John Stouffer

The OAUG user group has once again come through for the Oracle E-Business Application community by working with Oracle to waive all Release 11.5.10.2 Extended Support fees.

In the December edition of OAUG eNews the follow support change was announced.

Oracle has waived the Extended Support fees for E-Business Suite 11.5.10 for the entire three years of the Extended Support period, December 2010 – November 2013. This is a two-year extension to the initial waiver for the first year of the Extended Support fees.

This is great news for many of us trying to maximize the ROI from our large ERP implementations while planning on a Release 12 or Fusion Applications upgrade or implementation later in the Release 11i Extended Support period.  Please note that there is no longer a direct upgrade path from Release 11.5.10.2 to Fusion Applications.

The changes to the Lifetime Support documents and the Oracle Software Technical Support Policies will be made with the December updates to the documents at the links below:

Oracle Lifetime Support Policy – Oracle Applications

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/lifetime-support-applications-069216.pdf

Oracle Software Technical Support Policies

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/057419.pdf

NOTE:  Please review the December updates to the documents noted above to confirm the support policy changes have made it to Oracle’s official documents!

And don’t forget to also review the Oracle Software Technical Support Policies and Oracle Lifetime Support Policy documents for additional support changes that have been made to Oracle software including the Oracle RDBMS.

Great news! Thanks to OAUG and Oracle!

John

All,

Where does the time go?  More specifically, where did August, September and October go?

Except for one brief appearance in Houston for the SCOUG conference, the rest of the last three months are a blur…I think it may have something to do with age and travel but I can’t remember…:-)  And, unfortunately, I was so busy that I was not able to make the annual Oracle OpenWorld 2011 Conference this October in San Francisco.  After 15 or so continuous years of attendance while keeping up on the latest Oracle news I was forced to pick between the conference and a new contract ($$$).  I know many of you will not believe this but the $$$ won!

I will be presenting at the two-day OAUG/Oracle Connection Point – Release 12.1 (November 15-16) in Atlanta. This is a joint conference with Oracle and focuses on assisting E-Business Suite customers who are upgrading to Release 12.1 or are already on Release 12.

The Conference Home Page link is: http://connectionpoint.oaug.org/2011/atlanta/

I have three sessions and two panels and all except one are on Tuesday so get there early!:

All,
I will be presenting “A Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite R12 and Oracle Fusion Applications” at the upcoming SCOUG Training Day in Houston on 9/16.

http://www.scoug.org/Portal/Events.aspx – 10-10:50am

Lots of updates on Release 12.x and Fusion Applications to share. I hope to see you there. Stay tuned for other upcoming speaking and presenting engagements for 2011.

thx,
John

All,

I’ve been remiss in not posting for some time.  May was a very busy month and I will catch up one of these days…:-)

I will be presenting at the two-day OAUG/Oracle Connection Point – Release 12.1 (July 12-13) in Chicago. This is a joint show with Oracle and focuses strictly on assisting E-Business Suite customers who are upgrading to Release 12.1 or are already on Release 12.

The Conference Home Page link is: http://connectionpoint.oaug.org/2011/r12/

I have three sessions and two panels:

All,

Please join several Oracle ACEs and ACE Directors as we answer your questions regarding the Oracle announcements and news delivered during the recent Collaborate 2011 conference in Orlando.

The link to register for the call:

http://www.fmtsystems.com/04-news/events.html

I look forward to your questions!

thx,
John

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

All,

I will be presenting on a variety of Oracle EBS topics and look forward to seeing all of you in sunny Florida!

The presentations are listed below. See you Sunday!

thx,
John

Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut Factor at the World’s Largest Healthcare Payer
Session ID: 4886
Date: Sunday, April 10
Time: 11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Room: W314B
Speakers: Jay Joshi, John Stouffer, Ryan Poggenpohl

Managing R12 E-Business Suite Using Oracle Enterprise Manager with the Application Management and Application Change
Management Packs
Session ID: 4934
Date: Sunday, April 10
Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Room: W105B

A Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite Release 12 and Oracle Fusion Applications
Session ID: 4931
Date: Monday, April 11
Time: 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Room: W315A

Release 12 Apps DBA 101
Session ID: 4935
Date: Wednesday, April 13
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Room: W304E

All,

As many of you know I contract exclusively with Red River Consulting (Dallas) to provide them with the technical expertise for their “Dr. HealthCheck” assessments. I would encourage you to visit with them at the show if you have time. A number of my former co-workers are now at Red River. Please check out www.redriversolutions.com for more information about Red River.

thx,
John

All,

I will be presenting the following sessions at Collaborate 2011 in Orlando, Florida.  I have also co-authored two books that will be released in April and will be available at the show.  For more information, see the details below.

See you in sunny Florida!

John

Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut Factor at the World’s Largest Healthcare Payer

Session ID: 4886

Date: Sunday, April 10

Time: 11:15 am – 12:15 pm

Room: W314B

Speakers: Jay Joshi, John Stouffer

Managing Release 12 EBS using OEM with the Application Management and Application Change Management Packs and the E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0

Session ID: 4934

Date: Sunday, April 10

Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

Room: W105B

Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite Release 12 and Oracle Fusion Applications

Session ID: 4931

Date: Monday, April 11

Time: 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Room: W304G

Release 12 Apps DBA 101

Session ID: 4935

Date: Wednesday, April 13

Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Room: W304E

Co-Authored Books Due Out in April

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and Release 12 Patching 101

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i and Release 12 Apps DBA 101

All,

In anticipation of the demand for a single Java plug-in release for E-Business customer browsers, Oracle has just released the new Sun JRE build 1.6.0_24 build 7 (a.k.a. JRE 6u24, 1.6.0_24-b07) which fixes the mismanaged cookie issue AND the security flaw announced last week as part of an off-cycle Critical Patch Update for February.

I would recommend you review the link below to Steven Chan’s note on this fix and make plans to apply this build to your EBS environment as soon as possible.  For those of you with firewalls and not patching because “it ain’t broke”, please remember that the FBI estimates that over 70% of all security breaches are committed by a knowledgeable person INSIDE the firewall…

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2011/02/sun_jre_160_24_ebs.html

Good news from Steven Chan and Oracle!!

thx,

John