Sean's Oracle Technology Ramblings

2007-05-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Life on Planet...uh, I mean Project...X

According to the rumor mill, Collaborate 07 will include an announcement about Oracle's Project X Integration Framework. Project X is a composite application integration framework that allegedly will allow users to pull together the best pieces or features of Oracle's various application stacks into a single, unified business process.

Project X sounds similar to what many in the industry thought Fusion Applications would be when they were first announced. In fact, this could turn out to be a much bigger deal than Fusion Applications for the Oracle apps community...if the rumors are correct. Can't wait to see or hear what happens...

2007-05-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

Getting Personal with OA Framework Pages

Here are some common questions regarding personalization of E-Business Suite (EBS) HTML-based pages:

"How can we quickly determine if particular E-Biz pages support personalizations?"

First of all, I assume we're talking about the Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Administrator personalization, not Personalized Views (Saved Searches).

All pages built using OA Framework are personalizable by default--the page developer has to do something specific to make the page be non-personalizable. One thing a developer can do to make a page (usually just a region or field) non-personalizable is to set a specific property to false during development. The other is to create regions or fields programmatically (so they don't exist in the page definition that is stored for using with personalizations). These are generally the exception cases.

Some HTML Products Don't Support OAF Personalization

In 11.5.10 (11i), many E-Business Suite CRM products and some other products were built using a different technology stack (JTT/JTF), so they couldn't use OAF personalization. In EBS Release 12, most of these have been rebuilt using OAF.

EBS Business Intelligence products have their own version of personalization, and they do not use the OA Framework feature even though they are built with OAF. Business Intelligence products have somewhat different implementations of their personalization depending on whether you are looking at a dashboard or a report page. But the way to tell if it's a BI page is to look in the upper corners. If you see an Actions dropdown, it's a BI page.

But Which Ones Are Built Using OA Framework?

Sometimes people have trouble telling which pages are created using OA Framework. Here are several ways I use to tell if a page is built using OAF:

The best and easiest way I know of is to look for "OA.jsp" in the URL of the page.

You can also use the About this Page feature to confirm if a page is an OA Framework page. If you don't have it already, you'll need the FND: Diagnostics profile option set to Yes (you may need your administrator to set this). Go to a product page (I'm using iProcurement here) and click on the About this Page link:

If you see that the first line of the page definition is "pageLayout", it's an OAF page.

Beyond looking at each page individually, you can use the About this Page feature to get a whole list of pages built with OAF, all at once. Since you're already there, simply go look at the page context (menu), as follows:

About this Page > Page Context > Menu (Expand All)

Most of the functions in the menu display a URL, so you can see at a glance which ones start with "OA.jsp":

Another way to check for a single page is to use View Page Source in the browser. Early in the source, you will see the following for an OAF page:

You can also list the pages (and more) using the JDR_UTILS package. It is described in the "Inspecting the MDS Repository Content" chapter of the Oracle Application Framework Developer's Guide for your release version (available on MetaLink).

Finally, you can set the "Personalize Self-Service Defn" profile option to Yes to allow personalization, and then look for the Personalize Page link on the top of each page. Of course you can also use the link to see the personalization hierarchy page (or the context page if you are using 11.5.9 up to 11.5.10 CU1--it changed in 11.5.10 CU2).

Note that all of this applies to both Release 11.5.10 and Release 12 of the E-Business Suite. It also applies to EBS 11.5.9 if you applied OAF 11.5.10 to it as part of a patch.

To learn more about OA Framework Personalization, see the Oracle Application Framework Personalization Guide in the Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library.

Here's an Extra Tip: Hidden Fields Between the Fields

Some product teams build features into their pages that are hidden by default because they expect most customers won't use them. These include extra fields for special purposes, hidden Additional Information regions containing descriptive flexfields, and so on. We recommend to product teams that they explicitly document places in their applications where customers are expected to personalize the pages. Check your product's documentation for such updates. I know that iProcurement, at least, mentions such hidden fields directly in the text of their implementation manual. I found one on page 2-17 of the Oracle iProcurement Implementation and Administration Guide, Release 12, Part No. B31402-01. Also, the Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide and Oracle Workflow User's Guide both have appendices highlighting some of the personalizations for Workflow pages that customers may be most interested in using.

Happy personalizing!

Related

2007-05-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

What Does "DMZ Certification" Mean?

Depending on whom you ask, the E-Business Suite has somewhere around 200 functional applications products, clustered into larger product families such as Oracle Financials. A subset of those products are specifically certified for deployment in an externally-facing configuration via demilitarized zones (DMZ). For example, products certified for these types of "external" deployments include iRecruitment, iStore, and iSupplier Portal.

The diagram above shows a common DMZ configuration for the E-Business Suite Release 11i. All of the points I'll make in this article apply equally to Release 11i and 12.

Loopbacks are Incompatible with DMZs

Some E-Business Suite products use loopbacks, which I've discussed in a previous article. Apps products certified for external use in demilitarized zone configurations are tested to ensure that they don't use loopbacks.

In fact, we turn off loopback support completely as part of the DMZ certification process for externally-facing products. If a particular product breaks during testing in these environments, this means that their code must be upgraded to eliminate the use of loopbacks.

Which Products are Certified for DMZs?

Products certified for external deployment are listed in:

Metalink Note 287176.1 for Release 11i
Metalink Note 380490.1 for Release 12

Not all Apps products are appropriate for use in demilitarized zones, so product testing in these configurations isn't comprehensive across all product families. For example, regardless of security measures, no sane Apps architect would consider allowing their Chart of Accounts to be modified via the Internet. So, there's no point in certifying that particular product with in a DMZ configuration.

If a product isn't in listed in the appendices of the Notes listed above, it could mean one of two things:

It uses loopbacks and is not certified for external use in a DMZ configuration
It hasn't been tested in a DMZ configuration, and may or may not use loopbacks

What If a Product Isn't Certified?

Here's a hypothetical situation:

You'd like to deploy a particular application externally in a DMZ configuration. It's not listed in either of the referenced Metalink Notes. What do you do?

The answer: log a Service Request against the specific application via Metalink stating your requirement. It always helps to include a network diagram of your proposed topology, by the way. If all goes as planned, the Development team for the product will be notified of your requirement and will respond with an update on their plans for that certification.

Related

Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 287176.1)
Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 380490.1)
In-Depth: Demilitarized Zones and the E-Business Suite
Loopbacks, Virtual IPs & the E-Business Suite

2007-05-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Will the Real JRE Please Stand Up?

Unlike Release 11i, E-Business Suite Release 12 no longer requires Oracle Jinitiator for its Forms-based content. In theory, it will be possible to use any version of the native Sun J2SE Runtime Engine (JRE) plug-in to access Forms-based content in this Applications release.

The present reality is that you need to use a specific version of the Sun JRE with Release 12. I know some of you have been interested in going deep on this, so strap on your helmets; we're goin' in.

A Problem of Focus

When you have multiple windows for different programs open in WinXP (say, Outlook and Firefox), the one you're working in actively has the focus. So, if you're working in Outlook and then click on the Firefox window, the focus changes to Firefox.

Here's the complicating factor: current releases of the native Sun JRE plug-in may lose focus from Forms-based content in a few situations. This behavior occurs in all Sun JRE versions released publicly to date, including 1.5.0_11.

We've been working closely with Sun on this issue. Sun has committed to including the fix for this issue in an upcoming JRE release. In the meantime, Sun has provided Oracle with a specially-patched version of 1.5.0_10 that includes the fix for this bug. This version is informally called 1.5.0_10-erdist and is included as part of the Release 12 Rapid Install.

Checking Your JRE Version

To check which version you have installed:

Enable the Java Console on your PC through the 'Java Control Panel' by clicking on the 'Java' icon within your desktop's 'Control Panel'.
Select the 'Advanced' Tab and expand the 'Java Console' field, then ensure the 'Show Console' option is selected.
Select the 'General' Tab and click the 'About' button.

If the version displayed is:

Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-erdist-b20061221)

You have the special version that includes the focus fix required for use with Release 12.
Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-b03)

You have the standard version of 1.5.0_10 that does not include the focus fix. If you wish to use Forms-based content in Release 12, you need to uninstall this version and install the special 1.5.0_10-erdist version included with Release 12.

A Word About Upgrading Your JRE

It's important to remember that JRE 1.5.0_10-erdist is the only version available today that includes this focus fix. If you or your end-users use (or upgrade to) 1.5.0_11, they may encounter issues with accessing Forms-based content in E-Business Suite Release 12.

Later JRE versions that include the focus fix will be certified with Release 12, of course. At present, I don't have any information that I can share about either their release dates or their certification schedules with the E-Business Suite. I'll post updates here as soon as they're available.

Related

2007-05-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Collaborate’07 Day 2 - BI Roadmap Update

I’ve just got out of the Oracle’s BI Roadmap session by Matt Elumba, here’s some notes on what Matt had to say. I was sort of expecting more or less a rerun of the same talk we had at Open World and ODTUG Kaleidoscope, but there was actually quite a lot of new material on the BI EE and BI SE release schedule, plus an update on what’s happening following the Hyperion purchase. Here’s the highlights of what was covered:

Oracle BI Suite still comes in Standard, Enterprise, and Standard Edition One versions. Hyperion Essbase was shown in an architecture diagram at the same level as Answers, Dashboards, Delivers and so on (above the BI server, as the end-user query tools), as “Essbase Analytics”. Oracle Data Integrator was shown in the same line-up, giving Oracle’s enterprise BI toolset as Answers, Delivers, Dashboards, Essbase Analytics and Data Integrator. When we pressed Matt on whether Essbase was being positioned as Oracle’s “enterprise OLAP server”, he said that this had yet to be decided and both Essbase and Oracle OLAP would be developed and sold for the immediate future, but that Essbase had some obvious benefits in that it was cross-platform, drives all of the hyperion planning applications and had a good market share. I guess we’ll hear more on this over the next twelve months or so; I went to a talk recently where I heard a bit about what’s happening with Oracle OLAP 11g - there’s a lot of very interesting new features coming along with this product as well (which I’ll go in to in more detail when they’re officially announced), so I certainly don’t see Oracle OLAP being dropped, but then again I doubt Oracle bought Essbase for no reason.

In terms of the BI Suite Enteprise Edition roadmap, Matt talked about three upcoming releases:

The 10.1.3.2.1 release (we’re currently on 10.1.3.2, the “Maui Release”). 10.1.3.2.1 will extend coverage from Windows and Linux 32-bit to the same platforms on 64-bit, plus support for AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. This release will also include general bug fixes for the existing Windows and Linux 32-bit versions, so presumably will be an upgrade all of us will want to make.
The 10.1.3.3. release, due out “in the summar or fall”, will primarly bring in new Microsoft Office integration. There’ll be an Excel add-in that allows you to connect to the Common Enterprise Information Model, browse and open Answers requests, drill in to hierarchies and drill back to the original answers report. The plug-in looked quite swish (in screenshots) and will be accompanied by a Powerpoint add-in that again allows you to browse and choose report, insert answers charts and tables into presentations (converting them en-route in to powerpoint-native charts and tables), and will allow you to copy and paste either single answers views or complete dashboards. This release will also feature bookmarkable dashboards and reports, allowing you to share dashboards via URLs and to return to particular reports that you’d like to mark and go back to later.
This release will also provide integration between BI Publisher and Discoverer (as covered by Mike Durran at various user group events this year), a web-based metadata dictionary, BI Publisher export to Flash, pass through of database functions (so you can use Oracle-specific functions in your BI Answers requests), XMLA-driven business models (e.g. import of XML/A cubes in to the Common Enterprise Information Model, is this how they’ll integrate Essbase in to BI EE?), and Netezza certification.
Matt then went on to talk about Discoverer futures. After the usual slide about upgrade options, Matt talked about Discoverer End User Layers being importable in to the BI EE Common Enterprise Information Model - this was originally given as a development aim by Thomas Kurian at the original BI EE launch last year, was dropped and now appears to be back on the cards. Cool. Matt also then covered Discoverer/BI Publisher integration, use of Delivers for alerting, and surfacing Discoverer worksheets in BI EE Dashboards. I looks likely that this functionality will be out within the next twelve months (i.e. pre-Discoverer 11g) although as usual this is more for information rather than a definate promise.
We then asked a number of questions, many of them were around DBI and EPB which of course were outside of Matt’s area, but we asked around OWB vs. DBI and Oracle OLAP vs. Essbase. Matt as you would expect at this early stage had to be fairly non-committal, but to me at least it’s clear that ODI and Essbase are going to have a major part to play in Oracle’s vision of Enterprise business intelligence. To quote Matt, Oracle bought Hyperion “to bring enterprise performance management to the enteprise level” and their aim to to take what Hyperion have done well up to this point, and then apply it across all the areas - supply chain, manufacturing, finance etc etc that Oracle have applications in. Using Oracle’s BI tools, you’ll be able to set goals at the enterprise level and use the new tools from Hyperion to manage performance across all the organization, not just finance. Good stuff indeed.

Finishing off, there was a brief talk about the 11g release of BI Enterprise Edition, where we should see something called the “Action Framework” introduced, along with the next generation of balanced scorecard. Given that the 10.1.3.3. release of BI EE will be out (realistically) for Open World, my guess is that the 11g release of BI EE will be out around the summer to fall of 2008, but that’s all guesswork at the moment based on the usual gaps between releases.

Anyway, it was a useful talk and the new stuff on Hyperion was interesting. Apart from positioning Essbase alongside Answers, Dashboard and so on, it was obviously early days in terms of being more specific but over the next few months (perhaps in time for ODTUG Kaleidoscope in June?) I’d expect more details of the adoption of Hyperion products to be announced, particularly what they plan to do with the planning and budgeting products (and by extension, what’ll happen with EPB) and what they plan to do with Brio.

2007-05-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

A First Look at Oracle Real-Time Decisions

I’ve been telling everyone who I got talking to this week at Collaborate, that the future of BI is in it’s integration with business processes. The problem with BI at the moment is that it’s a minority interest; tools such as Discoverer, Business Objects, Cognos and so on are far too complicated for the average person in an organization, where most people don’t have the time or inclination to go on a three or five day course just to learn a query tool. In addition, most people don’t want to keep making context switches between their line-of-business application and a tool such as Discoverer; it interupts their train of thought and makes tasks take twice as long to carry out.

In addition, if you can embed business intelligence “insights” directly in the applications people are using, they’re more likely to understand what BI is saying to them (due to it being in context) and they’re more likely to act on it, as the tools they need to react to the insight are right in front of them. With this in mind, you’ll be amused to know that, instead of gambling on the blackjack tables and staring at the girls in cages, this week I’ve spend most of my spare time in Las Vegas up in my hotel room getting to grips with Oracle Real-Time Decisions, a prime example of adding BI “smarts” to business processes.

Oracle Real-Time Decisions originally came from a company called Sigma Dynamics, who’s real-time Decision engine Siebel used to OEM and include as an option for their CRM line of products. Shortly after the Siebel purchase, Oracle bought Sigma Dynamics themselves and you can now download the Real-Time Decisions platform from OTN.

The principal behind Real-Time Decisions is to provide a self-learning decision server, running on a J2EE platform, that takes as inputs for example a set of customer data, a series of events such as receive a call, add caller and call center employee details, present an offer, receive feedback on the offer, and close the call. The real-time decision engine is a data mining engine (Sigma Dynamics’ own engine, not the Oracle Data Mining engine) that establishes correlations and causality between customer and call inputs, the offers that are made and the response of customers, and over time learns which offers (for example) are most likely to be accepted by a certain type of customer. As such it’s a prime example of BI applied to business processes: you can insert Real-Time Decisions in to, for example, a call center business process, and have it recommend an offer (a new credit card, a savings account, a brokerage account for example) which then gets picked up by the business process and presented to the customer. The best bit though is the self-learning aspect; by using data mining, the process gets more and more accurate over time as it adjusts the offers in line with the ones previously made that have been successful, with feedback either being immediate (whether the customer says “yes” to you sending him details) or staggered over a later time period (whether they then open the account, and even start spending money on the credit card). So how does Real-Time Decisions work?

Well, working with Real-Time Decisions is a bit of a cross between Java development and data mining. You use Eclipse as the development environment, with a Real-Time Decisions plug-in which makes it seem as if it’s a dedicated tool. No doubt in time this will be changed to JDeveloper, but for now, Eclipse is just fine.

Working with Eclipse, you set up the Real-Time Decisions project (called an “Inline Service”) by first defining the input data model, and then setting up the individual choices, decisions, informants (processes that tell the Decision engine something relevant), advisors (processes that pass back insights to the calling application) and models.

Working with the project is largely point-and-click, with Java code used to provide specific bits of logic to assign session variables to parameters, do some conditional stuff and so on. From working through the tutorial, it doesn’t seem that you need to be a Java programmer to put the project together, the code is uses is just basic variable assignments, if-then-else and so on, but (and I’ll come to this later in the posting) most likely you’ll need to be a Java programmer, or at least a SOA “process integrator”, to wire this product into your actual application.

Anyway, once you’ve put the inline service together, there’s a Java load generator program you can use to do some initial training of the model, and to check that it performs under load. Working with this tool was fairly straigtforward, you just tell it the number of steps to iterate over, how to assign parameter values (weighted, in sequence, random and so on) and let it generate a load.

