John Stouffer

All,

I’m presenting the following sessions during RMOUG next week in Denver.

Managing R12 E-Business Suite using OEM with the Application Management and Application Change Management Packs
Thursday, 2/17/2011
Session 7, 9:00:00 AM-10:00:00 AM
Room: 406

Oracle E-Business Suite Patch Wizard Path to Less Errors
Thursday, 2/17/2011
Session 8, 10:15:00 AM-11:15:00 AM
Room: 405

E-Business Suite Release 12 Apps DBA 101
Thursday, 2/17/2011
Session 11, 2:45:00 PM-3:45:00 PM
Room: 407

See you in Denver next week!

thx,
John

All,

The OAUG Board for 2011 has been released. The new year for OAUG will be as good or better than 2010 which turned out to be one of the best years every for OAUG. Please join me in welcoming the new Board!

http://www.oaug.org/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/OAUG/AboutOAUG/Pressroom/Releases/2011/2011-2-1Clark.pdf

thx,
John

All,

It appears to me that the change cycles that we have seen in the past are long gone…2011 will show some dramatic shifts in the way we do our jobs and pursue our lives outside of work.  Everything will change so get ready…

There are also quite a few predictions out there around Oracle and 2011.  If you have as little of time as I have to read all of the good blogs, please make sure that you catch these two.  Floyd’s blog is invaluable and his guidance is always spot on.  Plus he writes much better posts than I do…:-))

http://orclville.blogspot.com/

http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240028427/Top-Oracle-predictions-in-2011?asrc=EM_NLT_13111955&track=NL-335&ad=807158&

On a side note, has everyone finished their Release 11i Baseline Patching for Extended Support?

You’re not done or not even doing it?  Don’t worry, there are a lot of customers in the same boat.  The results of the OAUG survey on this topic will be published this month and there are some interesting, although not unexpected, comments from the Oracle EBS community.  Please monitor OAUG.org for the results.

thx,

John

All,

As a follow-up to my previous posting, another set of questions was posed and nicely addressed by a colleague of mine. I’ve added his responses here. Thanks go to Morrow.James@gmail.com!!
Here’s some reasons why you should consider an upgrade to Release 12 now.

1. Support deadlines are rapidly approaching. (July 2011 is only 8 months away for the 10gR2 Extended Support waiver expiration!)

2. Customers on Release 12.x will, generally, be better positioned for Fusion Applications when they are GA (available to the public)

3. I (We) strongly suspect (with no real technical information to back it up) that the upgrade to Fusion will go much more smoothly from R12.x. We have heard rumors, however, that Oracle intends to embed more and more of the Fusion Applications Tech Stack into the Release 12.x Tech Stack in future releases of Release 12. We do know that the technical upgrade from Release 11i is one of the easiest we’ve seen but the functional changes are SIGNIFICANT. Don’t under estimate you testing timelines and resources.

4. Given the general reluctance of many Release 11i customers to upgrade, I (We) strongly doubt that many will want to upgrade to Fusion 1.0. My (Our) suspicion is that most will probably wait for a Fusion V2.x product. This means that they would likely not be upgrading to Fusion until 2015 at the earliest unless they start with “Pillar” upgrades which is another topic for another day. This means that many customers have been on 11i for 10 – 13+ years! Lots of good ROI at that point assuming that they pay the Release 11i Extended Support Fees for 2012 and 2013! and maintain the minimum patch baseline as Oracle mandates.

I (We) really think that points #1 and #4, in particular, would carry the most weight. I (We) also think that many customers have “Fusion comes out Q1 2011″ in their minds and haven’t really considered #4 yet.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions/comments/concerns.

As an aside, OAUG will be publishing a report from Oracle OpenWorld from the Co-Chair of the OAUG Fusion Council tailored specifically around the Fusion Applications. Keep you eye out for the document – it’s an excellent article and well worth the read regardless of your current EBS/Fusion plans.

thx,
John

Q: Will statutory patches be available during the Extended Support period for Release 11i?

