Care and Feeding of Oracle Applications Release 11i

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Care and Feeding of Oracle Applications Release
11i

• Dan Matasek
• DARC Corporation
• Dmatasek_at_darc.com
• NCOAUG Training Days August 2001

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Who is this guy?

• Senior Principal Consultant/DBA
• 8 years of Oracle Applications implementation
  experience
• 10 years in Information Technology
• Numerous Implementation and Upgrade Projects
• Custom development projects
• Architecture Planning

3
Survey..

• People using release 11i in PRODUCTION?
• People with an active project under way to get
  to release 11i?
• Upgrade?
• Re-Implementation?
• Everybody Else What are you waiting for?
• Jump In The Water is fine

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Agenda

• Architecture Planning
• Database Issues
• Concurrent Tier Issues
• Web Tier Issues
• Installation Issues
• Security Issues
• Living in a Cost Based World
• Cloning

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Agenda (contd)

• Working with Java Server Pages (JSP)
• Adding applications/languages
• Monitoring application components
• Applying patches in 11i
• Monitoring patches applied
• Stopping the phone from ringing
• Questions/Open Discussion

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11i Technical Architecture
PC
PC
PC
Desktop Tier
Application Code
iAS (Apache 1.3.9)
Technology Stack
Discoverer 3i (optional) 8.0.5 Oracle Home
Developer 6i (8.0.6) Oracle Home
RDBMS (8.1.7) Oracle Home
Database Tier
Database
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Single Server Architecture

• Pros
• Ease of administration
• Patches only applied once
• Reduced network traffic
• Can be migrated to a multiple server architecture
  easily

• Cons
• System resources (CPU, Memory) used differently
  between RDBMS and Web processes
• Security considerations getting users outside the
  firewall access to the applications

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Multiple Tier ArchitectureDatabase/Admin/Concurre
nt --- Forms/Web

• Pros
• Standard 2 Tier Configuration
• Concurrent processing does not increase network
  traffic
• Allows system resources to be used more
  specifically
• Easier to put web server outside firewall
• Ability to load balance forms server processes

• Cons
• Increased network traffic
• Increased administration (patches applied N times)

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Multiple Tier ArchitectureDatabase ---
Admin/Concurrent/Forms/Web

• Pros
• Works well for organizations with separate DBA
  and APPS-DBA groups.
• Ability to create true Database Server
• DB server can be placed behind enhanced security
• Better RDBMS support from Oracle
• Ease of administration (patches applied only
  once)
• Works well in multiple user (oracle/applmgr)
  environments

• Cons
• Increased network traffic

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Single User ArchitectureOracle owns everything

• Pros
• Ease of administration
• Dont need root to start rapidinstall

• Cons
• Security
• Users must understand which Oracle Home to be
  used

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Multiple User ArchitectureOracle owns RDBMS and
Database Applmgr owns everything else

• Pros
• Increased O/S security
• Easier to separate responsibilities
• Basic environment setup

• Cons
• More passwords
• Applmgr could shutdown database
• Permission issues on some directories

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Database Issues

• Upgrade to 8.1.7.x NOW
• 8.1.6 de-support date already released
• 31-OCT-2001 for Database Only
• 02-MAR-2002 for Application Customers
• Additional patch for listener security needed
• Included in 8.1.7.3 (not certified yet)
• Large SYSTEM tablespace
• Rapid-Install creates 2 tablespaces for each
  application
• Can be consolidated into fewer larger tablespaces
• Monitor extent sizes and maxextents
• For upgrades make sure to follow notes on
  converting to LMT

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Concurrent Tier Issues

• Design of Concurrent Managers for the most part
  unchanged from release 11
• Some issues with hanging processes when shutting
  down
• Remember to schedule utility purge jobs
• Purge Concurrent Manager log/out
• Purge Obsolete Workflow
• Gather Schema Statistics

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Web/Forms Tier Issues

• Stay as current as possible on the JDK,
  Jinitiator and Developer 6i Patchsets
• Currently
• JDK 1.3.1 (used by web processes only)
• Jinitiator 1.1.8.11
• Developer 6i Patchset 6
• Having ORA_NLS33 set can cause Apache not to
  start
• Modify in adapcctl.sh script

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Installation Issues

• Many architectural issues in initial releases
• 11.5.1 Multiple listeners
• 11.5.2 Single listener (all technology stack
  owned by oracle)
• 11.5.3 Single listener (only RDBMS owned by
  oracle)
• 11.5.4 Only patch release (includes 8.1.7 DB,
  JDK 1.2.2 and Jinit 1.1.8.x)
• 11.5.5 Already scheduled for release
• 11.5.3 installer added error checking routine
• Unix temporary space issues
• Multiple user install must be run by root

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Security Issues

• Listener security patch
• New FNDCPASS utility
• Allows frequent changing of application passwords
• Manually change APPS password in following files
• FND_TOP/resource/wfmail.cfg
• ORACLE_HOME/listener/cfg/wdbsvr.app ? 8.0.6
  Oracle Home
• ORACLE_HOME/listener/cfg/wdbsvr.app ? iAS Oracle
  Home
• APACHE_TOP/modplsql/cfg/wdbsvr.app

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Living in a Cost Based world

• All processes by default use the cost based
  optimizer
• Can have a concurrent request run using the rule
  based optimizer
• Process controls section on concurrent program
  definition
• Need to analyze your tables periodically
• Use Oracle supplied concurrent requests to gather
  statistics
• Frequency As often as possible
• Tuning cost based queries
• A science becomes an art
• Development vs. Production differences due to
  different statistics
• Can export/import statistics

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Cloning

• Oracle provided utility
• Numerous others have developed their own methods
• Old way of copying database and APPL_TOP still
  available
• If technology stacks are identical
• Cloning utilities may not handle different
  configuration on tiers well

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Working with Java Server Pages

• New development method
• Primarily CRM
• Need to clear JSP cache after getting new version
• On web server (OA_HTML/oa_html)
• On clientBounce web processes

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Adding Modules or Languages

• No longer need to run ADAIMGR
• New utility called LicMgr
• COMMON_TOP/admin/assistants/LicMgr
• Make sure to rebuild env file afterwards
• Restart processes

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Monitoring Application Components

• Becomes more difficult in 11i
• Many processes have numerous UNIX processes
• Apache
• Some tool vendors have solutions developed

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Applying patches in 11i

• Get used to it early
• Stay current as possible on patch set releases
• Utility available to help determine if a new
  patch set is available
• Can now run adpatch in non-interactive mode
• Long command line syntax
• See Metalink note 124545.1
• DARCAPPLY utility

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Monitoring Patches Applied

• Entries in applptch.txt now much more standard
• Can write utility to pull information from
  applptch.txt into database
• Create reporting system that is web based

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Monitoring Patches Applied
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Monitoring Patches Applied
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Monitoring Patches Applied
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Stopping the phone from ringing

• Give the users access to the information that
  they want over the web
• Invalid objects
• Database parameters
• Tuning statistics
• Code versions
• Proactively monitor application components for
  failure

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Questions / Open Discussion