After you’ve run the load test, you can further refine the model until it’s at the point where you can start running it with some real data. There’s a thin-client, web based application also provided with Real-Time Decisions called Decision Center; using this, you can see the decision steps that you’ve defined in the Eclipse tool, like this:

You can also see what decisions the tool has been making, and how much of a “lift” - successes above what you’d have got from random choices against a control group.

So what we’ve got here is a data mining tool built for a specific purpose - to build a model which will for example predict, for a given set of customer attributes, which offer they are most likely to take up; in other words, which is the most effective decision in a given situation. The real-time bit comes from the fact that it deals with streams of data and events, provides immediate feedback and stores feedback you provide to constantly update the model.

Positives from the evaluation process were that the main developer tool, as it was based on Eclipse and a plug-in, was suprisingly nice to work with, although it’s by no means an end-user tool - perhaps a direct marketing power-user or someone who in their other time puts BPEL business processes together, but not something that will sit alongside Answers and Dashboards as an easy-to-use end user query tool. It more sits alongside tools such the ones in Oracle SOA Suite, and of course you’ll need a Java or SOA/Web Services/ESB-style environment in which to plug Real-Time Decisions’ inputs and outputs in to - it’s not a database-centric application, it’s more designed to communicate via messaging and web services.

On the downside, the installation process was extremely painful and harked back to the bad old days of editing web.xml configuration files, setting up jmx remote ports and the like, working with JConsole and so on - it works with either OC4J, Websphere or Weblogic and stores it’s data in either Oracle, SQL Server or DB/2, and it took me around a day’s solid work to get it all up and running. As a hint, it does all work in the end, but you have to follow the instructions to the letter; I had problems in several places with capitals in the wrong places in variable names, etc etc, you just need to make sure you type it all in correctly and check at each stage that everything’s working. Some of the admin was also a bit rough around the edges; JConsole is used quite a bit to set up accounts and permissions, clear down results sets and so on; I guess in reality, the calling Java program would do all the managed bean (MBean) interactions that JConsole does but in the meantime, the server admin stuff is at this stage a bit primitive.

That aside though, it looks like a very promising product. You need to be aware of what it’s there for - for adding dynamic, self-learning decisioning to business processes and applications, with the data mining element being a bit of a “black box” and designed to do a single task - make increasingly accurate decisions. As such, its a good “first taste” of what BI-embedded in applications is going to look like, and one of my next tasks down the line is to put the SOA Suite “Order Booking” demo application together and try and wire Real-Time Decisions in to it.

2007-05-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on OBI EE for Discoverer Users

I guess that if we’re looking at a potential upgrade for Discoverer users, it would be useful to take a moment to think about what’s good, and what’s not so good, about Oracle Discoverer.

Easy to use, lots of wizards, familiar look-and-feel, high awareness and exposure within the Oracle user community – many people have exposure to Discoverer through its apps integration, bundling with Oracle Application Server and so on – the “comfort” factor if you like. However, at Macerich we really do not use Discoverer with the apps. It is mostly use to present Property Manager data that is stored in our wharehouse.
Leveraging of Oracle’s built in calculation, analytic and PL/SQL functions – Discoverer uses the Oracle database as the calculation engine, you get access to all the built-in SQL and PL/SQL features including all the analytic (lag, lead, window, top N etc) functions.
Integration with Oracle database security and E-Business Suite responsibilities, and pre-built E-Business Suite reports and BI metadata layer.
Integration with Oracle Warehouse Builder (although this requires the Enterprise ETL Option for Warehouse Builder, at $10k a CPU on the ETL database), and integration with Oracle Portal
Oracle OLAP access through Discoverer for OLAP
Lots of functionality around totals, percentages and other report add-ons

If you were honest, the failings of Discoverer could be summed up as the following:

Oracle database-centric; although Discoverer can connect to non-Oracle databases, this is a fairly complicated DBA task and still requires everything to be routed through the Oracle Database, and the End User Layer’s Oracle database dependency still means you need an Oracle database somewhere, even if all your data is in MS SQL Server, for example
Although Discoverer integrates with Oracle Portal, in my opinion is not an optimal solution as it’s tricky to get all the report refreshes working properly, the reports in Portal don’t show a real-time view of the data underneath, you can’t drill and analyze in-place, and Portal itself is a bit overkill for just a BI portal
It’s very hard, if not impossible, to get Discoverer reports to run lightening-fast; typically Discoverer reports take 10, 20 seconds or more to return data, Discoverer itself adds a significant time overhead to queries, it’s just not a fast, snappy environment to report in.
The report authoring part of Discoverer requires a Java applet to be installed and then run in the client PCs Web browser, which can cause security and installation issues for users not running with admin rights, and requires a higher-spec (memory, CPU) PC to run on.
Discoverer for OLAP, whilst very similar to regular relational Discoverer in terms of functionality, look and feel, is however still different, has more limited capabilities (no parameters, can’t total by attribute and so on) and has a separate report catalog and security setup to Discoverer relational.
There’s (currently) no capability to create alerts, distribute reports, add in-context messages to reports giving advice on how to interpret the report.
There’s also (currently) no way of calling Discoverer reports via an API, or adding workflow to Discoverer reports so that a user clicking on a report area or a link displayed along it can trigger, say, a BPEL or Oracle Workflow process to act on insights provided by the report.
There is also (currently) no way of displaying Discoverer-generated data in, say, a letter, or printed labels, or in a report that contains more than one dataset.

I say “(currently)” in some of these issues because a few of them are being addressed by planned integration of Discoverer with OBI EE, and I’ll address these future alternatives to a straight upgrade to OBI EE later in the paper. For the time being though, Discoverer’s advantages could be described as its familiarity, leveraging of Oracle database features, support for totaling, percentages and analytic functions and integration with Warehouse Builder and Portal, whilst the drawbacks are this very Oracle database integration, lack of alerting and report distribution features, lack of APIs and interconnectivity with the application development world, limited output options, and performance, which shouldn’t be overlooked as it’s the number one compliant I hear about Discoverer when I visit customer sites

2007-02-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Choosing Between Release 12 or 11i

One of the most frequently asked questions at OpenWorld was, "Should I upgrade to 11.5.10 or Release 12?" Release 12 wasn't available at that time. Now that Release 12 is available, the answer is a bit simpler.

Not About the Technology Stack

First, the answer to this question is not about the relative merits about the technology stack for the respective E-Business Suite releases. At the heart of the choice between Release 11i and 12 is a hierarchy of business decisions, decisions that require broad and deep input from the stakeholders in your end-user community.

Assessing the Business Benefits

Back in the days when I was a management consultant, a system selection project could run for months (if not years). As with all business decisions in large organisations, your costs and benefits will likely be weighted by qualitative and political considerations, too. At minimum, if you're deliberating between a Release 11i (11.5.10) or 12 upgrade, I would recommend checking that your existing system selection framework includes variants of the following questions:

What's the prioritised list of applications that your business users use today? What are the differences in Release 11i and Release 12 functionality for those applications?
What business advantages, process improvements, and new organizational capabilities will be possible with the new Release 12 features?
What are the new architectural or deployment capabilities in Release 12? How will these new capabilities improve system performance, scalability, availability, manageability, and security?
What investments have you made in adapting your organisation to Release 11i, and vice versa? This might include:

Employee, partner, vendor, and supplier training
Customisations and personalisations, including custom Forms, OA Framework screens, workflows, concurrent programs, and reports
Integrations with third-party systems

Which of your customisations, extensions, and personalisations can be replaced with new Release 12 features? What savings will these represent? How much of those investments will carry over to Release 12?
How will Release 12 help reduce your operational costs? What are the incremental costs of Release 12 infrastructure, relative to your current Release 11i infrastructure costs? These costs might include server, storage, and networking hardware and licencing

2007-02-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

Applying O/S Patches to Apps Environments

Operating system (O/S) vendors often recommend applying latest patches or a specific patch to fix a specific issue you are facing, so you may wonder if these O/S patches could possibly have a negative impact on your E-Business Suite environment.

Unfortunately, it is not unknown for an O/S patch to have an impact on Oracle software. For example, see:

Shutdown Hangs Orphaning Dbw0 Lgwr Processes After Applying O/S Patch 117350-30" (Metalink Note 344633.1)

So, how do you identify and mitigate potential risks?

E-Business Suite Certified with Top Level O/S Versions

In general, Apps 11i performs certifications with only the top level operating system version (Solaris 9 or AIX 5.3 for example). Specific operating system requirements such as kernel settings or O/S patch requirements are documented in:

The platform specific release notes
Certify
Metalink notes relating to eBiz itself or the technology components

Oracle Support would not normally discourage customers from applying any additional O/S patches recommended by O/S vendors unless specific issues have been found and documented that affects Oracle software.

Test Thoroughly Prior to Production Rollouts

As with any patching activity, Oracle recommends that you perform sufficient testing in a representative TEST system prior to implementing in PRODUCTION, to ensure there are no issues introduced by any such changes.

Minimizing O/S Patching Risks

So, what proactive steps can you take to minimize the risk? Before applying an O/S patch:

Search Metalink for any known issues.
If you have any specific concerns, pose the question in the Oracle Forums to see if your peers have any experiences they can share.
Search your O/S vendor's knowledge base and forums for any reported issues.

It is also prudent to have a tested emergency rollout strategy in place to allow you to recover if an issue is only found once implemented in the PRODUCTION environment.

Getting Help with O/S Patch Problems

If you are unfortunate enough to experience problems after applying an O/S patch (hopefully in your TEST environment), raise a Service Request with the appropriate Oracle Support team to get help with identifying the root cause of your issue. Oracle Support will likely expect you to work primarily with your O/S vendor in the initial stages of such an investigation, so you should certainly be engaging your O/S vendor support team as part of the problem resolution process

In conclusion, any change introduces risks as well as the benefits. Planning, research, a healthy dose of paranoia -- and as much testing as possible -- will allow you to minimize and mitigate the risks involved with applying O/S patches, giving the best chance of a successful implementation.

2007-02-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

Transparent Data Encryption Certified for Apps 11i

Stories of lost backup tapes have become embarrassingly common. UPS lost Citigroup backup tapes containing personal information for 3.9 million customers. Bank of America backup tapes containing personal information for 1.2 million federal employees were stolen off a commercial plane. Marriot lost backup tapes with personal information for over 200,000 employees and customers. Iron Mountain lost Time Warner backup tapes containing personal information on 40,000 Time Warner employees. And the list just keeps getting longer...

If one assumes that any small physical object can be lost, then the odds of your losing a backup tape increase with every backup that you make.

Encrypting E-Business Suite Data
An option is to ensure that your backups are encrypted with the 10gR2 Database Transparent Data Encryption feature in the Oracle Advanced Security Option, reducing the risk of security breaches if backup tapes are physically lost or stolen. Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is now certified with the E-Business Suite, allowing you to encrypt selected columns in the E-Business Suite's database files. This encryption is transparent to the E-Business Suite during runtime and requires no E-Business Suite patches. Backups of E-Business Suite database files are encrypted, requiring an Oracle Wallet for decryption.

For complete details, including a list of recommended columns to encrypt, see:
Using Transparent Data Encryption with the E-Business Suite (Metalink Note 403294.1)

2007-02-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

US 2007 Daylight Saving Time Updates

Oracle recently held a webcast on the US 2007 Daylight Saving Time changes and their impacts on E-Business Suite environments. A recorded version of this webcast is available online.

The core E-Business Suite DST documentation has also been updated in a number of areas. The latest version is dated "January 31, 2007" and the updates are summarised in the document's change log. Some important clarifications about patching conditions and impact have been made in these latest revisions

The DST 2007 upgrade process should begin now.

References
Impact of US Timezone 2007 Changes on E-Business Suite Environments (Metalink Note 403311.1)

2007-01-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

Forms Personalisation

So, it's all about J2EE, right?

Well, it will be - and I am all excited by the move to the Fusion Applications platform, and its early form, Oracle Applications Framework.

But we still live in a world with Oracle Forms, and we will continue to do so for Release 12.

It's a feature that's been out just under 2 years, but this is a great venue to highlight it to make sure you're taking maximum advantage of it.

What now?

Forms Personalisation takes the Custom Library (CUSTOM.PLL) concepts and makes them much easier to implement. It is like going from a VCR to a Tivo.

CUSTOM.PLL coding is all hand-tooled PL/SQL which is controlled in a single source file, by default. It allows implementers to trap various Forms triggers and take actions based on them.

All Forms Personalisations, on the other hand, are stored as metadata, and so they are all seamlessly upgraded without needing to be re-applied or addressed - just like Flexfields or Folder definitions! Forms Personalisation provides tools to perform the same configurations, in the form of a Form. (Say that fast, huh?)

Open any Form in 11i10, and go to Help->Diagnostics->Custom Code-> Personalize. This brings up the Personalisation Form in the context of the Form and Function that you were in. This is where you build the Personalisations specific to that Form or Function.

The page has two major tabs: Conditions and Actions. Forms Personalisation is basically a big set of if-then statements that can execute because of various events that take place on that Form.

If...

Conditions determine IF a personalisation executes after a specific event or Forms trigger (including MENU or SPECIAL triggers). Triggers (WHEN-NEW-ITEM-INSTANCE, WHEN-VALIDATE, etc.) can be attached to objects, such as this example - when the user tabs out of the Purchase Order Type field into the Supplier Name field. Note that Conditions include conditional logic (only if the PO Type is 'Planned Purchase Order', e.g.), and scopes (only for Purchasing Superuser responsibility or Vision Operations organization or Joe the useless intern).

Then...

Actions are the list of specific things that you want to have happen. The major actions are:

Builtin: Form or PL/SQL built-ins like executing a procedure, mimicking a key stroke, navigating to another function, opening a URL, etc. Very powerful indeed.

Property: Set the Forms property value of a form item (If it's a Planned Purchase Order, set the Required property of the Description item in the PO_Header block to TRUE, e.g.)

Message: put up a prompt warning like an OK box (cool because you can populate the message with data from screen variables, lookups, or calculations)

Menu: Enables a special menu entry, defining its label, icon name and blocks to which it applies.

How now? (.... 'brown cow?')

Those are the basics, and I think you can see how much more accessible this power is now. It's easily managed, as well. For example, there are delivered FNDLOAD scripts for migrating these personalisations between instances (DEV > TEST > PROD), as well as entering them in version control systems.

Also, there is a central form for identifying the personalisations and turning them off! Pretty good if you completely hose up the WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE event...

Couple of last notes

Forms Personalisation receives events before CUSTOM.PLL does but then passes them normally to CUSTOM.PLL... Your existing CUSTOM.PLL logic will continue to work, but you can introduce these Personalisations first.

Forms Personalisation was tested for performance and has been found to have very low impact.

You need FND 11.5.10 minipack (FND.H), patch 3262159; alternately, it's included in ATG Family Pack H with additional niceties.

References

Customisation and Development for the E-Business Suite

Oracle Forms Personalisation: Change without Coding (James Nurthen, OpenWorld 2006, 628K PDF)

Forms Personalisation in Oracle Applications Users Guide (Metalink Note 279034.1)

2007-01-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

How to Customize Oracle iExpenses Workflows

Here is a couple of examples of how to customize Oracle Internet Expenses workflows. You may need to change the seeded expense report notification routing or expense report approval method.

Changing Receivers of Certain Notifications

We wanted to re-route some notifications from the seeded performers (users, responsibilities, people) to a new performer (group of users). We created a new Oracle user with a new email distribution list as follows:

Define a new OIEADMIN Role. As System Administrator, complete the following steps, create a new Oracle user
Assign desired responsibilities to user OIEADMIN
Run the Synchronize Local WF tables process every time you make changes to user setup.

Define Workflow Notification Performers

Perform these steps in Oracle Workflow Builder to set up/change expense report performers. These steps include recommendations for which item attribute to use for each notification.

Load OIEADMIN Role. From the Files menu, select Load Roles from Database.
In the Role Selection window, query the OIEADMIN role.
From the Query Results region, select the required roles and click the Add button to add the role to the Loaded Roles region. Click OK to save the loaded role to the database. Save your work.
Assign Role to the attribute: From the Navigator window, open the attribute. In the Navigator Control Properties, under the Attribute tab the Type in the main region should be set to Role. In the Default region, select the proper Value (role) and click Apply. Save your work. Assign a role for each of the attributes listed in the Performer Definitions table below.

Define Notification Performers. For each notification outlined in the Performer Definitions table below:

Open the appropriate workflow process.
In the workflow process, open the notification.
In the Navigator Control Properties window, click the Node tab.
Set Performer Type as Constant instead of Attribute.
Choose OIEADMIN as Value.
Click Apply and save your work.

Note: To directly link a role to a notification, Set Performer Type as Constant instead of Attribute. Then, select the role OIEADMIN. By using the Constant type, you have more flexibility. The table below lists the notifications, the seeded performer for each workflow process, and new performer

Change the Find Approver Method

Perform these steps in Oracle Workflow Builder to change the Find Approver method.

