All,

It’s finally official!!

During the Collaborate 2011 conference in Orlando, Oracle cleared up a lot of the unknowns around their current E-Business Suite of Applications Release 12.1, their upcoming new E-Business Suite of Applications Release 12.2 and the next generation Fusion Applications.

Release 12.1.3 is the terminal (final) release for 12.1. Premier Support for Release 12.1.3 will end May 31, 2014 (according to the official Lifetime Support documents at (http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-support-applications-069216.pdf). That’s less than three years out…

Release 12.2 has a completely new technology stack based on WebLogic components. The old web tier, Apache and OC4J, will be replaced by WebLogic. This will be a major technology change and learning challenge for Applications DBAs – even those with years of experience managing and maintaining the E-Business Suite. Release 12.2 is expected to be out very soon which, as we all know, could be anywhere from six months to over a year away…:-)

And, finally, the Fusion Applications will be GA (generally available) in the next two months according to Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President of Oracle Applications Development. The Fusion Applications for this release will consist of the Financials, Procurement and Project Portfolio Management pillars and will not include the other four Fusion Applications pillars. Please see http://www.oracle.com/us/products/consulting/018716.htm for more details on the Fusion Application Pillars.

There are lots and lots of changes in store for the entire E-Business Suite user community. Please make sure to pick the appropriate release for your business.

Release 12.2 is the first release of the E-Business Suite running with WebLogic components and is probably not something a stable customer would uptake especially as the first release.

As always, at this point in time, I would recommend that every E-Business Suite customer upgrade to 11gR2 as a first step and then evaluate which E-Business Suite Release will be appropriated for their business environment.

Good luck!!

thx,
John