host1/appl/admin/testi_host1.xml
export PATCH_CONTEXT_FILE=/testi/inst/fs2/inst/apps/testi_host1/appl/admin/testi_host1.xml

perl $AD_TOP/patch/115/bin/txkADOPValidations.pl  -contextfile=$RUN_CONTEXT_FILE -patchctxfile=$PATCH_CONTEXT_FILE -phase=fs_clone -logloc=/tmp
perl $AD_TOP/patch/115/bin/txkADOPValidations.pl  -contextfile=$RUN_CONTEXT_FILE -patchctxfile=$PATCH_CONTEXT_FILE -phase=prepare -logloc=/tmp
perl $AD_TOP/patch/115/bin/txkADOPValidations.pl  -contextfile=$RUN_CONTEXT_FILE -patchctxfile=$PATCH_CONTEXT_FILE -phase=cutover -logloc=/tmp

Review the logfile that gets created under /tmp

You can run the scripts for the phase you are interested and it takes not more than 10 mins.

ORA-06508 in an EBS 12.2 environment ?

Custom.pll template are sometimes used wrong. In case of 12.2 make sure you use the seeded 12.2 template to put in you customizations. In case if you are migrating from a older release make sure it is created from the latest versions. You can check the version using adident package. ORA-06508 are known to be a problem with older custom.pll template.

$APPLTMP directory in R12.2 Multi Node

$APPLTMP directory in R12.2 if placed in a shared location in a multi node environment the there are know complications in multi node cutover. So best to leave it under INST top for each node.

EBS 12.2 Too Many Invalid ?

Run EBS 12.2 Compliance Checker and resolve any violations.

Document 1531121.1, "Using the Online Patching Readiness Report in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2"

The consequences of failing to fix a violation depend on the type of violation. Objects that do not comply with Online Patching development standards may behave incorrectly or become invalid during or after online patching.

Some customers have synonyms from custom schemas pointing directly to the base tables. Don't you think this is a 12.2 violation that should be fixed....