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

• Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library (OTN)
  
• Forms Personalization - Get It While It's Hot!
• Personalizing and Extending Release 12

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:

1. It uses loopbacks and is not certified for external use in a DMZ configuration
   
2. 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

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:

1. 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?
   
   
2. What business advantages, process improvements, and new organizational capabilities will be possible with the new Release 12 features?
   
   
3. What are the new architectural or deployment capabilities in Release 12? How will these new capabilities improve system performance, scalability, availability, manageability, and security?
   
   
4. 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
  
  
5. 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?
   
   
6. 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

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:

1. Search Metalink for any known issues.
   
2. If you have any specific concerns, pose the question in the Oracle Forums to see if your peers have any experiences they can share.
   
3. 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.

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)

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)

Forms Personalisation

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)

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.

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.

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)

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:

1. Create a clone of your Discoverer environment
   
2. Create a clone of your Single Sign-On / Oracle Internet Directory environment
   
3. 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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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:

1. Use Rapid Clone to create a clone of your E-Business Suite, including the application-tier and database-tier.
   
2. 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).
   
3. 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.
   
4. Create a fresh install of Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory 10g on your new server.
   
5. 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

1. Portal requires a working Single Sign-On setup, so complete the previous section first.
   
2. If you haven't already done so, create a fresh install of Portal 10g on your new server.
   
3. 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.
   
4. Reregister the OAF Web Provider from your new E-Business Suite instance in your new Portal instance.

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)
  

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

To

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

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

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

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

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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).

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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"

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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."

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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.

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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

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New Application Management Packs Coming for Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g

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

• Oracle OpenWorld 2006 Application Management Previews
• Using Enterprise Manager with Applications Manager
• OAM: A Toolbox for E-Business Suite Administrators

Portal 10.1.4 Certified for the E-Business Suite

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)

Integrate OracleAS 10g with E-Business Suite Release 11

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.