A: It’s been pretty clearly stated on a lot of blogs, presentations and Oracle’s corporate website that the only item that will not be supported during the 11i Extended Support window will be certifications with third party products like Microsoft, new operating systems, new bolt-on software, etc. All other “core” support components remain fully supported including statutory patches. New browsers, desktop operating system versions, etc will NOT be certified…:-(

Q: Because all statutory patches will be available during the Release 11i Extended Support window, several customers are considering upgrading to Fusion Applications instead of going to Release 12 first. They are under the impression that they can convert module by module when they do go, so they think this will be an easier transition.

A: The bad news is that the Fusion Applications V1.0 announced at the show will not even be available for early adopters until 1st quarter 2011 which only includes three Families of product modules (financials, project portfolio management and procurement). These families of products are now referred to as “Pillars” and there are currently seven Pillars being worked on by Oracle (Financials, Procurement, Projects, CRM, HCM, SCM, and GRC). While they have a somewhat valid point about the fact that they can upgrade pieces of the applications to Fusion V1.0 there are several things that must be considered if they start down this route:

- You can upgrade by one or more Pillars but not module by module. Think of it as Family Pack by Family pack for 11i.

- it’s a one way road – once you upgrade a “Pillar” of product modules, all other existing 11i modules must be upgraded with their appropriated “Pillar”.

- The really unsettling news is that you MUST purchase all of the SOA and Fusion Middleware software from Oracle. You will get a “free” runtime license for all of the modules and especially the “Foundation Pack – which is a pre-built SOA starter’s kit but if you have ANY customizations, you have to buy “full use” licenses. Lots and lots of hidden costs that are very nebulous and unclear at this point in time.

- And, don’t forget, many throw away interfaces between 11i and Fusion will have to be developed, maintained and patched to keep the two systems in sync…- lots of throwaway $$$

The best recommendation I can make is upgrade the database to Version 11gR2, evaluate the need for the new Release 12 features and functionality and then determine your roadmap. Fusion Applications have a lot of features and functionality based on the Release 12 changes. If you upgrade to Release 12, you’ll be able to get familiar with the new functionality on a fully supported, mature release. Then you can decide what your next steps will be.

thx,
John

All,

I will be speaking at the Southwest Regional Oracle Applications User Group (SROAUG) Friday, 7/23 about EBS Release 12 Apps DBA 101 topics.  I will also be speaking and moderating at Oracle OpenWorld with three sessions:

Monday: 2:00PM – Oracle Advanced Compression on a Multiterabyte Oracle 11i Financials Database

Wednesday: 10:00AM – Oracle E-Business Suite 12 Applications DBA 101

Wednesday: 4:45PM – Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1: Technical/Functional Panel (moderating)

I hope to see you all at the show.

John

All,

This is a long one but well worth your time and effort to read and fully understand the ramifications for your organization.

There has been a lot of confusion around Oracle Support and the end of Premier Support and additional Extended Support fees especially as it relates to Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) users.  I’ll try to make it as clear as I can …

A “Typical” EBS Environment Scenario: The customer is running Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10.2 on Oracle RDBMS 10gR2.  The customre is also running Discoverer 10g for thier Financial Reports. (I’m not sure that there is ever a “typical” EBS environment but this will do for our purposes..:-)).

There are three types of Oracle Support available – Premier, Extended and Sustaining.  Premier Support last five years, Extended Support lasts three years and Sustaining Support (not always offered) lasts as long as you license the product.

Premier Support is full support of the product, Extended Support is exactly the same as Premier Support except for third-party products/new Oracle product modules (there is some confusion here as it’s stated differently in two lifetime support documents) except for the main difference in that there are additional support fees charged for each of the three years (only) of Extended Support (first year – 10%, second year – 20%, third year – 20%) and Sustaining Support (if offered) which provides support and patches for known issues but any new issues that can not be reproduced by Oracle support will not be addressed. No additional fees are charged for Sustaining Support. Please see the official Oracle Lifetime Support documents for more details (http://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support-policy.html).

