Steven Chan

Applications Release 12 users can configure their environments to delegate user authentication to an external Single Sign-On 10g instance. In this optional configuration, Single Sign-On validates E-Business Suite user credentials against an external Oracle Internet Directory instance. Oracle Single Sign-On (SSO) and Oracle Internet Directory (OID) 10g version 10.1.2.3 are now certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (12.1.2) on the IBM: Linux on System z platform. This platform was recently announced as a fully certified R12 platform - this is the first certification of an optional external technology component for the platform. Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

Our Oracle Forms team has consolidated a large number important fixes on top of Forms and Reports version 10.1.2.3.0 into a new bundle patch. This patch is available for download now under the ungainly title of: * MLR Tracking Bug for Forms 10.1.2.3.0 Bundle Patch (Patch 9593176) This bundle patch is now certified with EBS Release 12 for all supported platforms except Linux on IBM System z. Prasad Akkiraju

The Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway service-enables Oracle E-Business Suite public APIs for Service Oriented Architecture. This feature was released in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1. One of the most common questions that Oracle E-Business Suite developers have is, "How do you secure E-Business Suite web services?" Generally, web service security consists of authentication, message integrity and confidentiality. I'll discuss the authentication aspect of web service security in this article. The WS-Security specification describes enhancements to SOAP that increase the protection and confidentiality of messages. It provides this protection by defining mechanisms for associating tokens with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages. Rekha Ayothi http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

We're often asked in Service Requests (SRs) to advise on the appropriate hardware specification for an Oracle Applications environment. The term most commonly used term for this exercise is 'sizing' and it is the process of working out how much disk space, memory and processing power you will need to run your Oracle Applications environment. Sizing for the rest of us is not such a simple process and has to take into account many factors. With that in mind, I'd like to go into a bit more detail of what you need to think about when sizing your hardware. Nick Quarmby

I know that many of you are actively planning your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 upgrades right now. The following webcast isn't directly techstack-related but may be of general interest. Our Customer Programs team has arranged a live webcast with AT&T, who will share their experience with their Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 upgrade: Friday, August 27, 2010 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (11:00 a.m. Pacific, 1:00 p.m. Central) Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

Premier Support for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i ends in November 2010. Extended Support begins when Premier Support ends. Extended Support comes at an additional cost, but these are waived for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i through November 2011. I'm in EBS Development and not sales, so you should contact your Oracle account manager with questions about Extended Support costs. A new set of minimum technical requirements for Apps 11i goes into effect when Extended Support begins in November 2010. These new minimum baseline patch requirements are listed in: * Minimum Baseline Patch Requirements for Extended Support on Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 (Note 883202.1) Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

I'm very pleased to announce that Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 is now available for download: * Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Release Update Pack (Patch 9239090) For installation instructions for EBS 12.1.3, see: * Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Readme (Note 1080973.1) This release update pack (RUP) combines error corrections, statutory/regulatory updates, and functionality enhancements into a consolidated, suite-wide patch set. This release is a maintenance pack and can only be installed on top of an existing EBS 12.1 environment. Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

OpenWorld 2010 San Francisco is just around the corner. We have a very full lineup of E-Business Suite technology stack-related sessions this year. If you're going to be joining us at the conference, we've published a summary of all of the EBS techstack-related sessions here: * Focus On Applications Tools and Technology (PDF, 284K) We have almost forty sessions intended for EBS architects, systems administrators, DBAs, and consultants. These sessions include: Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

We certified Discoverer 11g version 11.1.1.3 (a.k.a. Patchset 2) with the E-Business Suite on six platforms last month. Those certifications included Oracle Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. As a follow-on to that original certification announcement, Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1 Discoverer version 11.1.1.3 is now certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and R12 (12.0.x, 12.1.x) on a dozen additional platforms Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

jceecolorlogo2.gif The painful saga of our recent JRE releases' issues with the Oracle E-Business Suite is almost over. It is expected that a future release of JRE 1.6 will contain a mainline fix for the "Mismanaged Session Cookie" issues that exist with JRE 1.6.0_18 to 1.6.0_21 build 6 (6u210b06), inclusive. There is an interim workaround until that new release is available. JRE 1.6.0_21 build 8 (6u21-b08) is now available and certified for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i and R12. This Build of the native plug-in fixes the 'Mismanaged Session Cookie' issue for the JRE 6u21 stream, which could cause a failure of the following functionalities on certain desktop/browser combinations, and particularly prevalent for IE6 and IE7 users: * 'File -> Export' functionality * Opening attachments in forms * Opening an HTML form to a new window from forms. * Opening an Applet in a new window from forms * Trying to login again after forms session timeout fails Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