Open the ‘Expenses’ item type from the database
In the Navigator window, expend Expenses and Processes folders.
Open (double-click) the manager (Spending) Approval Process
Open the Find Approver function
In the Navigator Control Properties window, click the Node Attributes tab.
In the Value field, select your approval method (e.g. One Stop Then Go Directly)
Click Apply and save your work. Click OK to save the workflow file to the database.

2006-12-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

Sneak Preview Release 12

Much speculation about the release dates of Oracle Applications next major release which is Release 12 has been around, However there is still no conformation on the official dates for its release to the users. The beta code version though has been out for some time now.

The post takes a sneak preview at Release 12 (Beta).
The post is just meant to share the new look and feel in Release 12.

As expected Release 12 will be real big in terms of disk space.

This is how it ate up disk space on a server being used to set up a demo environment within Oracle.

Application Tier Files - 20GB
Database Binaries - 4.5 GB
Vision Demo Data Files - 81GB

The login screen is the one perhaps that has undergone most of the changes. It comes with a fresh cool blue look. Something which you will have to get used with this Release.

The Self Service Home Page does not seem to have changed much expect for the new color scheme and link to Oracle Diagnostics on it.

The Oracle Application Manager console also looked pretty much similar with almost the same links as with 11.5.10.2

Invoking the forms based applications, it prompts you to install the Java 2 Standard Edition on your PC. Yes the Jinitiator is now gone. The installation is quick and over in a few clicks.

The forms interface is almost undistinguishable from 11.5.10.2, maybe just the fonts and color again.

Though the User Interface did not undergo any major changes, the Oracle Applications File system has changed quite a bit.

APPSORA.env -> APPS.env

The APPSORA.env used to setup your E-Business environment has now been replaced by the APPS.env which in trun calls the
$ORA_CONFIG_HOME/10.1.2/$TWO_TASK.env
$APPL_CONFIG_HOME/$TWO_TASK.env

Instance Top
A new Instance Top has been introduced
INT_TOP=$HOME/inst/apps/
One of the main advantages of having this is to get a clear distinction between the shared file system and the file system unique to an instance.

Other Newly Introduced Variables

AF_JLIB - This points to your $COMMON_TOP/java/lib

JAVA_BASE - This points at $COMMON_TOP/java/

Other Environment Variable Changes

JAVA_TOP- The JAVA_TOP now points to $COMMON_TOP/java/classes instead of $COMMON_TOP/java

OA_HTML - The OA_HTML now points to $COMMOM_TOP/oacore/html instead of $COMMON_TOP/html

FND_SECURE - FND_SECURE now points at $INST_TOP/apps/fnd/12.0.0/secure/ as opposed to $FND_TOP/secure//

Apart from this the machine admin scripts are now located at
$INST_TOP/admin/scripts/

2006-12-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

Fusion Applications - The More You Know, The Better You'll Feel

Every morning, I check my favorite Oracle-related news sources and blogs for the latest buzz. Although it takes longer these days as my IT colleague has blocked my ability to use Firefox. Today, I stumbled across a great piece of research at The Register. The article, "Oracle's Fusion Applications Strategy: What The Customers Think", is based on 321 responses to a survey of Oracle Applications Users who are members of The Register's Technology Panel. This is pretty similar to the Fusion Applications Customer Profiling initiative recently completed by the International Oracle User Council (IOUC), but The Register's sample size is much larger.

The IOUC survey results were recently presented during Oracle OpenWorld (OOW). You can find the presentation and review the results for yourself at the OOW presentation download site.

The Register survey results indicated that Oracle Application customers were concerned about:

1. Oracle's lack of clarity and consistency in dealing with the future management of its multiple product lines.

2. The possibility that Oracle will delivery an immature and inelegantly integrated set of applications in order to meet self-imposed schedule milestones.

3. Fear about costs, disruption and protection of investments, mostly rooted in a concern that a migration to Oracle Fusion Applications will be forced upon them at some time in the future.

After sharing these concerns and concluding that only 15% of customers were completely sold on the Oracle Fusion Application strategy, The Register survey disclosed another very interesting result: there is a clear correlation between the level of customer confidence and the customer's depth of Fusion knowledge. For example, customers stating that the Fusion story is well understood in their organizations are also very confident of their investment being protected. These same customers are also very confident that they will obtain benefits in application flexibility through Oracle Fusion Applications. In other words, the more customers understand about Fusion Applications, the more confident they become in Oracle's Fusion Applications strategy...the more you know, the better you'll feel.

I share this timely information from The Register survey because the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) is teaming with Solution Beacon to provide Oracle Applications customers with a wonderful opportunity to feel better with The Road To Las Vegas workshops. The overriding theme of the workshops is "Demystifying Fusion - OAUG's Three Step Fusion Program". The presentations will include some recommendations on getting your organization to Fusion Applications, as well as some hands-on workshops (BPEL and RAC are just a few of the workshop subjects). The overall intent of The Road to Las Vegas is to educate Oracle Applications customers about Fusion Applications - including Release 12, which is an interation on the way to Fusion Applications.

2006-12-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

The Fusion Applications User Interface = Oracle WebCenter

WebCenter is a combination of JavaServer Faces development, the best features from various portal products, and a collection of horizontal web services. However, one needs to dig a bit deeper to really obtain a feel for the power of WebCenter.

According to Oracle, the WebCenter Suite architecture looks something like the following:

Keep in mind that this could change before the product release, which is scheduled for late 2006. Nevertheless, this should be fairly close to the delivered product.

So...why should we care about WebCenter? First, it is a progressive step in fulfilling the promise of using a single user interface to access business applications, enterprise content, business intelligence, web-centric applications, and your digital pictures of Uncle Fredo's dog. Second, because WebCenter will be the default user environment for Fusion Applications; we now have an idea of how Oracle expects users to interface with the next generation of apps...and it's very different from what any of us are doing today. In fact, if you've seen John Wookey's keynote address from OpenWorld 2006, you have some flavor of WebCenter and the change it will mean to the way we use applications.

You can learn more about the Oracle WebCenter Suite here.

2006-11-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

Oracle Containers For J2EE (OC4J)

Oracle Containers For J2EE (OC4J)

One of the reasons I am writing today’s post on Oracle Container For J2EE is that apart from being a core component of the 10g Application Server Oracle Containers For J2EE is also an important member of the new Oracle Applications Release 12 Tech Stack.

Oracle Containers For J2EE or commonly referred to as OC4J is the underlying runtime engine for the 10g Application Server infrastructure. It is an extremely lightweight and easy to install component which requires less than 50 MB of disk space and 20 MB of your server memory to be up and running. It also has a support for a wide range of operating systems including NT, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, IBM-AIX and Compaq True 64 with support for both 32 and 64 bit operating system.

OC4J runs on the Java 1.4 virtual machine and is J2EE 1.3 complaint. You can have multiple OC4J process running each of which is referred to as a OC4J instance. The OC4J configuration is controlled via XML configuration files and OC4J properties file. An OC4J instance is referred to as a container as it provides a web container to support services like Java Server Pages(JSP),Servlets , Enterprise Java Beans(EJB) and Web Services.

The OC4J also implements the following J2EE services.

Java Authentication And Authorization Service (JAAS)
Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP)
J2EE Connector (J2C)
Java Mail
Java Naming and Directory Interface(JNDI)
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
Java Application Framework(JAF)
Java Transaction API (JTA)
Java Messaging Service (JMS)

High Availability Single Sign On and SOA

OC4J can also be configured to support High availability architectures with Oracle RDBMS using Real Application Clusters and Oracle Datagaurd Technologies.OC4J also supports the Single Sign On functionality by making use of the JAAS service. OC4J is also out of the box Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) compliant as it supports the underlying feature of persistence.

Deployment

Though I am mostly talking about OC4J as a component of the Oracle Application Server, its important to note here that it comes as a standalone java component as well in the form a single zip file. Both the standalone distribution and the Application server distribution are developer friendly and deployment friendly. The code deployment in OC4J is done
through a Enterprise Archive File (EAR). The EAR file contains the Web Archive (WAR file) which in turn encapsulates the Java Archive (JAR) files containing the code.

OC4J In Oracle Applications

OC4J replaces the Jserv component which is there in the current release 11i of Oracle Applications. Also as a result the mod_jserv component would be replaced by the mod_oc4j component in release 12 of Oracle Applications. The mod_oc4j is used to communicate between different OC4J instances.

The default installation Release 12 of Oracle Applications will create 3 OC4J instances

Oacore: This runs the OA Framework-based applications.
Forms: This runs the Forms-based applications.
OAFM: This is responsible for running the web services.

The Jserv groups which are there current in Oracle Applications Release 11i are also planned be replaced by OC4J instances.

As mentioned earlier the OC4J properties are controlled using the XML files and OC4J.properties file. These files are managed by the standard Oracle Applications Autoconfig.

The Java code deployment in Oracle E-Business suite for OC4J is done at the time of install using rapid install and maintained by ad tools like adadmin and adpatch. New custom code deployment can be done by using the Application Server Control user interface.

The OC4J implementation in Oracle Applications Release 12 will include the following directory structure.

applications: Contains applications deployed
applications-deployment: Contains configuration settings for the applications deployed
config: Contains common configuration setting for the OC4J instance.

2006-11-12T20:36:00.000-08:00

Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12

E-Business Suite Release 12 will replace Oracle JInitiator with the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE).

[More cheering from Oracle Apps DBAs, Business Analysts and Users]

As most of you know, Oracle JInitiator is an authorised version of Sun Microsystems' Java2 Standard Edition with some specific fixes required to support Oracle Forms. JInitiator is currently required to run Oracle Forms in the E-Business Suite Release 11i, although Oracle is apparently running an Early Adopter Program that's evaluating the feasibility of eliminating this requirement for Release 11i.

Oracle JInitiator will no longer be required to run Oracle Forms in E-Business Suite Release 12. Oracle Forms in Release 12 will run directly in the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition plug-in. This will be the standard configuration for Release 12.

Related Articles:
Replacing Oracle JInitiator with Sun's Native Plug-In

2006-11-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

Process Management in Release 12

Oracle executives have been devoting a lot of slides in recent customer briefings to Oracle BPEL Process Manager: it's the cornerstone for our corporate integration strategy. This begs the obvious question: what's going to be included in Release 12?

Workflow in Release 12

The Rapid Install for Release 12 will include Oracle Workflow out-of-the-box. At present, Oracle expect that the version included will be Workflow 2.6, but as always, this is subject to change.

The practical implication of including Workflow in Release 12 is that all of your existing customized workflows will continue to function with minimal disruption and effort if you're upgrading from Release 11i.

Optional R12 Integration with BPEL Process Manager

If you're excited about working with BPEL Process Manager, you'll have the option of doing that, too.

Given that the E-Business Suite provides standard SOA web services, all that you'll need to do is to install OracleAS 10g and and BPEL Process Manager on a separate instance and point it to business service endpoints available from the E-Business Suite Release 12.

Getting Started with BPEL Process Manager and Release 11i

The BPEL Process Manager is considered a standalone tool outside of the E-Business Suite space, so you don't need to wait until Release 12. You can use BPEL Process Manager and other Oracle Integration connectors with Release 11i today. That's a good way of getting a headstart if you plan to upgrade to the combination of Release 12 and BPEL Process Manager in the future, or if you'd like to kick the tires and take this for a test drive today.

2006-11-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

Encrypting Traffic Between 11i Application and Database Tiers

It's now possible to encrypt the SQL*Net traffic that flows between the E-Business Suite Release 11i application and database tier servers.

This long-awaited certification is delivered through an Oracle database feature called Oracle Advanced Security Option (ASO). For reasons too arcane to discuss here, this is also referred to as Advanced Networking Option (ANO).

The process involves installing an E-Business Suite Concurrent Manager patch and Oracle Advanced Networking, changing several configuration files, and then relinking your Apps executables.

The minimum prerequisites for this configuration include:

Oracle Applications 11.5.10 users with RUP 3 or later (11i.ATG.PF.H RUP3 patch 4334965 or later)

Negligible Impact on Performance

According to the E-Business Suite Performance Group, the overhead is approximately 5%, mainly due to an increase in round-trips and payload size as well as some trivial amount of packet processing when ASO is enabled.

For the security-conscious, this overhead is a small price to pay for the added security for encrypting this sensitive traffic.

Related
Encrypting EBS 11i Network Traffic using Advanced Security Option / Advanced Networking Option (Note 391248.1)

2006-11-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

Cloning OracleAS 10g + E-Business Suite Environments

Cloning an E-Business Suite environment is easy. Cloning an E-Business Suite environment that's been integrated with Oracle Application Server 10g is not quite as easy, unfortunately.

What's Cloning?

Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an already existing Oracle Applications system, including both the application-tier and database-tier.

Why Clone?

Reasons for cloning E-Business Suite environments include:

Creating a copy of the production system for testing updates
Migrating an existing system to new hardware
Creating a stage area to reduce patching downtime

One of our more risk-averse customers informed me that they may create up to 15 clones of an E-Business Suite environment between the TEST and PRODUCTION rollout phases.

The Easy Part

The E-Business Suite Release 11i was architected to support cloning. Experienced Apps DBAs know that the easiest way to create clones of their environments is to use the Rapid Clone utility introduced in 11.5.8. Creating a n E-Business Suite clone is as simple as copying your application-tier and database-tier files to the new target system and then running the perl-based Rapid Clone (adcfgclone.pl) utility.

The Not-So Easy Part

Oracle Application Server 10g was designed with different goals in mind. Consequently, there are no Oracle tools available today to clone an entire OracleAS 10g environment in a single step. In other words, OracleAS 10g does not have the equivalent of a Rapid Clone utility.

In the absence of a single turnkey tool like Rapid Clone, creating clones of new OracleAS 10g environments is a more involved process. Not impossible, mind you -- but definitely more involved.

Things get even more complicated when an E-Business Suite environment is integrated with Oracle Application Server 10g.

Nothing But Net

There are neither tools nor formal documents available from the Applications Technology Group or from Application Server Development, for cloning E-Business Suite environments that have been integrated with OracleAS 10g.

In short, there are no tools available to meet the comprehensive cloning requirements for combined OracleAS 10g + E-Business Suite environments today.

Warning: Trail Ahead Requires Exploration

If you're willing to experiment a bit, the following are general guidelines to point you in the right direction. Some customers and Oracle Consultants have used the following approaches to get the job done but have reported that there was some trial-and-error involved.

These are neither detailed nor comprehensive instructions. The following should be attempted only by system administrators who have a solid understanding of the principles outlined in Metalink Note 261914.1.

Cloning Scenarios

Assuming that you have an E-Business Suite environment that's been successfully integrated with OracleAS 10g, here are a few cloning scenarios that may apply to you:

Create a clone of your Discoverer environment
Create a clone of your Single Sign-On / Oracle Internet Directory environment
Create a clone of your Portal environment

Creating a Clone of Your Discoverer 10g Environment

If you've integrated Discoverer 10g with your E-Business Suite environment but have not chosen the Single Sign-On option, then the cloning process is relatively painless:

Use Rapid Clone to create a clone of your E-Business Suite, including the application-tier and database-tier. Remember that the E-Business Suite database already contains the Discoverer 10g End-User Layer.
Create a fresh install of Discoverer 10g on your new server and point it to the End-User Layer in the cloned E-Business Suite instance.

Creating a Clone of Your Single Sign-On / Oracle Internet Directory Environment

If you've integrated Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory 10g with your E-Business Suite environment, do the following:

Use Rapid Clone to create a clone of your E-Business Suite, including the application-tier and database-tier.
In your newly-cloned E-Business Suite instance, set the APPS_SSO_LDAP_SYNC profile option to "Disabled" at the site level (since there's no new Oracle Internet Directory instance to synchronize with yet).
In your newly-cloned E-Business Suite instance, unlink all E-Business Suite users that were linked to the original Oracle Internet Directory 10g users (i.e. where FND_USER.USER_GUID is populated), since the those old links are no longer valid. Those E-Business Suite users will need to be linked to their corresponding accounts in the as-yet non-existent new Oracle Internet Directory instance.
Create a fresh install of Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory 10g on your new server.
Assuming that you enabled bidirectional provisioning between the E-Business Suite and Oracle Internet Directory, do one of the following (but not all three):

a) Redo your bulkload from the E-Business Suite into Oracle Internet Directory, reregister your E-Business Suite environment using the Bidirectional Provisioning Profile, and enable the APPS_SSO_AUTO_LINK_USER profile option, and set the profile option APPS_SSO_LDAP_SYNC back to Enabled at site level.

b) Export your LDAP namespace from your original Oracle Internet Directory instance into an LDIF file, and then import the LDIF file into the new Oracle Internet Directory instance. Reregister your E-Business Suite environment using the Bidirectional Provisioning Profile, and (assuming that the Oracle Internet Directory accounts are identical to the E-Business Suite accounts) enable the APPS_SSO_AUTO_LINK_USER profile option, and set the profile option APPS_SSO_LDAP_SYNC back to Enabled at site level.

c) Connect the original Oracle Internet Directory instance to your new Oracle Internet Directory instance via a connector, synchronizing the namespaces. Reregister your E-Business Suite environment using the Bidirectional Provisioning Profile, and (assuming that the Oracle Internet Directory accounts are identical to the E-Business Suite accounts) enable the APPS_SSO_AUTO_LINK_USER profile option, and set the profile option APPS_SSO_LDAP_SYNC back to Enabled at site level.