1 – Premier Support for Oracle E-Business Release 11.5.10.2 ends November 30, 2010. Some (most?) of us will move into the Extended Support window starting December 1, 2010 and can stay on Extended Support for three years (2011, 2012, 2013) assuming that we apply the minimum patches (also referred to as the MANDATORY minimum patch baseline) as required by Oracle support (My Oracle Support document, 883202.1) by November 30, 2010. There are a significant amount of patches to be applied especially if you have not maintained your patch levels.  Also, for HRMS customers, there are three My Oracle Support documents that you’ll want to closely review (R11.5.10.2 – 11499.1 , R12.0.x – 386434.1 and R12.1.x – 858794.1)

2 – Premier Support for the 10gR2 database ends on July 31, 2010. We will move into the Extended Support window starting August 1, 2010 and can stay on Extended Support for three years (2011, 2012, 2013).  However, a fair number of customers will, hopefully, be on RDBMS 11gR1 or 11gR2 by September 30, 2010 and will then move back to the Premier Support window for the 11gR2 RDBMS until January 31, 2015 (The 11gR1 Premier Support window runs until August 31, 2012).  This is the Good News section…:-)  If you are sticking with 10gR2, you must patch to 10.2.0.5 which is the terminal release for 10gR2 and you will be paying Extended Support for years 2 and 3.

3 – Premier Support for Discoverer 10g ends on November 30, 2011.  You will need to upgrade to Discoverer 11g by the end of 2011 to avoid any Extended Support fees for Discoverer 10g.

PAY ATTENTION HERE

The Extended Support window fee waiver for E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10.2 and RDBMS 10gR2 was announced two years ago by Oracle at the Oracle Applications User Group conference for the first year of Extended Support ONLY for Release 11.5.10.2 AND RDBMS 10gR2.  This may be a critical cost driver for your environment and for the R12.1.x upgrade.

In the worst case scenario where Oracle does not extend the fee waiver for 2012 and 2013 we will have to a 20% additional fee for Release 11.5.10.2 and an additional fee for 10gR2 every additional year that we stay on Extended Support.  If we stay on Release 11.5.10.2 after Extended Support ends on November 30, 2013 and move to Sustaining Support, there are no additional fees for Sustaining Support but we then have a fairly large support and maintenance risk that we have to accept.  This applies to the 10gR2 database support as well.

Steven Chan (Oracle’s preeminent Applications Technologist) explains E-Business Support here:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2009/06/object_windowed_support_fees_waived_for_ebs_11510_and_10g_db_through_2011.html

and the RDBMS Support here:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2010/05/ebs_db_11g_upgrade_whitepaper.html

and the Discoverer 10g Support here:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2010/04/oas_10gr2_premier_support_change.html

We have spent a significant amount of time working through the Oracle documents with Steven Chan and ensuring that they are consistent with each other as part of my other duties on the OAUG Board.  We are both very comfortable that all ancillary notes and documents are consistent with the official “Lifetime Support Policy” documents on Oracle’s website - http://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support-policy.html (I’ve attached the technology, middleware and application Lifetime Support Policies).

As always, I would recommend opening a SR with Support to validate any and all information you are gathering specific to your environment.  You’ll have something in writing that may need to be referred to at a later point in time.

Good luck and happy patching!

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

thx,

John

Oracle has just release a patch that allows you to run the Sun JRE 1.6.0_20 build 5 which fixes the mismanaged cookie issue. The patch is 9553040. For more information, please review Steven Chan’s blog at:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2010/05/jre_16020b5_fixes_ebs_isues.htmlutm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eed:+OracleEBusinessSuiteTechnology+(Oracle+EBusiness+Suite+Technology)

John

A new website has just been released for OAUG, the Oracle Applications User Group. Please check out the article on the website at:

http://go.techtarget.com/r/11696096/7767397

John