Oracle E-Business Suite R12 DBA Best Practices

1. Oracle E-Business Suite R12DBA Best Practices James J. Morrow Senior Oracle Applications DBA mailto:morrow.james@gmail.com http://thedbalife.blogspot.com Session #CON4733

2. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices James J. Morrow • Oracle Applications DBA • Independent Consultant • 18+ years as an E-Business Suite DBA • 20+ years as a Unix/Linux Administrator • E-Business Suite versions 9.4 through R12.1.3 • Oracle RDBMS 7.0.16 through 11.2.0.3

3. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Establish an SLA • Understand business expectations • Understand business requirements • Business may want 24x7 but may actually need less

4. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Establish an SLA • Typical “Financials” customer • Office workers Monday-Friday 6:00AM to 7:00PM (local time) • Understand the requirements vs. expectations

5. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Establish an SLA • By understanding requirements vs. expectations we gain flexibility • You still have a 24x7 system • During critical business hours downtime may be nearly impossible to obtain • However, by understanding requirements vs. expectations, scheduling outages outside of critical business hours can become easier

6. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Establish an SLA • Define/Document key stakeholders, approvers, notification procedures for unscheduled outages

7. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Establish Regular Maintenance Windows • Stable systems don't tend to have code updates (migrations, patches) on an ad-hoc basis • Changes are documented, rehearsed, validated • Monthly or Weekly

8. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Documented Procedures • Reduce ambiguity • Reduce confusion • Process leads to stability

9. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Maintenance Window • COB Monday, 6 days prior – The DBA will produce a list of patches that are identified as potential promotion candidates. This list will contain patches applied to lower level environments that have not yet been migrated. The list should be sent to various pre-defined approving personnel. The DBA should also send out a calendar of “DBA Events” for the next couple of months at this point.

10. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Maintenance Window • COB Wednesday, 4 days prior – All patches destined for PROD during the maintenance window should be applied to the QA (PROD -1) instance.

11. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Maintenance Window • COB Thursday, 3 days prior – DBA will prepare a “Maintenance Plan” for the outage (based on a standard template). DBA will also create a Change Request in the CM portal with the Maintenance Plan attached. The maintenance plan shall include: • Contact information for key individuals • Email lists for individuals to be notified of specific changes upon completion • General objectives for the maintenance window • List of patches to be applied • Patch prerequisite research • List of tasks performed in advance of the outage • List of tasks to be performed during the outage (with specific commands and timing estimates, where applicable)

12. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Maintenance Window • COB Friday, 2 days prior – Management will give final approval for the outage.

13. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Cloning • Technically challenging • Even though Oracle provides tools and documentation, site-specific procedures are still required

14. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Cloning • Site-specific steps • Preparation of the target environment • Information about the nature of the backup that will be used • Instructions on how the backup should be restored • Detailed instructions on how the database should be recovered by the DBA • Detailed instructions on how the Oracle cloning utilities are used • Detailed instructions on extra post-cloning tasks

15. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Password Change • Don't use default passwords! • Change production passwords on a regular basis • Enforce complex passwords • Be aware of special characters • Avoid sharing passwords whenever possible • Delegation of authority • Use a secure “Password Safe” when passwords need to be shared

16. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Procedures: Migration • Code and patches should follow a strictly defined migration path DEVL → TEST → QA → PROD • PROD and QA (PROD-1) should be restricted access instances

17. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy • Define/understand your organization’s patching philosophy • Security Patches • May be dictated externally • PCI (Credit Card) requirements: Vendor supplied security patches applied within 30 days

18. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy Don't get caught in prerequisite hell • Stay current on AD, TXK, ATG patches. They're the most likely prerequisites! • Minimum requirements for security patches

19. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy • Patchsets.sh script (Note 139684.1 and Note 549180.1) sftp –o Port=2021 <mosusername>@sftp.oracle.com cd support/outgoing/PATCHSET_COMPARE_TOOL get patchsets.sh • Patch Wizard in Oracle Applications Manager (Note 976188.1)

20. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy • Premier Support for E-Business Suite 11.5.10 ended November 30, 2010. Extended ends November 30, 2013. • First year of 11.5.10 EBS Extended Support fees waived. • Exceptions for 11i Sustaining: SEV1 bugfixes, YE 2013 1099 Patches, and 3 payroll updates for FYE 2014 (US, Canada, UK, Australia) (Note 1495337.1) • Minimum Baseline Patches for Extended Support • 11.5.10 – After December 1, 2010 (Note 883202.1) • Patch Wizard Update for 11i (Patch 9803629)

21. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy • Release 12.0 Support Milestones • February 1, 2012 - Premier Support Ends (R12.0.6) (845809.1) • January, 2015 – Extended Support Ends

22. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Patching Philosophy • Release 12.1 Support Milestones • July 1, 2011 – You must apply R12.ATG_PF.B.delta.2 (R12.1.2 Technology RUP) (845809.1) • February 1, 2012 – You must apply R12.ATG_PF.B.delta3 (R12.1.3 Technology RUP) (1066312.1) • February 1, 2013 – You upgrade to EBS R12.1.3 • May, 2014 – R12.1.3 Premier Suport Ends • December, 2018 – R12.1.3 Extended Support Ends (1495337.1)

23. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Concurrent Managers: Purging • Performance Impact • Disk Management Impact • Define maximum retention for all requests • Schedule daily “blanket purge” • Schedule more aggressive purges for specific jobs

24. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Concurrent Managers: Tuning • Concurrent Manager Tuning is traffic management • Tune based on runtime and frequency • Jobs are either exiled from a queue or eligible for a queue • Don't over-complicate your queues! • Remember some jobs require specialized managers!

25. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Statistics and Pinning • Pin stored procedures (Except on RDBMS 11g!) • PIND.sql (Note: 301171.1) [Note has been pulled] • Gather Schema Statistics • Run periodically • Optimizer requires current statistics to effectively do it's job

26. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Workflow Mailer: Test Address (Outbound) • Use in all non-production environments • Is NOT set by RapidClone • Defined through Oracle Applications Manager • Traps outgoing notifications • Allow multiple users (testers) access to the mailbox • Allows full-cycle testing of the outbound Workflow Notification process

27. EBS R12 DBA Best Practices Workflow Mailer: Test Mailboxes (Inbound) • Use in all non-production environments • Is NOT set by RapidClone • Defined through Oracle Applications Manager • Prevents non-production instances stealing messages from production • Allows full-cycle testing of inbound Workflow processing

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30. Oracle E-Business Suite R12 DBA Best Practices Session #CON4733 James J. Morrow Atherio/Red River Solutions, Inc. mailto:morrow.james@gmail.com http://thedbalife.blogspot.com @jjmorrow