Creating a Clone of Your Portal Environment

Portal requires a working Single Sign-On setup, so complete the previous section first.
If you haven't already done so, create a fresh install of Portal 10g on your new server.
Use the existing Portal 10g documentation to export your portal content and metadata from the original Portal instance. Import that content into the new Portal 10g instance.
Reregister the OAF Web Provider from your new E-Business Suite instance in your new Portal instance.

2006-11-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

Portal 10.1.4 Certified for the E-Business Suite

Oracle Portal 10.1.4 has just been certified with the E-Business Suite Release 11i.

There are a number of interesting new features in Portal 10.1.4, including the Oracle Portlet Factory, JSR-168 and WSRP support, Struts support, BPEL integration, a new Instant Portal, and others.

The Portal 10.1.4 certification with the E-Business Suite requires the latest Oracle Applications Framework Web Provider, which might lead to other prerequisites such as Applications Technology Group (ATG) Family Pack H Rollup 4 (11i.ATG_PF.H RUP 4, Patch 4676589). Other prerequisites will depend on your existing configuration. I'd recommend reviewing the documentation below carefully.

References:

Using Oracle Portal 10g with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (Note 305918.1)
In-Depth: Using Portal 10g with the E-Business Suite
Upgrade To Version 10.1.4 (OTN)

2006-11-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

XML Publisher

Introducing Data Templates

Here is a reproduced article written by Tim Dexter - XML Publisher Development. I have been waiting for this since XML Publisher was first released!

"Another series of articles on the way ... this time concerning the relatively new data extraction engine from XML Publisher that is currently available in the Enterprise and E Business Suite flavors.

First a little history ...

Why build another extraction tool, there are others that can generate XML, Oracle Reports, various solutions from the database folks, the list goes on. To answer why you have to understand the volumes of data we are trying to handle here and the future of reporting for Oracle Applications. For EBS in particular we had multiple reporting solutions, the majority of which were based on Oracle Reports. The plan going forward is to remove Oracle Reports from the techstack in the fusion timeframe. Therefore we needed an extraction engine that offered all that Oracle Reports offers and was just as fast - Oracle Reports is danged fast at generating XML data. On top of that we are not talking about extracting data for a 2 page invoice, the engine needs to extract millions of rows to build tens of thousands of pages for some reports.
We looked at what was out there, SQL XML provided fast extraction for large data sets but we needed among others, event triggers and flexfield user exits, plus users would need to learn the wrapper functions used to generate the hierarchies. After a lot of research we decided to build an engine ourselves with all the bells and whistles needed to cover the Oracle Reports replacement requirements.

Features ... features ... features

To dig in a little to the features the engine provides:

Fast, scalable extractions - its fast, faster than Oracle Reports. We worked closely with the Oracle Performance team and had to re-write it a couple of times to get their approval. It needs to be fast too, those of you that use Oracle Reports EBS know that out of the box we generate flat text character based output. With XMLP we're generating high fidelity output ... that requires more processing time so the more time we save on the extraction the more we have for formatting without slowing the report generation.

Oracle Reports Features - if its going to replace OR in EBS then it has to match OR on features:

Multiple Queries/Joins - enabling master/detail extractions
Event Triggers - pre- and post- fetch for business rule processing. Currently plsql support but will add java
Flexfield Support - gotta get that natural account description with out the select statement - this is an EBS feature.
Formula/summary columns - again similar to Oracle Report functionality allowing you to create aggregation values and pl/sql based formula columns in your extraction
Data Structure - this allows you to build a hierarchy into your XML data similar to the grouping abilities in Oracle Reports
Group filters - a la Oracle Reports
etc

on top of that its also has:

Rich Java API layer - call a data template from your jsp or java app
Distributed Queries - this is neat. You're not tied to a single db nor even to an Oracle db. You can construct a data template that, for example hits an MSSQL instance for customer data and an Oracle db for their invoices. the engine will generate a single result set of hierarchical XML i.e. Customer1
Invoice1
Invoice2
Customer2
Invoice1
Invoice2
Static XML File support - query across a db and an XML file. Text and XLS support coming.
Pluggable Data Templates - not here yet but the idea here is that you can build a core data template and then allow a plugin DT to be applied over the top to get more data from other sources.

Some of you will have wondered what the heck a Data Template is? this is the name we give to the extraction definition, its an XML representation of the queries, joins, data structure, etc."

2006-11-12T14:50:00.000-08:00

General direction for BI Suite SE and EE

Here are some highlights from the Open World session. I've also linked to photos of the slides if you're interested in how it was all presented:

The release schedule for BI Suite EE is firstly to release version 10.1.2.2, with support for user-defined custom members and new graph styles, and then the 10.2.3 release which has support for enhanced custom members. The 11g release will then feature JSR-168 portal integration, integration with BI Suite EE Answers, Dashboards and Delivers, and will come with migration utilties and methodologies to support moves to BI Suite EE.
Discoverer customers will have three options going forward: to stay with Discoverer indefinitely, to stay with Discoverer but take advantage of EE features such as Dashboard and Delivers, or to migrate to EE. Migration is optional though and there's no compulsion.
The forthcoming "Maui" release of BI Suite EE has 200 new features including Oracle OLAP integration, RSS feeds, Linux support and 64-bit support.
The new Maui release (10gR3 V10.1.3.2)'s 200 new features can be categorised into six areas: firstly Lower cost of setup & administration, analytic server enhancements and dashboard and reports enhancements, and secondly Fusion Middleware integration, Oracle DBMS & OLAP integration and Security enhancements (see slides for more details), and
The 11g release ("Negril") will feature enhancements around the Analytic Server, dashboards, better OTLP and BI integration, and support for MS Office 12.

2006-11-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

BI Suite EE - Some Key Points

The key differentiator for BI Suite EE is it's model-driven approach, which helps minimise requirements suprises as you develop the application
BI EE handles large data volumes through function shipping to the back-end DW database or OLAP server, rather than creating it's internal data stores and trying to scale those
The model-driven approach makes early prototyping easier - prototyping rather than a long requirements-writing process is the preferred development method, with a fully-functional prototype featuring role-based dashboards being delivered at the end
A typical BI EE project would involve the prototyping/requirements gathering phase, a performance tuning phase, regression testing and subsequent projects/iteration
When you build the Common Enterprise Information Model, make sure detail-level transaction data is kept in separate subject areas to aggregate, summary data, as mixing the two creates unusable presentation catalogs and bad query performance
Although BI EE supports the integration of data across data sources, this shouldn't be used as a way of creating a virtual data warehouse (EII) - this just doesn't work.
Understand the semantics of fact-based partitioning and logical table sources - by default every measure is a separate query block, but coalescing measure mappings in a single logical table source allows you to optimize by coalescing measures to reduce the number of queries
When implementing BI EE, resist the urge to rebuild the source data warehouse - instead create a handful of aggregates to speed up the slowest report, migrate these eventually to the source warehouses, use the caching and aggregate navigation features of EE to speed up the warehouse in-place.
When building analytics catalogs, keep to no more than seven top-level folders and seven columns per folder, minimize detailed columns (use navigation to access these instead), focus on adding measures and cross-fact calculations - this is where the value of EE is achieved, and use consistent order and naming - dimension folders at the top, measures at the bottom, and measure folders are named specifically so that end-users can distinguish between dims and measures.

2006-11-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

Oracle BI & SOA - Hype or Here Now?

BI is positioned very much within the Fusion Middleware stack of products, alongside areas such as identity management, as one of the key pillars of the platform, and many of the BI Suite Enterprise Edition talks made reference to how the suite played well with SOA-enabled applications. So what does this mean then, in practical terms, for Discoverer, Warehouse and Oracle OLAP developers? Is it just another architecture, or does this represent a step-change in the way we put BI applications together?

As a basic starter, a Service Orientated Architecture is an application architecture that makes use of loosely-coupled, self-describing web-based components that can be accessed by a calling application without any knowledge needed of the way in which they are implemented. Like previous component architectures used when building VB, C++ or Java applications, you can call published components and work with the results, except in the SOA world there's no need for the calling application and the components being used to be built using the same technology; you just register the components using something called a broker, your calling application then checks in with the broker, establishes what services are available and what parameters they require, then makes use of them as desired.

What we're doing then is building an application architecture at the macro, rather than the micro, level. It's evolutionary, rather than a complete new way of doing things - components and object-orientated programming have been around for a while now, but the difference here is that by integrating at the published, standards-based interface level, you can string applications together that draw on functionality from all sorts of systems, even where you have no idea as to how they were implemented.

Apart from the loosely-coupled integration factor, another key feature is that these services can be "orchestrated" - the analogy here is with Oracle Workflow, but Oracle Workflow generally works with PL/SQL components only whereas SOA orchestration, using BPEL (Business Process Orchestration Language), is implementation-independent and a standard across the industry. As well as BPEL, another acronym is ESB, or "Enterprise Service Bus" - a communications layer that takes messages from one SOA component to another, queues them and ensures their delivery.

So, where's the relevance for business intelligence and data warehousing? Here are some recent articles on the subject:

What Do SOA and ESB Mean in Business Intelligence - Colin White
What Does Software as a Service Mean for Business Intelligence - Colin White
What Does Web 2.0 Mean to the Enterprise - Colin White
Integrating Business Intelligence into the Collaborative Workground Environment - Colin White
Business Intelligence and SOA - Robin Mulkers
Why SOA is Important to Your BI Solutions - Colin Hulford
OTN Service-Orientated Architecture Technology Center

Reading through these, it seems that the major areas of impact for business intelligence are:

Exposing ETL functionality as a service, having these routines transform data coming into a warehouse in real-time and in such a way that they can be called by any sort of application
Surfacing analytics, reports, dashboards and so on generated by SOA-compliant BI tools within line-of-business applications, and
Using the scalability of these loosely-coupled applications to create bigger and better BI applications that are quicker to respond to new data sources, new business opportunities and new ways of analyzing data.
BI has to become pervasive, user-friendly and as easy to use as Google Search.

So, getting back to the real world, what does this mean for us? Well, my initial thoughts are along these lines:

Our ETL tools need to be able to consume, and produce, web services, and work in real-time, so that they can provide the data formatting and transformation facilities required in an SOA environment. This is a step-change beyond the "flat files and database links" that we're currently used to with OWB, and we're going to have to get used to writing ETL routines that are fast, can be run on-demand as opposed to in a batch, and are more about interfaces and standards than automatically assuming we're working with Oracle-only data.
The analytics generated by our BI tools need to be made pervasive - it's no longer enough to provide a standalone client-server or web-based query tool; we need this tool to make it's insights available, again through web services, to all sorts of applications, so that for example a real-time prediction, or a visualisation showing a customer opportunity, is as likely to be shown in a call centre application as in a dedicated BI dashboard.
We have to build our data architectures in a way that makes them quick to respond to changes in the data landscape; no more three months to load a new data source via OWB into a data warehouse, we need the data in now, integrated and presented in such a way as to immediately be relevant
We need to get away from crosstabs, dedicated BI tools that need a week's training to master, and present just the insights people need to do their jobs directly in the applications they work with.

In terms of real-world specifics, my predictions in terms of Oracle BI embracing SOA include:

Much more emphasis on BI's place in Fusion Middleware - more emphasis on identity management, more emphasis on interoperability, such that all major new features in Oracle BI (especially Discoverer, OWB) are centred around SOA-interoperability and enabling their use in this new architecture.
A very strong emphasis on the technologies now available through the Sunopsis purchase. Sunopsis Data Conductor ticks all the right boxes in terms of SOA-enablement, process orchestration, being platform agnostic and so on. OWB will still be important, but in the world of SOA, Sunopsis will be the key ETL technology.
BPEL will be the key workflow technology, replacing Workflow as the way you string together ETL tasks and business processes.
BI Suite Enterprise Edition will be the key BI technology, with analytics then being surfaced through traditional dashboards but more increasingly, directly through the Fusion line of business applications
The new Real-Time Decisions product will be the key to delivering real-time analyics, and automated decisions, through this architecture
OWB will take on more SOA-type features over time; already you can consume a web service through a PL/SQL routine, it's only a small step to publish OWB mappings or processes as web services through a PL/SQL wrapper
Web services will increasingly be used to expose Discoverer functionality to other applications
In the Oracle BI world, it'll increasingly be about working in heterogeneous environments - Oracle will still hopefully be the centre of the BI world, and will individually have the best features, but it'll play well with other applications and BI solutions developed using Oracle tools will be designed as data source and visualisation technology agnostic

So, it looks like interesting times. Going back to my original question - hype or here now? - I'd say I'm coming down on the "here now" camp. Certainly if you're a partner, or a customer, this is the conversation Oracle and it's competitors are having with their customers, so by definition it's here now.

In terms of Oracle's products, SOA is definitely here in terms of the new BI Suite Enterprise Edition, Fusion Middleware and Sunopsis Data Conductor; it's not such an easy fit when you come to the traditional tools - but I guess that's not a bad thing; if you're after a fairly straightforward, tactical solution, and you're primarily working with Oracle technology, then Standard Edition and OWB are the best fit.

If, however, you've seen the possibilities when it comes to Oracle's middleware platform and the new SOA paradigm, well it just so turns out that Oracle may have the products to make it all work. Interesting times indeed.

2006-11-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

How to start up Oracle E-Business Suite in Firefox

If Firefox complains about a missing plugin when starting up Oracle E-Business Suite, here is what you need to do to make it work, assuming you have JInitiator installed in C:\Program Files\Oracle\ and Firefox installed in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\:

Copy

C:\Program Files\Oracle\JInitiator 1.1.8.16\bin\NPJinit-11816.dll

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

The 11816 in NPJinit-11816.dll is the JInitiator version. You may have a different version.

2006-11-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Diving Deep Into the Release 12 Techstack

The deep innards of the Release 12 technology stack....

For the most comprehensive preview released so far on how the Release 12 technology stack will be architected and work, take a look at this presentation:

Deep Dive: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 New Technology Stack (PDF, 520K.)
(Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)

Areas covered:

Highlights of new R12 techstack components
New Application Server 10g (10.1.2 & 10.1.3) ORACLE_HOMEs replacing the 9iAS 1.0.2.2.2 O_HOMEs from 11i
Switch from JServ to Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) for running servlets, Java Server Pages (JSP), and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
OC4J Deployment details, including replacements for jserv.conf and jserv.properties configuration files
New R12 filesystem layout, including the introduction of an Instance Home (INST_TOP)
New use of Oracle Process Manager & Notification Server (OPMN)
New Forms 10g deployment
Comparison of 11i and R12 environment variables
Discussion of relative benefits of Forms Servlet vs. Server (socket) mode deployments
Disabled mod_plsql in R12 (more about this in a later article)
Things you can do today to prepare for R12

2006-10-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Oracle Open World Keynotes

OK. This is far to long for a blog post but there is a lot of information to communicate; so bear with me.

Whilst being unable to attend the most recent Oracle Open World Event due to a bike accident , I was able to listen to the keynotes live on the Internet as well as review the concurrent press releases and blog postings.

There was a lot of good information delivered through the speakers. Below are what I consider to be the highlights from OOW 2006.

Links to my summaries of the TOP 5 Keynote speeches
1. Phillips; OpenWorld Keynote Kickoff
2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux
3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future (includes Fusion demo)
4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter
5. Rowzat; Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

Other interesting topics
1. Identity Management
Links to Oracle Identity Management offerings
At Macerich we looked at Oracle Identity Management solutions earlier this year, including a set of presentations and demos. Clearly the solutions and functionality are a good fit with our requirements and future direction. Most of the components in this stack are comprised of software solutions acquired by Oracle over the past year. Given the number of projects currently under way it was decided to deal only with the Single-Sign-On component in 2006 and address other components at the end of Q1 2007. This would also give Oracle time to more seamlessly integrate these newly acquired products.

Over the course of the last 6 months I have posted a number of Identity Management related articles on my Macerich-Oracle blog. Here is a listing of those articles:
Synchronizing Oracle HRMS with OID
Password Management with OID
Using Third Party Identity Managers with EBusiness Suite 11i
Password Management with Third Party Solutions
Aliases Maiden Names and Nicknames
COREid, Thor, Xellerate and Others

Back to Top

2. Ten Things You Can Do To Prepare for Fusion Applications

Although Fusion Applications are years away, there are many components of Fusion Middleware that are available today to help get us one step closer to Fusion Applications. The message from John Wookey, Cliff Godwin, Nadia Bendjedou, and others regarding Release 12, Fusion Middleware, and Fusion Applications remains consistent - we don’t need to wait for the release of Fusion Applications to start preparing for Fusion.

Moving to Fusion Applications will require new skills and experience to install, configure and support the new Applications Suite. However, many of the tools and technologies for Fusion Applications are available today and can be leveraged with 11i10 and/or Release 12, allowing us to get a head start on preparing our environment and staff for Fusion Apps.