I'm pleased to let you know that Oracle Internet Directory 11gR1 Patchset 2 (version 11.1.1.3.0) is now certified with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i, 12.0 and 12.1. Oracle Internet Directory 11.1.1.3.0 can be integrated with two single sign-on solutions for EBS environments: * With Oracle Single Sign-On Server 10g (10.1.4.3.0) with an existing Oracle E-Business Suite system (Release 11i, 12.0.x or 12.1.1) * With Oracle Access Manager 10g (10.1.4.3) with an existing Oracle E-Business Suite system (Release 11i or 12.1.x) Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

Our Applications Platform Group has certified the Safari 4 browser with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 on the following desktop operating system configurations... Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

If you're running your E-Business Suite servers on on Linux, Windows, or Sun operating system platforms, you should be reminded that the End of Service Life for Java 5.0 was on October 30, 2009. Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer is an ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis, and Web-publishing tool that allows end-users to work directly with Oracle E-Business Suite OLTP data. We certified Discoverer 11g version 11.1.1.3 (a.k.a. Patchset 2) with the E-Business Suite a few weeks ago. With that recent certification, I think it's time to cover the installation and configuration of Discoverer 11g with E-Business Suite. Discoverer 11g's integration with the E-Business Suite works identically to Discoverer 10g, and all of the business intelligence functionality continues to work as in previous Discoverer releases. The major changes in this release come from Discoverer's installation dependencies on Oracle Application Server components. Nirzari

The Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Release 12 is now available on a new fully certified EBS platform - Linux on IBM System z. This IBM platform (i.e. Linux running on an IBM mainframe) is also known as 'Linux on System z' and appears in our Oracle systems (My Oracle Support, aru, bug, etc.) as 'IBM: Linux on System z'. The Linux on System z platform was previously a 'database tier only' platform (for EBS 11i and 12.0) and will continue to be supported as such on those releases. With this announcement for 12.1, we are supporting the platform as a fully certified EBS platform (i.e. for both application and database tiers). Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

There are three possible configurations: 1. 32-bit Windows 7, 32-bit browsers, 32-bit JRE 2. 64-bit Windows 7, 32-bit browsers, 32-bit JRE 3. 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit browsers, 64-bit JRE We have certified the first configuration already: E-Business Suite with 32-bit Windows 7 desktop clients running 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox with the 32-bit JRE. We are in the process of certifying the second configuration: Oracle E-Business Suite with 64-bit Windows 7 desktop clients running 32-bit versions of IE and Firefox with the 32-bit JRE. This certification is going smoothly, and I am optimistic that it will be completed soon. Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

[Editor: This is the third in a multi-part series from Nirzari Raichura, a senior member of our ATG Certification team, on essential Fusion Middleware concepts and tools for the EBS sysadmin] Oracle Identity Management (OIM) 11gR1 is part of Fusion Middleware 11gR1. Oracle Identity Management 11gR1 provides the following components as part of its default installation: Oracle Directory Services Components * OID - Oracle Internet Directory * DIP - Oracle Directory Integration Platform * OVD - Oracle Virtual Directory Oracle Identity Federation Components * OIF - Oracle Identity Federation Management Components * EM - Enterprise Manager * ODSM - Oracle Directory Service Manager Nirzari

Our Applications Platform Engineering team has certified Oracle Database 11g Release 2 version 11.2.0.1 with: * Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (12.0.x and 12.1.x) on the HP-UX PA-RISC platform * Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (11.5.10.2) on the HP-UX PA-RISC and HP-UX Itanium platforms Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

My colleagues in the Java division shipped Java Runtime Edition 1.6.0_21 (a.k.a. JRE 6u21, internal version 1.6.0_21-b06) last week. See the 1.6.0_21 Update Release Notes for details about what has changed in this release. Unfortunately, this release of JRE 6u21 (1.6.0_21-b06) still has the 'Mismanaged Session Cookie' issue that we reported in earlier articles. This can cause a failure of the following E-Business Suite functions with certain desktop and browser combinations, notably for IE 6 and 7 users: Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html

EBS 11i Technology Stack Rollup U (Patch 9535311) for AutoConfig is now available for download. This Rollup patchset includes fixes and enhancements to the AutoConfig Engine, tools, and EBS configuration templates. The new template files included in this patchset have no effect on an Oracle E-Business Suite configuration until the AutoConfig utility is run. This cumulative patch includes all previously released AutoConfig updates, including the previous AutoConfig Rollup RUP T (Patch 8217898). RUP U can be applied without applying previous AutoConfig Rollup patchsets. Steven Chan http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/about.html