Dr. Nadia Bendjedou’s session “Oracle E-Business Suite Customers: 10 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare for Oracle Fusion Applications” was still standing room only for some despite the fact the room held almost 500 people. There is obviously a lot of interest in Fusion, and the good news is we don’t have to wait years to start preparing today. Nadia’s presentation focused on both best practices as well as product components, and listed 10 items e-Business Suite customers should start focusing on now:

Dr. Bendjedou's Top 10 List

Rethink your customization strategy
Consider Master Data Management (MDM)
Move to SOA-based integration
Extend your business intelligence portfolio
Adopt enterprise reporting and publishing
Secure your global enterprise
Deploy grid computing
Centralize your lifecycle management
Upgrade to the e-Business Suite R12
Prepare a Fusion project plan

1. Phillips; OpenWorld Keynote Kickoff

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Oracle President Charles Phillips announced Oracle's business strategies for grid computing, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and applications. Mr. Phillips also discusses Oracle's acquisitions, Oracle Accelerate, and the enterprise software ownership experience (PDF).

Back to Top

2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Addressing the largest crowd in Oracle OpenWorld history, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled Oracle Unbreakable Linux.
Link to brief summary of Mr. Ellison's keynote.
Quotes from Mr. Ellison's keynote:
- "Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux"
- "the new support program is available for all Linux users for as little as $99 per system per year; until January 31, 2007"
- "Oracle customers can get a free trial, and anyone can purchase support at a 50-percent discount"
- "..all you have to do is point your Red Hat server to the Oracle network; switching takes less than a minute"
- "We think it's important not to fragment the market, and we will maintain compatibility with Red Hat Linux,..we will resynchronize with their code"

Back to Top

3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to brief summary of Mr. Wookey's keynote
Mr. Wookey reiterated Oracle's Applications Unlimited initiative. Mr. Ellison later stated that maintaining all of these Applications Suite was not a problem. Oracle could afford it as long as customers wanted it. He believes that within 10 years the demand for these legacy suites will have waned.
He also discussed the following topics:
a. The improved user experience within Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
b. Four concepts that drive thinking about the next generation of Oracle applications:

- secure enterprise search, which is the new metaphor for navigating applications;

- XML-based reporting, which allows reports to be customized in countless ways;

- role-based analytics, a concept taken from Siebel products, which places business insight into the context of operational systems;

- sustainable integration, or connecting all products to one another and to third-party applications. To highlight this last point, he announced the creation of Oracle's Adaptive Business Solutions Group, which is dedicated to applications integration.

c. Oracle Fusion, its time line, and the four technologies that enable it:

- Web 2.0 concepts, such as desktop and collaboration tools;

- Service-oriented architecture (SOA), which gives businesses flexibility in how they develop and deliver business processes;

- Middleware, which orchestrates those processes;

- Standards, which provide Oracle, its partners, and its customers with common, shared tools for doing all of the above.

d. One of the biggest highlights of the entire Open World event for me was the demonstration which provided the first glimpse of Fusion Applications during Mr. Wooskey's keynote address. Jeremy Ashley from the Applications User Experience group walked through a scenario where a sales rep uses Fusion Apps to prepare a quote, ultimately leading to a closed sale. Here is a link to the screen shots from the demo.

Back to Top

4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter

(4 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to summary of Mr. Kurian's keynote
Mr. Kurian discussed how Oracle WebCenter will provide a way to build sophisticated Web 2.0-based user interaction environments, and deliver task-oriented, contextual, multichannel interactions for users. "[Web 2.0] technologies are fundamentally changing how people interact with information on the Internet", he said. "WebCenter is used to streamline and automate tasks that involve jumping between different applications and tools that don't share content or context." The new set of tools, which is based on a service-oriented architecture, will enable companies to build applications that bring together data from various enterprise applications such as CRM, ERP, Microsoft Office desktop and mobile devices.

Kurian identified a number of other processes of Oracle Fusion Middleware's software:

- service-oriented development of applications

- business process management

- secure identity management

He also announced the next release of Oracle's open, standards-based suite of business intelligence products: Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3

5. Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to Mr. Rozwat's Keynote summary
Chuck Rozwat announced Oracle Database 11g and its 482 new features. Rozwat also reviewed a cross section of Oracle technology that helps customers address the issues associated with getting a single view of information, customers, and suppliers, including Oracle Content Database 10g, Oracle Records Database 10g, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g, and Oracle Audit Vault 10g, articulating how these products help companies' CIOs and IT directors manage content across the enterprise.

Back to Top

2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux

Addressing the largest crowd in Oracle OpenWorld history, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled Oracle Unbreakable Linux, a new support program for Linux that provides the same enterprise-class support for Linux that Oracle provides for its database, middleware, and applications products.

"Currently, Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version of its software. This often requires customers to upgrade to a new version of Linux software to get a bug fixed," explained Ellison. "Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux. In other words, Oracle will provide the same level of enterprise support for Linux as is available for other operating systems."

Better Support, Lower Cost

Oracle is offering its Unbreakable Linux program for substantially less than Red Hat currently charges for its best support. Ellison explained that the new support program is available for all Linux users for as little as $99 per system per year; until January 31, 2007, Oracle customers can get a free trial, and anyone can purchase support at a 50-percent discount. "This is all about broadening the success of Linux," added Ellison. "And to get Oracle support for Red Hat Linux, all you have to do is point your Red Hat server to the Oracle network; switching takes less than a minute."

Midway through his keynote, Ellison invited Edward Screven, Oracle chief corporate architect, and Wim Coekaerts, vice president of Linux engineering, to join him on stage.

"We think it's important not to fragment the market, and we will maintain compatibility with Red Hat Linux," said Screven. "Every time Red Hat distributes a new version, we will resynchronize with their code. All we add are bug fixes, which are immediately available to Red Hat and the rest of the community."

Coekaerts concurred. "We have many years of Linux engineering experience and an excellent technical team solely dedicated to Linux," said Coekaerts. "In fact, several Oracle employees are Linux mainline maintainers, and Oracle has a long history of contributing to the community." Oracle's breadth and depth of technical expertise, advanced support technologies, and global reach includes 7,000 support staff in 17 global support centers, providing help to Oracle customers in 27 languages, in any time zone.

Screven echoed Ellison's assertion that true enterprise-quality support for Linux at a lower cost is something that customers demand, and a long list of customers and partners have already endorsed Oracle's new Linux support program. Yahoo! Vice President of Engineering Laurie Mann took the keynote stage to share his company's enthusiasm for Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Mann explained that Yahoo!, which runs Oracle and Linux, is the most visited home page on the Web, so reliability and support are paramount. Oracle's enterprise-class support program addresses this demand head-on.

Many more customers and partners appeared via video on the massive screens in the keynote hall, including Dell, Intel, HP, IBM, Accenture, AMD, BearingPoint, EMC, BMC Software, Network Appliance, and many others. Toward the keynote conclusion, the audience was treated to Oracle's version of "The March of the Penguins," as several live penguins (accompanied by their professional trainers) waddled on stage.

3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future

Now I know why security apparently worked extra-hard to keep aisles clear during the Wednesday morning keynote.

A few minutes into his talk, Oracle Senior Vice President John Wookey said, "Continuing our tradition of having sexy Italian companies present with me at Oracle Openworld, I'm very excited to introduce and welcome Ducati Motorcycles." A roar came from the back of the hall, and two gleaming Ducati bikes raced up the aisles and onto the stage.

Answering the question of why Ducati chose Oracle E-Business Suite, Giovanni Contino, Ducati Consulting CEO, joked that Oracle and Ducati have the same red color in their logos. But the real reason, he said, was that Oracle Applications adapted to his business. Contino then showed how Oracle E-Business Suite had helped Ducati become a "lean ride" and how the company had ridden Oracle-powered Lean processes to an International Best Factory Award (from the U.K.-based Cranfield School of Management) in just three years.

While the motorcycles were impressive, Oracle's Applications Unlimited initiative was the real high-powered machine in the room. Wookey reiterated Oracle's plans to support and enhance all of its application lines. "The commitment is very real," Wookey said. "We have dedicated development teams and dedicated leadership across product lines that are absolutely passionate about them, and passionate about working with customers to make sure we continually improve how we support you, how we continue to enhance the product with new features, and how we bring innovation and next-generation technology into those product lines."

Indeed, the needs and desires of customers drive Oracle's efforts in applications development. Wookey discussed the countless hours that Oracle applications teams have spent interviewing, surveying, and learning from customers in order to determine how they work and how—they want to work--and then plowed that information back into the applications.

Wookey also emphasized that major new releases are planned in all application product lines. "In fact, the new release of [JD Edwards] World is the first major functional release of the product since 1998," he pointed out.

Oracle's acquisition of applications companies has allowed it to take the best elements of each of its application lines and incorporate them into other applications. "We're bringing great intellectual property out of these product lines, across [to] other product lines, and into our next generation of applications," Wookey said.

Take, for example, the task-based user interface pioneered by Siebel. "It's a great idea, and something we think Siebel customers will be very excited about," Wookey said. "But we think it's something everyone can benefit from, so it's one of the design principles from a user-interface perspective that's actually getting architected into Fusion applications."

Wookey discussed the new Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12. Improvements include tailored installation scripts that customize upgrades that minimize upgrade interruption, and the application's improved user experience. "We've benefited from a lot of great [intellectual property] that's come into Oracle from PeopleSoft and Siebel," he said. "They had done a lot of great work on usability design, and we've actually taken advantage of that in all of our product lines, certainly in the [Oracle] E-Business Suite Release 12."

Turning an eye to the future, four concepts drive thinking about the next generation of Oracle applications, according to Wookey:

a. secure enterprise search, which is the new metaphor for navigating applications;

b. XML-based reporting, which allows reports to be customized in countless ways;

c. role-based analytics, a concept taken from Siebel products, which places business insight into the context of operational systems;

d. sustainable integration, or connecting all products to one another and to third-party applications. To highlight this last point, he announced the creation of Oracle's Adaptive Business Solutions Group, which is dedicated to applications integration.

Lastly, Wookey spent a few minutes discussing Oracle Fusion, its timeline, and the four technologies that enable it:

a. Web 2.0 concepts, such as desktop and collaboration tools;

b. service-oriented architecture (SOA), which gives businesses flexibility in how they develop and deliver business processes;

c. middleware, which orchestrates those processes;

d. standards, which provide Oracle, its partners, and its customers with common, shared tools for doing all of the above.

"That's what really brings the promise of SOA home," Wookey said, "the idea that there are accessible tools that we've used to build the system that you have equal access to."

4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter

Heralding the first user interaction environment to break down the boundaries between Web-based portals, enterprise applications, and Web 2.0 technologies, Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of development for middleware platform products delivered his keynote address, called "The Middleware Revolution," at Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday morning.

Kurian announced a new product of Oracle Fusion Middleware called Oracle WebCenter Suite, which will provide a way to build sophisticated Web 2.0-based user interaction environments, and deliver task-oriented, contextual, multichannel interactions for users.

"[Web 2.0] technologies are fundamentally changing how people interact with information on the Internet. We're bringing those technologies to you, the enterprise application community, and to people who want to build applications that use Web tool technologies within their corporate enterprise," said Kurian.

Customers can use WebCenter to streamline and automate tasks that involve jumping between different applications and tools that don't share content or context. WebCenter also creates a more dynamic, interactive work environment by deploying the new wave of Web 2.0 technologies, such as mashups, wikis, Voice over IP, RSS feeds, and discussion forums, across the enterprise.

The new set of tools, which is based on a service-oriented architecture, will enable companies to build applications that bring together data from various enterprise applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERP). Because it is hot-pluggable and based on open industry standards, users can also access this environment from other environments, such as Microsoft Office desktop and mobile devices.

"Only Oracle WebCenter Suite enables a superior user experience based on a full set of enterprise services that are pre-integrated and based on open industry standards," said Kurian.

Kurian identified a number of other processes of Oracle Fusion Middleware's software that companies can use to streamline business operations and improve information technology flexibility. These include service-oriented development of applications, business process management, and secure identity management.

He also announced the next release of Oracle's open, standards-based suite of business intelligence products: Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3, which includes new components and improvements, allows for strategic integration with other Oracle products, and has expandable hot-pluggable support for third-party data sources and systems.

"Fusion Middleware has grown from virtually nothing in 2001 to over a billion dollars in just five years. Thirty-one thousand global companies use Fusion Middleware today," said Kurian. "The Internet continues to transform the architecture of enterprise applications. Fusion Middleware gives you the best middleware suite in the industry to exploit that transformation."

5. Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

Chuck Rozwat, Oracle's executive vice president of Server Technologies, outlined Oracle's vision for its key technologies and provided some details on the company's product road map in a Monday morning keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld, titled "The Information Road Map: What's Next?"

"We have a business intelligence crisis in the midst of our content data crisis," Rozwat told the crowd. "Most companies have a collection of different applications, so getting a single view of information, customers, and suppliers can be difficult."

In addition to the announcement of Oracle Database 11g and its 482 new features, Rozwat reviewed a cross section of Oracle technology that helps customers address those issues, including Oracle Content Database 10g, Oracle Records Database 10g, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g, and Oracle Audit Vault 10g, articulating how these products help companies' CIOs and IT directors manage content across the enterprise.

In addition to listing Oracle's range of products, Rozwat discussed several of Oracle's recent acquisitions and how those companies' solutions bolster Oracle's technology road map. A representative from TimesTen helped to illustrate the point, explaining in a video presentation how TimesTen's real-time data caching solution works with Oracle Database.

A theme of Rozwat's keynote was the belief that evolving and expanding information requires businesses of all sizes to embrace a road map for managing important content and data in a secure, reliable, and cost-effective way. Oracle software, using advanced grid computing technology, adapts to a company's changing business needs, Rozwat emphasized.

"As data volumes increase, stress is being put on existing computing resources. The ability to scale is incredibly important, and you need an architecture that allows you to plug in more servers," said Rozwat. "Grid computing has grown over the years because of this."

Rozwat described the information explosion from both the demand side, which includes user demands and needs, and the supply side, examining how companies struggle to bring all this information to users in an integrated way.

"The amount of information that's being generated is truly incredible," he said. "However, the demands on how we use information can turn an asset into a liability. Oracle has new solutions to harness this information explosion."

Rozwat concluded by detailing Oracle's vision for its key technologies and outlining a specific strategy for the future of Oracle products, including Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle's development products, and Oracle Grid Computing.

Oracle Identity Management: Best-in-Class. Application Centric. Hot-Pluggable.

Oracle Identity Management's best-in-class suite of IdM solutions delivers hot-pluggable middleware, allowing enterprises to manage the end-to-end life cycle of user identities across all enterprise resources both within and beyond the firewall. One can now deploy applications faster, apply the most granular protection to enterprise resources, automatically eliminate latent access privileges, and much more.

Oracle Identity management is leading the next wave of Identity Management with an Application-Centric approach.
Read more about best-in-class Oracle Identity Management solutions:

SINGLE SIGN-ON AND WEB ACCESS CONTROL

USER PROVISIONING

FEDERATED IDENTITY

DIRECTORY SERVICES

STRONG AUTHENTICATION

WEB SERVICES ACCESS CONTROL

ENTERPRISE SINGLE SIGN-ON SUITE

2006-10-29T19:59:00.000-08:00

Glimpse of Fusion Applications at Open World

One of the OpenWorld 2006 highlights for me was the first glimpse of Fusion Applications, profiled in John Wookey's keynote address.

Jeremy Ashley from the Applications User Experience group walked through a scenario where a sales rep uses Fusion Apps to prepare a quote, ultimately leading to a closed sale.

Here are some screenshots that show key aspects of what may end up as the Fusion user interface (click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized images). Of particular interest is the part of John's keynote video that describes this scenario, which begins at the 57:00 minute mark. This is the start of the scenario, showing the Oracle Fusion sidebar floating on the desktop:

This screenshot shows the prospect integrated into Outlook. Note the Fusion sidebar floating to the right of the desktop:

This next screenshot shows the sales rep checking on some high-level business background details prior to preparing a quote:

The following screenshot shows the sales rep preparing to use Google Docs to produce a quote using a prebuilt template:

This screenshot shows the prepared quote in Google Docs; note that the Oracle Fusion sidebar continues to provide new views of information that can be used in the quotation. Jeremy Ashley described the process of dragging and dropping objects from the sidebar into the quote, in true Web 2.0 fashion:

While preparing the quote, the sales rep drills into some detailed analytics for the customer's previous sales:

The next screenshot shows the customer remotely logged into Fusion Apps, while viewing the submitted quote. The customer is checking out the discount scale for the quote. Note the collaboration options in the Fusion sidebar:

The customer uses the instant messaging chat feature in the Fusion sidebar to negotiate on the quote's terms, and then closes the sale:

Getting the Full Picture

This summary doesn't do full justice to Jeremy's narrative flow, so it's worthwhile downloading the video of John's keynote if you want the full context. Warning: the Real Media version is a 150 MB download!

Related

John Wookey's Keynote Address Video (Links to multiple media types)
John Wookey's Keynote Presentation (PDF, 6 MB, includes screenshots)

2006-10-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

JDeveloper / ADF Statement of Direction Document Published

Oracle published a new Statement of Direction: Strategy & Roadmap [pdf] document on OTN for Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF. It provides high-level details on the key feature areas they are improving for the JDeveloper/ADF 11g "Fusion" release, the next major release of the tools and frameworks. Before this next major release, they plan to deliver routine maintenance release versions 10.1.3.1 and 10.1.3.2 as well (the former which is already available as a Developer Preview on OTN).

2006-10-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

New Application Management Packs Coming for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g

The Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g team has just announced that a new set of Application Management Packs will soon be released for Oracle E-Business Suite.

For the E-Business Suite, this new Application Management Pack will support both Release 11i and 12. Some interesting new features:

Automated discovery
Service Level Management
Out of box service models & beacon transactions
Configuration Management
Topology views
Integration with Application Server & Database diagnostics
Cloning automation for production to test environments
Customized beacon for Forms components

A bit more information about the new application management, monitoring, and service level capabilities can be found here:

Oracle Enterprise Manager

The official press release is characteristically light on specific release dates for the E-Business Suite Application Management Pack.

Related

2006-10-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

Portal 10.1.4 Certified for the E-Business Suite

It's taken a lot longer than expected, but Portal 10.1.4 has just been certified with the E-Business Suite Release 11i.

There are a number of interesting new features in Portal 10.1.4, including the Oracle Portlet Factory, JSR-168 and WSRP support, Struts support, BPEL integration, a new Instant Portal, and others.

The Portal 10.1.4 certification with the E-Business Suite requires the latest Oracle Applications Framework Web Provider, which might lead to other prerequisites such as Applications Technology Group (ATG) Family Pack H Rollup 4 (11i.ATG_PF.H RUP 4, Patch 4676589). Below is a list of relevant documentation.

References:

Using Oracle Portal 10g with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (Note 305918.1)
In-Depth: Using Portal 10g with the E-Business Suite
Upgrade To Version 10.1.4 (OTN)

2006-10-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

COREid, Thor, Xellerate and Others

Earlier this year Oracle made a number of purchases in the identity management space. These have been rolled into the Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite of products. The obvious question probably occurs to you: can you use these with the E-Business Suite?

What's in Oracle Identity and Access Management?

First, it's important to be very clear about which products are included in this suite. These are:

Oracle Single Sign-On & Oracle Internet Directory
Oracle Access Manager (formerly Oblix COREid Access & Identity)
Oracle Identity Federation (formerly Oblix COREid Federation)
Oracle Identity Manager (formerly Thor Xellerate Identity Provisioning)
Oracle Virtual Directory (formerly OctetString Virtual Directory Engine)

(the following products are have "special" licencing terms)

Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On (in partnership with Passlogix)
Oracle Web Services Manager (formerly Oblix COREid Web Services Manager)

Supported with the E-Business Suite

All of the Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite products are supported for use with the E-Business Suite Release 11 and the upcoming Release 12. In other words, you may use all of the products above with E-Business Suite environments.

In addition, the E-Business Suite has special certified integrations with Oracle Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory. The Applications Technology Group has produced specific documentation and patches for these configurations for E-Business Suite customers.

For an extensive discussion about the distinction between supported vs. certified configurations, see Certification & Support for Third-Party Products. Oracle supports more configurations than they actually certify.

2006-10-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

Introduction to the Google Web Toolkit

Learn how to use the Google Web Toolkit to do everything from basic tasks to advanced ones such as RPC communication, history management, and packaging a production-ready application.

Web 2.0 and its technical counterpart, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), are gaining momentum thanks to applications such as Gmail and Google Maps. For Web applications, the main benefit of Ajax is a greatly improved user experience. Although JavaScript and DHTML—the technical foundations of Ajax—have been available for years, most programmers ignored them because they were difficult to master. Today, frameworks written in JavaScript, such as Dojo, can help you build Ajax applications, but you still need a good understanding of JavaScript in order to use them. Google offers another way to help Java developers create Ajax applications more productively. This new framework, called Google Web Toolkit (GWT), can be used efficiently with Oracle JDeveloper. GWT is freely available under the Apache License v. 2.0 at http://code.google.com/webtoolkit.

...read ful article at http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/dubois-gwt.html

2006-10-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Oracle's Security Blanket

Oracle has a two-pronged strategy that includes standalone products and security built into its next-generation Fusion applications.

Oracle may not TOP the list of security vendors, but it's working hard to get there. It won't be easy, considering stiff competition from CA, IBM, Sun, and others.

Oracle's two-pronged strategy, outlined last week by co-president Charles Phillips and other executives, focuses on products for data encryption, access control, and identity management, and on adding built-in security features to its next-generation application suite, Fusion.

Last year, Oracle purchased three companies specializing in security. Its plan for Fusion applications, due starting in 2008, is to provide a single Web interface that gives access to ERP, financial, human resources, and other apps woven together by a service-oriented architecture. Oracle plans to have its security technology working behind the scenes to ensure that users will only have access to data and applications in Fusion that they're authorized to get.

Oracle already offers security software that lets database customers encrypt data, protect it from unauthorized access, and assign appropriate security levels. It also offers identity management capabilities that can be used on non-Oracle systems, including directory services, user authentication, Web services access control, and single sign-on for multiple apps. Auditing and compliance apps also are part of Oracle's security arsenal.

Oracle's competitors are wise to the importance of integrated security. IBM recently acquired Internet Security Systems, and EMC plans to acquire RSA Security. Oracle archrival SAP prefers to partner for security capabilities, as it did last month with Breach Security, which makes software for inspecting network traffic protected by Secure Sockets Layer.

Oracle can't afford not to make security part of its future application portfolio. As for standalone products, it's competing in an increasingly noisy market.

2006-10-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

Integrate OracleAS 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11

It is now possible to integrate the E-Business Suite Release 11i with OracleAS 10g, for the use of Single Sign-On, Oracle Internet Directory, Portal, Discoverer, Web Cache and Oracle Integration.

Integrated, Not Upgraded

The key concept is that Release 11i may be integrated with OracleAS 10g. The existing E-Business Suite application server, Oracle9i Application Server 1.0.2.2.2, is not upgraded to OracleAS 10g; the two instances are integrated together in a loosely-coupled architecture like this:

Remember that if you want to upgrade your existing E-Business Suite 9iAS application server to OracleAS 10g, you'll be able to do that in Release 12. For Release 11i, it's always going to be an integration-based architecture.

One Server or Two?

The diagram above shows the existing E-Business Suite 9iAS services and the new external OracleAS 10g services running on two different physical servers. That's Oracle's recommended configuration, particularly if we are planning to upgrade from Discoverer 4i to 10g (due to the former's obsolescence in Oct 2006).

It's possible to install OracleAS 10g on the same physical server where 9iAS is installed... if you have sufficient resources available on that box. You must install OracleAS 10g in a separate ORACLE_HOME. OracleAS 10g cannot be installed into the existing E-Business Suite 9iAS ORACLE_HOME.

What Are The Main OracleAS 10g Components?

Architecturally, you should think of OracleAS 10g as being comprised of middle-tier (application tier) products and infrastructure services. Middle-tier products include Portal, Discoverer, and Oracle Integration.

The OracleAS 10g Infrastructure includes Single Sign-On, Oracle Internet Directory, and the actual LDAP database where user credentials are stored. In general, all of the OracleAS 10g middle-tier products share the same OracleAS 10g Infrastructure.

Middle-tier products like Portal have content such as portal page definitions, pictures, downloadable files, and so on. This content has metadata, too, which determines how content is displayed and accessed. All of this product-specific content and metadata is stored in a database called the OracleAS 10g Metadata Repository.

Installing OracleAS 10g (Over and Over)

As you'd expect, there are several variants of how these components can be installed. These variants are documented in excruciating detail in the OracleAS 10g Installation Guide for each operating system platform. Arm yourself with coffee before reading the Installation Guide - it can be heavy going for a first-time reader.

In general, the first component to be installed is the OracleAS 10g Infrastructure. If you're starting out simply (which I'd recommend), you can install the OracleAS 10g Metadata Repository at the same time, like this:

Advanced sysadmins have the option of installing the Infrastructure and Metadata Repository in different places and on different servers, like this:

If all you're interested in using is Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory with the E-Business Suite, you're done on that front (for now).

If you're interested in using Portal or other middle-tier components like Oracle Integration, you need to run the Oracle Unversal Installer and install those components separately. As part of their installation, you'll need to point those components to the OracleAS 10g Infrastructure and OracleAS 10g Metadata Repository that you created earlier.

OracleAS 10g Runs Independently

Now that your OracleAS 10g environment is installed, you should test it to ensure that it runs without any issues. You should be able to log in to this environment, create and modify users, start up Portal, create custom portal home pages, and so on.

Connecting OracleAS 10g to the E-Business Suite

Once your OracleAS 10g instance is proven to be working, you will proceed with connecting it to your E-Business Suite environment. Doing so will enable your E-Business Suite to use Single Sign-On, Portal, and Discoverer services running on the OracleAS 10g instance.

2006-10-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

Introduction to the Google Web Toolkit

Learn how to use the Google Web Toolkit to do everything from basic tasks to advanced ones such as RPC communication, history management, and packaging a production-ready application.

Main Features and Restrictions

One of the main problems with Ajax development is that you need to master a large stack of heterogeneous technologies. Depending on the nature of your project (for example, business applications), this can be a great drawback.

In addition, different Web browsers don’t support JavaScript and DHTML in the same way. For example, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox handle these technologies slightly differently; you’ll need to deal with this if you want your application to run seamlessly on your users’ PCs.

Although most of the Ajax frameworks available today simplify development work, you still need a good grasp of the technology stack. So, if you’re planning to use Ajax to improve only your application’s user experience—if you’re not also using it as a strategic advantage for your business—it may be unwise to spend a lot of money and time on the technology.

GWT proposes a different way to create Ajax applications. It uses Java as a single programming language for both the client and server sides. Is it the return of Java applets? Not at all: GWT provides a compiler that translates the Java code on the client side into JavaScript and DTHML. This solution greatly simplifies the technology stack from the programmer’s point of view: You have to master only Java. The downside is that you have less control over the client-side code of your application because it’s eventually generated by the GWT compiler.

The Java code for the client side of your application is subject to restrictions because JavaScript doesn’t implement the entire object-oriented concepts and APIs available in Java. You can use only a subset of Java keywords and APIs (java.lang and java.util):

All the primitive types (such as byte, char, short, and int) as well as their corresponding classes (such as Byte and Char) are directly supported—except for long, which is translated into the JavaScript equivalent of double. It is recommended that you use int instead of long.
User-defined exceptions (checked or not) are possible but the method Throwable.getStackTrace() is not available. Some JVM exceptions are also available (such as IndexOutOfBoundException).
The keyword synchronized has no effect because JavaScript is mono-thread. The multithread API is not available.
Reflection is not supported. However, you can get the class name of an object by using the method GWT.getTypeName(Object).
Finalization is not supported.
Several objects containers from java.util can be used, such as Stack, Vector, and HashMap. The Date class is also available.

In addition, GWT provides specific APIs to manage the GUI, internationalization, and XML parsing. It also provides a comprehensive library to manage communication between the client and the server. It uses well-known Remote Procedure Call (RPC) principles implemented by a generic servlet (RemoteServiceServlet), which you can specialize for your own needs. You also can use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) as the data interchange format for your HTTP messages sent with the GWT HTTPRequest class.

GWT also offers an interface, called JavaScript Native Interface (JSNI), which lets you mix your own hand-made JavaScript code with the code generated by the GWT compiler. JSNI uses the keyword native used by Java Native Interface (JNI) to define your own JavaScript functions. The body of these functions is defined inside specifically formatted comments.

Finally, you can unit-test your code inside JDeveloper with GWTTestCase, a specialization of the class TestCase provided by JUnit.

Focus on GUI Programming with GWT

Ajax dramatically changes the way you develop Web applications. Most of the time, an Ajax application needs only a single Web page. Its content is modified dynamically by JavaScript and DHTML to produce a user experience similar to that provided by native applications.

Therefore, GWT provides a programming model whose principles will sound familiar to Swing or AWT programmers. The GUI is no longer specified by HTML tags as in classic Web applications. It’s programmed directly with Java code in a way similar to AWT or Swing. The well-known concepts of GUI programming are available with GWT:

Widgets, including the usual items (such as Button, TextBox, and CheckBox) and more advanced items such as Tree and Menu Bar
Panels, which contain widgets, with their own layout (panels and layout aren’t separated as in Swing)
Events generated by widgets. The listeners must implement specific interfaces.

Loading the GWT JavaScript library and specifying the entry point of your application is easy: all you have to do is create a simple HTML page.

GWT uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Every widget has its own style, which you can change to meet your needs. You must create your own CSS to overload the defaults defined by GWT.

If the standard widgets don’t suit your needs, you can also define your own. (This topic, however, is beyond the scope of this article.)

2006-10-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

Fusion Applications - Bits and Pieces of Future Direction

While I believe this information to be reliable, please insert the appropriate legal boilerplate: these thoughts are my own and do not represent those of Oracle; while I believe this information to be accurate, I do not present them with the intent that any person or enterprise to rely on this content to their detriment, the author accepts no personal liability, blah…blah…blah…

Now that the CYA is finished, let’s get on with sharing the news.

Release 12

R12 of the E-Business Suite is, to a large degree, a delivery iteration on the path to Fusion Applications. Although we all already know that R12 will run on Fusion Middleware, I’m not sure we all understand that one of the major points of R12 is to extend the functionality of the E-Business Suite using Fusion Middleware. In other words, this might be a worthwhile release for those E-Business customers ready to dive deeper into SOA.

Fusion Applications

- Oracle Forms will be replaced by Java Server Faces (”JSF”)
- The combination of Business Process tools and a BPEL execution environment will replace the Oracle Workflow product
- Fusion 1.0 will not eliminate PL/SQL and C++ from the apps environment, but the intent is for both to be eliminated at some point
- The Fusion development effort is still on-track to release individual applications in 2007 and the integrated Fusion Applications Suite in 2008.
- Oracle has released their flavor of an SOA maturity model, which you can read about here. This model provides substantial insight on where Fusion is headed.
- JDeveloper with ADF will continue to be the IDE and framework of choice for development work within the Fusion Applications environment.

Well, that’s all I have for now. Like I stated earlier, it’s in bits and pieces. There is not much of a unifying thread running through all this, it’s just chunks of info that seem worthy of sharing.

2006-10-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

In-Depth: Using Portal 10g with the E-Business Suite

This article covers the use of Oracle Portal 10g (10.1.2.0.2) with the E-Business Suite

The Basics: Portal Pages and EBS Product Portlets

Portal 10g is Oracle's enterprise portal product, allowing users to create web sites that consolidate and publish information from a variety of sources. Oracle's corporate website is built with Portal:

Portal users can access the E-Business Suite via the Application Navigator, a small portlet that displays a hierarchical menu of an authenticated user's Applications Responsibilities and their associated menu items. Here's a screenshot of the Applications Navigator:

Here's a screenshot of the draft Release 12 equivalent, with Applications Favorites portlet thrown in at no extra charge:

The Applications Navigator portlet's menu is user-specific: only the responsibilities that the user is authorized [link] for are displayed, so every user will see a different menu. The Navigator menu provide access to all E-Business Suite content, including Self-Service web-based applications like iExpenses, as well as Forms and Discoverer workbooks.

Other portlets are available for:

Application Favorites A list of bookmarked links to specific E-Business Suite screens

Applications Worklist A list of the user's Workflow Notifications

Balanced Scorecard Graphical and tabular key performance indicators based on E-Business Suite data

What's Required to Do This?

You need to do the following to use Portal with the E-Business Suite:

Integrate the E-Business Suite with Single Sign-On 10g (this is a mandatory prerequisite)
Install the E-Business Suite Oracle Applications Framework Web Provider in your E-Business Suite environment
Register the E-Business Suite Web Provider in your Portal environment
Build a custom portal page that displays the E-Business Suite portlets of your choice

How Does the Integration Work?

Individual E-Business Suite applications such as Balanced Scorecard write portlets to expose their data in Portal. These portlets communicate with Portal via the Oracle Applications Framework (OAF) web provider, a small E-Business Suite technology stack plug-in that handles user session management and transmission of portal content on-demand.

A Flurry of Activity

Here's what happens behind the scenes to produce a portal page containing an E-Business Suite portlet:

An end-user navigates to Portal. If the user isn't already logged in, she's redirected to Single Sign-On, where she's logged in. Once properly authenticated, she's redirected back to Portal.

The Portal Parallel Page Engine (PPE) begins assembling the home page that the user will eventually see, dispatching requests to the various sources for the latest office gossip, stock quotes, Discoverer workbook portlets, and so on.

Portal notes that the end-user's home page includes the Applications Navigator. Portal calls the OAF web provider, requesting the data for that portlet.

The OAF web provider looks up the user's authorization and then passes control to the portlet code that actually retrieves the data from the E-Business Suite database. That data is sent back to Portal, which renders the portlet according to wrapper information provided by the OAF web provider.

Certification with Portal 10.1.4

The latest version of Portal 10g available at the time of this post is Portal 10.1.4. This version is still being certified with the E-Business Suite.

2006-09-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Security Experts Worried Over Computer Crime Laws

Here is an interesting article from CIO.com

Moves by several European countries to tighten laws against computer hacking worry security professionals who often use the same tools as hackers but for legitimate purposes.

The United Kingdom and Germany are among the countries that are considering revisions to their computer crime laws in line with the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime, a Europe-wide treaty, and with a similar European Union measure passed in early 2005.

But security professionals are scrutinizing those revisions out of concern for how prosecutors and judges could apply the laws. Security professionals are especially concerned about cases where the revisions apply to programs that could be used for bad or good. Companies often use hacking programs to test the mettle of their own systems.

"One useful utility in the wrong hands is a potentially malicious hacking tool," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos in Abingdon, England.

In the United Kingdom, legislators are debating amendments to the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990. The proposed revisions would make it illegal to create or supply a tool to someone who intends to use it for unauthorized computer access or modification.

Likewise, the proposed changes to German law would also criminalize making and distributing hacking tools. The German government said the changes will bring it into compliance with the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime.

Several German security companies are planning to lobby against the law, as they fear it could hamper those who test security systems, said Alexander Kornbrust, founder and chief executive officer of Red-Database-Security in Neunkirchen, Germany. For example, tools to check the strength of passwords, often freely distributed, could also be used by malicious hackers, he said.

"The security community is very unhappy with this approach," Kornbrust said. "The concern is that the usage and possession of so-called hacker tools will become illegal."

The United Kingdom and Germany are trying to align their laws with Article 6 of the convention, which bans the creation of computer programs for the purpose of committing cybercrime.

So far, 43 countries have signed the convention, which indicates their willingness to revise their laws to comply. Fifteen have ratified the convention. After a country changes its laws, it can ratify the convention and put it into force.

The convention does not mandate a deadline for when countries must comply, and the process of changing laws can be lengthy depending on the country, said Margaret Killerby, head of the European Committee on Crime Problems, which tracks implementation of the convention.

But the goal is for Europe—and other countries, such as the United States, which also said it will implement the convention soon—to mount a consistent defense against computer criminals, given the transnational nature of computer crime, Killerby said.

A key point of the convention requires countries to have a law enforcement contact available at all times to assist foreign authorities in obtaining electronic evidence, which can disappear quickly without quick moves by law enforcement.

"What we want to have is an institution to allow states to cooperate with each other as rapidly as possible," she said.

Those requirements are devoid of controversy. Individual countries can draft their own customized legislation to comply with the convention, which can be used as a checklist, Killerby said. The council has provided assistance to countries in central and eastern Europe in creating computer crime laws where none was on the books, Killerby said.

Countries with existing laws will have to find a medium that satisfies their own legal requirements and the convention. In the United Kingdom, the House of Lords is scheduled next month to debate changes in the part of the CMA concerning creation and distribution of hacking tools.

The proposed revision to the CMA says a person is guilty of an offense if he makes or supplies something intending it to be used to commit an offense or "believing that it is likely to be so used."

But officials are confident that the wording can be smoothed. The controversy could be dampened merely by changing "likely" to "primarily," which could "make sure we don’t catch the legitimate penetration testers," said Merlin Erroll, a lord who sits on the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group, during a recent presentation in London.

-Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service (London Burea

2006-09-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Zero Faith in Zero Defects

E-Week ran an interesting story on Oracle’s Fusion Applications. Among other things, the story broke the news that Oracle has instituted a zero-defect policy for the first release of the Fusion Applications. I personally got a bit of a chuckle over the zero-defect policy. Based on experience, I have zero faith in zero defects - especially for an initial release.

Zero defects is a very worthwhile and commendable goal, but one practically impossible to obtain. The nearer a project comes to delivery, the more pressure is applied to compromise on the zero defects goal. As any project manager worth his or her salt will tell you, the key issue in project management is balancing the classic triple constraint: cost, schedule and quality. Choosing an absolute standard for any one of these constraints will increase the value of the other two. In the case of zero defects, costs increase and the schedule grows longer.

Now couple a zero-defect policy with the promise that the Fusion Applications will be released in 2008. We now have some absolute boundaries on not one, but two constraints: zero defects delivered by the end of 2008. Assuming that the quality and schedule constraints can both be obtained (and I’m only conceding this point for the moment), that leaves us “wiggle room” with only one constraint - cost. Simply put, hitting both the schedule and quality goal will likely cost some pretty big piles of cash. Hmmm, saving cash versus software quality…which concern do you think will take priority?

What usually happens is that, as the project comes close to the budgeted cost ceiling and the delivery day draws near, the decision is typically made to compromise on the zero-defects goal rather than exceed the budget and deliver late (for additional references on this trade-off, recall the early versions of the 11i E-Business Suite). I anticipate that the same trade-off will be made here, probably sometime in early 2008.

A zero-defects policy is a wonderful goal early in any development project. And I’ll tip my hat to anyone delivering a perfect initial release within budget and on schedule. However, experience indicates that software quality will usually lose out to cost and schedule. Do I expect the first release of Fusion Applications to be of higher quality than the early releases of the 11i E-Business Suite? Reading John Wookey’s words from that E-Week article, he sounds pretty serious about quality, so I’d say “yes”. However, any customer expecting zero defects should prepare for disappointment.

2006-09-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Importance of Being 12

With apologies to Oscar Wilde for the title of this post, may I take a moment to consider the importance of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12? R12 is due for release in the last quarter of 2006. As more information becomes available, each Oracle customer will have to decide for themselves whether or not a move to R12 has value for them. Some of us may opt to stick with what we have until the Fusion Applications picture becomes clear. Some will see value in R12 and make the leap in relatively short order. Others may move to another product line (or apps vendor) altogether. Regardless of our individual choices, R12 is important to everyone in the applications market space (including those who are not Oracle customers) because it’s an important step in the progress to achieving Oracle’s ambitious vision for Fusion Applications.

Please don’t misconstrue my meaning: R12 has importance, at least for Oracle E-Business customers, for reasons other than Fusion. R12 has 12 new application modules and over 2,300 new features, including the SWAN user interface, sub ledger accounting, new HRMS localizations, improved support for APAC manufacturing practices, Retek integration, and several new industry-specific business flows. Discounting R12 without seriously considering whether it holds significant value for your organization would be foolish, and I don’t mean to do so here. But my contention is that Release 12 represents a significant proof-point in the Fusion Applications evolution, and that the importance to Fusion is R12’s most essential feature.

R12 will be the first complete E-Business Suite release on Fusion middleware. This is the next step in a series of iterations toward Fusion applications technology that started with the Early Adopter Program for integration of 11i with the 9i Applications Server. While R12 is definitely not a Fusion Applications release, delivery of a high-quality E-Business Suite release on Fusion middleware will constitute a major milestone on the road to Fusion Applications.

E-Business Suite customers are about to find out just how well and reliably Fusion technology works with our apps environment, and the entire applications space is about to discover just how much progress Oracle has made in integrating all the moving pieces of this giant and complex technical puzzle. In other words, the rubber is about to meet the road…it should be an interesting drive!

2006-09-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

OAUG Successfully Completed First Ever Enhancement Request Voting Cycle

The OAUG Enhancement Request System (ERS) completed its first ever full voting cycle. Users submitted enhancement requests for over 400 Oracle Applications products, including Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Oracle Retail. Ultimately, the system collected over 1,100 submissions for this voting cycle.When voting concluded at the end of July, over 6,200 total votes had been cast.

Thank you to those OAUG members who took the time to vote. The results are currently being compiled in preparation to being shared with SIG coordinators, specific Oracle representatives and the International Oracle User Council (IOUC). Any formal responses received from Oracle regarding individual enhancements will be loaded back into the ERS.

The OAUG is currently evaluating the input received from SIGs and OAUG members regarding the submission, evaluation and voting processes to identify opportunities for improvement. Once this input has been analyzed and feedback has been received from Oracle, the OAUG will work with the SIGs to develop a timeline for the next voting cycle.

If you missed this voting cycle and wish to submit enhancements for the next voting cycle, login to the Enhancement Request System to submit your enhancements. If you have any questions about the ERS or ideas for improving the process, please contact the OAUG by e-mailing at enhancements@oaug.org.

2006-09-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Oracle 10g Higher Availability using Data Guard

One of the biggest responsibilities for a DBA is to provide 100% availability and reduce unplanned downtime for a database & Oracle Data Guard is one of the most effective and comprehensive data availability, data protection and disaster recovery solutions available today .

Overview :
The database size is increasing dramatically every day and our critical business information system requires 24x7 uptime specially in an unplanned downtime when we can loose Data or it might get corrupted & it may take hours, even days to restore such a database. To minimize downtime and avoid data loss, we need a standby database that can take the role of the primary database in a timely fashion & here come the data guard in picture where Data Guard maintains these standby databases as transactionally consistent copies of the production database.

In short Oracle Data Guard is the management, monitoring, and automation software infrastructure that creates, maintains, and monitors one or more standby databases to protect enterprise data from failures, disasters, errors, and corruptions.

Data Guard Functional Components:
So here we will discuss what is needed to get the data guard working ....

a) Data Guard Config -A Data Guard configuration consists of one production (or primary) database and up to nine standby databases.

b)Redo Apply and SQL Apply - As Standbys are created from primary , we need the technology to make them at par with the primary by applying Redo to standby.

Data Guard provides two methods to apply this redo data to the standby database :

* Redo Apply, used for physical standby databases
* SQL Apply, used for logical standby databases

c)Role Management-Using Data Guard, the role of a database can be switched from a primary role to a standby role and vice versa, ensuring no data loss in the process, and minimizing downtime. There are two kinds of role transitions - a switchover and a failover.

Switchover - This is used for planned maintaince specially for patching & upgrades .

Failover - Is disaster recovery measure which comes in picture when Primary node is down .

d)Types of standby - there are 2 kinds of stanby data bases :

Physical Standby - this is a replica of primary database on Block-by-block basis.The database schema, including indexes, are the same.

Logical Standby - It has the same logical information as primary , but can be used as a seprate database for reporting etc .

e)Data Guard Protection Modes

Maximum Protection- this is also called no-data-loss mode as here no commit of transaction is done unless teh redo is shipped & applied to atleast one of the standby .But the issue here is that if standby becomes unavailable , primary shuts down .

Maximum Availability - the only diffenece this has from maximum performace mode is that it does not shut down the db when standby is down , it waits for standby to get up & running and then resync it with primary .

Maximum Performance- Archiver is used for this to ship the logs , thus the performance is more .The commit operation of the primary database does not wait for the standby database to acknowledge receipt .

f)Data Guard Broker
The Oracle Data Guard Broker is a distributed management framework that automates and centralizes the creation, maintenance, and monitoring of Data Guard configurations.

2006-09-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Oracle Beginners...free training

Here is a link to a site that gives some good free training to people just beginning with the Oracle Apps.

2006-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

Aliases, Maiden Names and Nicknames

You know, I've never really understood how nicknames are worked out. It makes sense that Jon can be short for Jonathon. But how do you get from John to Jack? And from William to Bill?

Regardless of the mystifying linguistic antecedents, you can accomodate this state of affairs for user management with the combination of Oracle Internet Directory and the E-Business Suite.

Linking Apps Users with OID Users
From previous posts, you know that we link user accounts in Oracle Internet Directory with their corresponding user accounts in the E-Business Suite, like this:

Every user in Oracle Internet Directory has a Global Unique Identifier (GUID). The E-Business Suite stores this Global Unique Identifier in its own user directory (FND_USER), creating a unique link between the two accounts.

Using Different Names in Apps and OID

Since the users are linked by a numerical Global Unique Identifier, it doesn't matter if their actual userids in the two namespaces don't match exactly. In addition to accomodating those mystifying nicknames, aliases, and maiden names, this is useful for integrating the E-Business Suite with LDAP directories with different userid naming conventions.

In the example above, the user's ID in Oracle Internet Directory is "john.smith", whereas his userid in Apps is "jsmith". The user logs on to Single Sign-On using his "john.smith" userid and transparently passes through to Apps with responsibilities tied to his "jsmith" account.

Assuming Multiple Identities

Consider this scenario. In a shared services business model, a single purchasing agent acts as the purchaser for different geographic organizations.

Each of these different organizations may have their own business setups, so separate user accounts have been created for each organization. A given purchasing agent logs into the E-Business Suite using different accounts.

The brute-force approach to handling this is to require the purchasing agent to remember different passwords for each account. A more elegant solution is to link his Oracle Internet Directory userid to each of the different Apps accounts, like this:

Using this approach, the purchasing agent logs into Single Sign-On using his "john.smith" account. One of the linked accounts is flagged as the default account, and he can easily switch to the other accounts without having to log out and back in again with a different userid.

Not in the Other Direction

This "one-to-many" link is fully supported with both Release 11i and 12. In other words, you can link a single Oracle Internet Directory account to multiple Apps accounts.

"Many-to-one" links are not supported, however. In other words, it's not possible to link multiple Oracle Internet Directory accounts with a single Apps account.

Integration with Third-Party LDAP Directories

You might have a third-party LDAP whose userid naming conventions differ from your E-Business Suite environment. If so, your best approach is to ensure that Oracle Internet Directory is populated with those third-party userids, like this:

Related

2006-09-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

Password Management with Third-Party Solutions

From my earlier posts you will know that passwords no longer need to be maintained in the E-Business Suite when you've implemented Single Sign-On 10g integration. What happens to passwords in a configuration that includes a third-party LDAP directory like Microsoft Active Directory, and a third-party single sign-on solution like Microsoft Kerberos?

Third-Party Integration In A Nutshell

Before we get to password management, I'd recommend that you review the earlier post.

If you're in a hurry, here's a quick recap of the key points:

Oracle Internet Directory is a mandatory hub for synchronizing user information between a third-party LDAP directory and the E-Business Suite
The third-party LDAP directory is usually considered to be the master "source of truth" for user credentials
Oracle Single Sign-On is a mandatory prerequisite for delegating E-Business Suite's user authentication to a third-party single sign-on solution

Using Oracle Internet Directory As A Hub

Recall that it's possible to integrate your E-Business Suite environment with a third-party LDAP directory using Oracle Internet Directory and its Directory Integration Platform as an intermediary, like this:

Oracle Internet Directory is a mandatory component in this chain. Oracle doesn't currently offer any methods of directly integrating a third-party LDAP with the E-Business Suite.

Third-Party LDAP As The Master "Source of Truth"

In the typical configuration, the third-party LDAP directory is the master "source of truth" for the user's credentials. For example, a change to the user's name would first be made in the third-party LDAP. The updated user's information would then be sent to Oracle Internet Directory via the Directory Integration Platform. Once in Oracle Internet Directory, the updated user's information would then be sent to the E-Business Suite via the Directory Integration Platform.

Extending the Chain of Trust

Remember that the E-Business Suite can delegate user authentication to Oracle Single Sign-On, effectively creating a chain of trust between the two components. When the E-Business Suite is integrated with a third-party single sign-on solution, that chain of trust is extended one level further, like this:

When the user logs on to the third-party single sign-on solution, she gets a set of security tokens that are recognized and trusted by Oracle Single Sign-On. Oracle Single Sign-On doesn't challenge the user again for her credentials.

In turn, Oracle Single Sign-On issues its own set of security tokens, which are recognized and trusted by the E-Business Suite. The E-Business Suite doesn't challenge the user again for her credentials.

What About Passwords?

Now that we've got the basics out of the way, understanding how passwords are handled in this scenario should be a bit easier. In the scenario above, the user is challenged only once for their userid and password. The third-party single sign-on solution handles that challenge and authenticates the user's credentials against the third-party LDAP.

It stands to reason that if the user is already logged in by the third-party single sign-on solution, and Oracle components never ask for the user's userid and password, there's no reason to keep the user's password anywhere in the Oracle namespaces.

And, that's true: when integrated as shown above, users' passwords are not stored locally in either Oracle Internet Directory or the E-Business Suite. Passwords are stored only in the third-party LDAP directory.

Delegating User Management

Since the third-party LDAP repository is the master source of truth, it handles all user password resets. Neither Oracle Internet Directory nor the E-Business Suite are interested in -- or even participate in the process -- of password management in this scenario. It's all delegated to the third-party LDAP.

For Advanced Readers Only

By this point, I've weeded out readers with short attention spans. For the handful of you who've toughed it out to this point, I should note that the above scenario is only one of many possible starting points. Other advanced scenarios are technically feasible, including those in which user credentials flow bidirectionally between Oracle Internet Directory and the third-party LDAP.

These can get pretty involved, so I'll have to leave these as an exercise for you to work out, for now. More information can be found in the Implementation Guide, which describes more variants on the basic scenario outlined here.

Related

Note: Everything in this article applies equally to both Release 11i and 12 environments.

2006-09-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Using Third-Party Identity Managers with the E-Business Suite Release 11i

No More Redundant User Administration

With the certification of Oracle Application Server 10g and Single Sign-On 10g, it is now possible to integrate the E-Business Suite with existing third-party LDAP and single sign-on solutions, like this:

Third-party single sign-on solutions can be integrated with Oracle Single Sign-On 10g, and third-party LDAP directories can be integrated with Oracle Internet Directory 10g. From there, it's a short hop to the E-Business Suite.

Example Scenario: The Deluxe "Zero Sign-On" Approach

A user logs on their PC using their Windows userid and password. Wanting to avoid real work, the user decides to file a long-overdue expense report for last year's company conference. He starts Firefox, opens Favourites, and selects a bookmarked link for the E-Business Suite's Self-Service Expenses.

Self-Service Expenses starts up, and the user begins the process of assembling rationalizations to justify that $450 dinner with their favourite Macerich blogger.

(This is a fictional example, of course; nobody takes bloggers out to dinner)

We sometimes call this "zero sign-on" because the user never actually logged on to any Oracle systems at all; their Windows Kerberos ticket gave them an all-access pass to the E-Business Suite automatically.

Magic? What Really Happened?

Brace yourself: some of the following material might require a couple of passes to sink in.

The scenario above illustrates the following integrations:

Microsoft Active Directory with Oracle Internet Directory 10g
Microsoft Kerberos Authentication with Oracle Single Sign-On 10g
Oracle Application Server 10g with the E-Business Suite

The user logged on to their PC, which authenticated them against Microsoft Active Directory. As part of that logon process, Microsoft Kerberos Authentication issued a valid Kerberos ticket to the user.

When the user attempted to access Self-Service Expenses via his bookmarked link, he was redirected to Oracle Single Sign-On 10g. Oracle Single Sign-On 10g recognized the Microsoft Kerberos ticket, issued its own Oracle security tokens to the user, and redirected the user back to the E-Business Suite.

The E-Business Suite recognized the Oracle Single Sign-On 10g security tokens and looked up the user's assigned Applications Responsibilities to ensure that he was authorized to access Self-Service Expenses. That done, it issued its own E-Business Suite security tokens and then passed the user through to Self-Service Expenses without requiring any additional logons.

Integration with Microsoft Active Directory Only

Not everyone uses Microsoft Kerberos Authentication. A simpler integration option omits Kerberos and includes only Microsoft Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory, like this:

In this simpler architecture, when the user attempts to access Self-Service Expenses via his bookmarked link, he's redirected to Oracle Single Sign-On OracleAS 10g. Single Sign-On displays a login screen and collects the user's ID and password.

Single Sign-On passes the user's supplied ID and password to Oracle Internet Directory for validation. Oracle Internet Directory uses the Windows NT External Authentication plug-in (sometimes also called the Windows Native Authentication plug-in) to delegate user authentication to Microsoft Active Directory.

Microsoft Active Directory looks up the user's ID and password in its database, and informs Oracle Internet Directory that this is an authenticated user. Oracle Internet Directory informs Single Sign-On that the user was successfully authenticated.

Single Sign-On issues the user a set of security tokens and redirects the user to the E-Business Suite. The E-Business Suite recognizes the Single Sign-On security tokens and looks up the user's assigned Applications Responsibilities to ensure that he's authorized to access Self-Service Expenses. That done, it issues its own E-Business Suite security tokens and then passes the user through to Self-Service Expenses.

"Out-of-the-box" Third-Party LDAP Integration with Oracle Internet Directory

Due to the popularity of Microsoft Active Directory, Oracle Internet Directory provides a prebuilt connector out-of-the box, ready to use.

Synchronization of User Credentials with Third-Party LDAP Directories

If you've been paying close attention so far, you have likely gathered that user credentials need to be synchronized between the third-party LDAP, Oracle Internet Directory, and the E-Business Suite. The synchronization architecture looks like this:

In this configuration, only the user name needs to be synchronized; the user's password is stored in the third-party LDAP directory. None of the Oracle products need to store the user's password, since they delegate user authentication to the third-party LDAP solutions.

The key concept here is that user authentication is still separated from user authorization even when a third-party LDAP is in place. So, the E-Business Suite still grants authenticated users access to E-Business Suite protected content based on the users' Applications Responsibilities, which are managed in the E-Business Suite exclusively.

Bringing It All Together

Assuming I haven't lost you so far, the following diagram shouldn't be too overwhelming:

This combines all of the concepts we've covered:

Third-party LDAP integration with Oracle Internet Directory
Third-party SSO integration with Oracle Single Sign-On
Synchronization of user credentials via the Oracle Internet Directory's Oracle Directory & Provisioning Platform to the E-Business Suite

Relax, It's Easy and Fun

Well, maybe not... but at least it's technically feasible. There are a number of E-Business Suite customers are running this configuration in production already.

There are many more options for integration with the E-Business Suite, including options for linking OID userids to different E-Business Suite userids, and so on. More information can be found in this document:

Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i with Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Single Sign-On (Metalink Note 261914.1)

2006-09-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

Watch that Oracle stock today!

Oracle Reports Q1 GAAP EPS Up 28% to 13 Cents, Non-GAAP EPS Up 24% to 18 Cents

September 19, 2006 - Oracle Corporation today announced fiscal 2007 Q1 GAAP earnings per share were up 28% to $0.13, compared to the same quarter last year. First quarter total GAAP revenues were up 30% to $3.6 billion, while quarterly GAAP net income was up 29% to $670 million.

2006-09-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

Encrypting Traffic Between 11i Application and Database Tiers

It's now possible to encrypt the SQL*Net traffic that flows between your E-Business Suite Release 11i application and database tier servers.

Oracle Applications 11.5.10 users with RUP 3 or later (11i.ATG.PF.H RUP3 patch 4334965 or later)

Exception for HP-UX Users

HP-UX users cannot enable ANO/ASO until the resolution of bug 5398088. This bug prevents access to MOD PL/SQL from the $IAS_ORACLE_HOME.

Related
Encrypting EBS 11i Network Traffic using Advanced Security Option / Advanced Networking Option (Note 391248.1)

2006-09-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Password Management with Oracle Internet Directory

User password resets - the bane of every sysadmin. Automating this tedium is a major benefit of integrating your E-Business Suite environment with Oracle Application Server 10g. By delegating user authentication to Single Sign-On 10g and Oracle Internet Directory 10g, you can take advantage of the latter's automatic password reset capabilities.

But First, Some Basics About Account Management

In a standard E-Business Suite environment, user passwords are stored and encrypted in the user's records in the E-Business Suite's FND_USER directory.

When an E-Business Suite environment is integrated with Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory, Apps user accounts are linked to Oracle Internet Directory user accounts like this:

Where Does The User Log In?

When a user's E-Business Suite account is linked to an account in Oracle Internet Directory, sysadmins have the option of specifying how the user can log into the E-Business Suite. This can be specified for each individual user.

Available options are:

Users can log in externally via Single Sign-On
Users can bypass Single Sign-On and log in locally to the E-Business Suite
Users can log in via both of the methods above

E-Business Suite Doesn't Need To Store A Password

In the external scenario, all user authentication is handled by Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory. For so-called external users, passwords are stored exclusively in Oracle Internet Directory. Single Sign-On displays a login screen and collects the user's userid and password, and Oracle Internet Directory checks that those credentials match the user's entry within the Oracle Internet Directory LDAP user directory.

After users successfully log into Single Sign-On, they receive security tokens that the E-Business Suite recognizes and uses to establish their E-Business Suite session, based on a chain of trust that looks like this:

The E-Business Suite uses those Single Sign-On security tokens in place of checking for a password. So, it doesn't need to store user passwords for external users at all.

No More Manual Password Changes

So, in a refreshing switch for veteran Apps sysadmins, all external users can reset their own passwords using Oracle Internet Directory's Delegated Administration Service. This represents the end of the era of manual password resets for Apps users.

Logging Into The E-Business Suite Directly

There are specific users that must always be able to log into the E-Business Suite directly. These users include Apps DBAs or system administrators, who still need to be able to get into Apps even if the external Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory instances are unavailable due to maintenance windows.

These are considered to be local users, so their passwords are always stored in the E-Business Suite's FND_USER directory, not Oracle Internet Directory. Passwords for these users still need to be maintained manually using the regular E-Business Suite security forms that you know and love.

A Tricky Case: "Both"

There might be a subset of users who need to be able to access the E-Business Suite via Single Sign-On as well as locally. These users would be given access to both login methods, which means that passwords must be stored in both locations: Oracle Internet Directory and the E-Business Suite's FND_USER directory.

The password management overhead is higher for these users, so you'll want to use this option very sparingly:

Password changes made in the E-Business Suite are automatically sent to Oracle Internet Directory
Password changes made in Oracle Internet Directory must be manually repeated in the E-Business Suite using the E-Business Suite security forms

The asymmetry in the tasks above is because of this: we can decrypt passwords stored in the E-Business Suite, which allows us to send them to Oracle Internet Directory. Passwords in Oracle Internet Directory, however, are hashed, which prevents us from transmitting a copy to the E-Business Suite.

2006-09-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

In-Depth: Synchronizing Oracle HRMS with OID

We often talk about managing E-Business Suite users with Oracle Internet Directory 10g. But what about situations where you need to manage Oracle Human Resources employees in Oracle Internet Directory? Or create E-Business Suite accounts automatically for new employees? That's where the Oracle HR Agent comes into the picture.

Users vs. Employees

For starters, let's distinguish between users and employees:

USER: An E-Business Suite user is someone who needs to be able to log into Apps. That user might need to file expense reports, view her payslip, or file purchase requisitions. All E-Business Suite users have userids and records in the FND_USER repository, and have associated responsibilities that govern what the functions and data that they can access.

EMPLOYEE: An employee is someone whose information is managed by the Human Resources module in the E-Business Suite. Oracle Human Resources tracks information like employee numbers, manager hierarchies, and other personally identifiable information like birthdates.

Employees aren't Necessarily Users

Not all employees are users, and vice versa. For example, a major retailer might use the E-Business Suite's Human Resources modules to manage employee information for their cashiers, but those cashiers may not be authorized to log into the E-Business Suite at all.

When Worlds Overlap

From an organizational standpoint, this distinction makes a lot of sense. The HR department manages employees, and the IT department manages E-Business Suite accounts.

But what happens when those worlds overlap? Following the example above, what about a scenario where the cashiers are permitted to view their payslips via the Self-Service Human Resources module?

In this scenario, the same person would be represented in two places:

In the Human Resources module
In the Apps FND_USER repository

For E-Business Suite environments that aren't integrated with Oracle Internet Directory, user records need to be individually maintained in each location.

Creating Employee Entries in Oracle Internet Directory

It's possible to use the Oracle Internet Directory Human Resources connector to push employee information from Oracle HR to Oracle Internet Directory.

You can export a subset of employee data from Oracle Human Resources into Oracle Internet Directory. The connector includes both a prepackaged integration profile and an Oracle Human Resources agent that handles communication with Oracle Internet Directory.

You can schedule the Oracle Human Resources connector to run at any time, configuring it to extract incremental changes from the Oracle Human Resources system. You can also set and modify mapping between column names in Oracle Human Resources and attributes in Oracle Internet Directory.

Exportable HR Attributes

There's a long list of HR employee attributes that you can send to Oracle Internet Directory, including:

First name, last name
Title
Sex
Date of birth
Employee number
Email address
Others...

Making A Round Trip

You can synchronize user information between Oracle Internet Directory and the E-Business Suite's FND_USER like this (see article on sso with 11i for details) :

Therefore, it's possible for employee information to make a round-trip like this:

Not In the Opposite Direction

This architecture would support a business flow where a new employee is registered in E-Business Suite Human Resources by the HR department. That employee's information is then propagated via Oracle Internet Directory to FND_USER, where an IT administrator grants the appropriate Apps responsibilities to the user.

The opposite direction is not supported. It is not possible to have an employee created in Oracle HR based upon a new user entry in Oracle Internet Directory.

2006-09-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

XML Publisher & The E-Business Suite

This is a pointer to one of the hottest new technologies for the E-Business Suite: XML Publisher (XMLP), which has been instrumental in changing the way we think about how Apps data can be used by end-users for reports and other business documents.

Into the Hands of End-Users

XML Publisher is interesting in that it allows end-users -- using tools such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat -- to create richly-formatted templates for reports and business documents containing Apps data.

XML data extracts from E-Business Suite concurrent programs are merged with those templates at runtime, generating output in PDF, HTML, RTF, EXCEL (HTML), or even text for use with EFT and EDI transmissions.

Advanced Tools for the Data Center

In addition to the potential of this tool to allow your end-users to create simple reports for themselves, there are advanced options for integration with email systems, faxes, WebDAV, FTP, HTTP, barcodes, and more.

Those topics are discussed in the excellent XML Publisher Blog, which features technical articles directly from the XML Development team. Note also that there will be several XMLP-related sessions at OpenWorld this year, which are linked to in this article.

2006-09-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

John Wookey on Oracle's Apps Strategy

I am sure John Wookey doesn't have the luxury of writing articles every day. In fact, given that he's got the hardest job in Silicon Valley, it's amazing that he has the time to write anything at all.

Therefore, if he's taken time out of his schedule to update his blog, it must be something worth paying attention to. Even if you're an Apps DBA whose primary concern is applying ATG RUP 4, John's latest article discusses some of the thinking behind Oracle's Applications Unlimited commitments and warrants some reflection:
Understanding Oracle's Unique Apps Strategy

2006-09-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12

[More cheering from Oracle Apps DBAs]

As most of you know, Oracle JInitiator is an authorised version of Sun Microsystems' Java2 Standard Edition with some specific fixes required to support Oracle Forms. JInitiator is currently required to run Oracle Forms in the E-Business Suite Release 11i, although we're running an Early Adopter Program that's evaluating the feasibility of eliminating this requirement for Release 11i.

Oracle JInitiator will no longer be required to run Oracle Forms in E-Business Suite Release 12. Oracle Forms in Release 12 will run directly in the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition plug-in. This will be our standard configuration for Release 12.

2006-09-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

E-Business Suite Technology Stack Overview

Hot off the presses, here's the latest Release 11i technology stack architecture diagram:

This is a nice summary showing how our latest technologies such as Web Services, BPEL, Web Cache, XML Publisher, and Enterprise Manager fit into the bigger E-Business Suite technology stack picture.

This was just released yesterday, so you can expect to see saturation coverage in future Oracle presentations and white papers. One of my colleagues jokingly suggested that we should get t-shirts, posters, and coffee mugs printed with this and I've half a mind to consider that seriously.

2006-09-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

Updated User Interface for E-Business Suite Release 12

It's expected that the E-Business Suite Release 12 will feature an updated user interface, codenamed "Project Swan." Aside from the unfortunate implication that the existing 11i user interface is an ugly duckling, Project Swan has some very appealing new aspects:

Background pattern for branding
Base font change to Tahoma 9pt
Button style change
Background color change
Tab style sub-tab layout with gradient background
Gradient background for header
Icon change
Table color update
Gradient background for footer
Vertical spacing change

For comparison, here's an existing Release 11i Self-Service Expenses screenshot (OA Framework):

And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's an existing Release 11i Form for the Contacts Center:

And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's the Release 11i Login Screen:

Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's an existing Release 11i CRM/JTT screenshot for iSupport:

Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:

Converting From Previous Versions

If you've customized or extended Release 11i screens according to our published customization standards, there shouldn't be significant effort involved in getting to the Project Swan look-and-feel. This is expected to vary a bit by the type of screen.

Oracle Applications Forms

Project Swan changes for Forms are limited to changing the color scheme and using non-boldfaced fonts for field values. These changes will be made in the technology layer, so no changes need to be made by Forms designers. There will be no change to the position or layout of any fields on the forms.

Oracle Applications Framework Screens

In most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the OAF technology layer. There may be specific cases where the use of custom stylesheets may require additional tweaks.

CRM/JTT Screens

Like OAF, in most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the technology layer. There may be specific cases (e.g. custom renderers, custom stylesheets) that require additional tweaks.

Migration Tools or Documents?

Given that the vast majority of existing screens should automatically be uplifted to the Swan UI, I haven't yet been told whether there will be tools to aid in conversions. It's likely that we'll provide you with the same internal Swan conversion guidelines that E-Business Suite product teams are using today (albeit with better spell-checking and grammar).

Alternate Colour Schemes

A common question at last month's OAUG conference was whether we would support alternate colour schemes, since many of you distinguish DEV, TEST, and PROD environments with different colours.

Short answer: Yes, you'll still be able to customize colour schemes in the new Swan UI. It isn't clear whether we'll provide you with a preset selection of different schemes, but you'll be able to design your own.

2006-09-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a search I use in Mozilla that enables me to do quick and easy searches of the Oracle Application Server 10.1.3 documentation set.

Create a new file in the $MOZILLA_HOME/searchplugins directory, paste in this text, and restart Mozilla.

You'll then see a new "OTN 10.1.3 Doc Search" box added to your search engines.

Type in a keyword press enter.

Bam!

Go on, search yourself silly.

OTN Doc Search

<search
version="1.0"
name="OTN 10.1.3 Doc Search"
description="OTN 10.1.3 Doc"
searchForm="http://www.oracle.com/pls/as1013/as1013.drilldown"
action="http://www.oracle.com/pls/as1013/as1013.drilldown"
method="GET" >

 <input name="word" user>
 <input name="remark" value="">
 <input name="book" value="">
 <input name="preference" value="">
 <input name="method" value="TEXT">

 <interpret
   resultListStart="<!-- RESULT LIST START -->"
   resultListEnd="<!-- RESULT LIST END -->"
   resultItemStart="<!-- RESULT ITEM START -->"
   resultItemEnd="<!-- RESULT ITEM END -->"
 >
</search>