Saturday, January 31, 2015

Weekend Learning: 12c In-Memory basics and Data Warehousing interaction

Did you miss my coverage of the 12c Database In-Memory product launch?  Well tonight you are in luck, because the article "Oracle Database In-Memory Option (DBIM) Basics and Interaction with Data Warehousing Features" from note ID 1903683.1 is a great review and it has some good information to know if you want to use the option in a Data Warehouse (DW) type of situation.  Will it always be faster, or be perform better than having the option turned off?  Check out the article to find out!

Friday, January 30, 2015

R12.1.3 Payables: Format Payment Instructions performance issue

Have you had any issues with the Format Payment Instructions report taking too long to run and maybe even erroring out after running too long?  If so, you probably want to check out MOS note "Performance Issue With "Format Payment Instructions"" from article ID 1966352.1 in order to find out what patch you need to apply so this issue can be avoided.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Thursday Twitter - 1/29/15

After forgetting about Thursday Twitter last week, this week is the grand return and next week I plan on expanding to covering a lot more tweets for you!

Announcements:

https://twitter.com/oracleace/status/559839847725432833 - Learn how to get in touch with 500 Oracle ACEs!  The other page that is displayed by default has great profile snapshots on several Oracle ACEs too!

https://twitter.com/MarkVHurd/status/558699716213350400 - Check out the 10 point plan Oracle has to dominate the Cloud, via Mark Hurd.

Training/Free Stuff:

https://twitter.com/sfonplsql/status/560817252836990976 - Get the latest free Oracle Learning Stream by Steven Feuerstein on using packages to build APIs.

General News/Information:

https://twitter.com/thatjeffsmith/status/560854284028612609 - Look at the face lift that Oracle SQL Developer's performance viewer has with release 4.1!

https://twitter.com/DBAKevlar/status/560844918537854976 - Check out these tips to monitor your Linux system!

https://twitter.com/Oracle_EBS/status/559795431581175808 - Find out how to stay current with R12.2 courtesy of the Oracle ATG team!

Conference News:

https://twitter.com/COLLAB_OAUG/status/560860727594860544 - Find out who is coming to the COLLABORATE conference this year!

https://twitter.com/RMOUG_ORG/status/560860191210885120 - Just THREE weeks until the RMOUG Training Days conference!

Social Media/DevOps:

https://twitter.com/virtdata/status/559802325682774016 - Kyle Hailey shares 5 tips to boost your career with social media.

https://twitter.com/DBAKevlar/status/559772811623796736 - Find out who at Oracle is on social media!

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

11.2.0.3: Instance termination by LMON during node eviction

From the "I wonder if this is from our SR" pages, I have seen firsthand the bug detailed in MOS article "While Evicting One of the Instance, the Remaining instances Terminated by LMON with "LMON is running too slowly and in the middle of reconfiguration"" via note ID 1949505.1 where one instance in a RAC cluster takes the other nodes in the cluster down as well.  Not only is there a bug patch to resolve this, or that it is fixed in 12.2, but there is a database parameter which can help resolve the issue too!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

R12: GDF - Mismatch between PO_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL and PO_LINE_LOCATIONS_ALL

Have you ever used the Generic Data Fixes provided by My Oracle Support?  Tonight I introduce the article "R12: Generic Data Fix (GDF) patch - Mismatch in Values Between PO_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL and PO_LINE_LOCATIONS_ALL related to Invoice Matching" from document ID 1322280.1 so you can learn what it does, what bug it is in relation to, why it is needed, and also more importantly when to use it.  You can even run a Diagnostic with an included note to find out if you are suffering from this data corruption!

Monday, January 26, 2015

Why did I get an ORA-08103: object no longer exists error message?

It just so happens that I was waiting for an Oracle Alert to come out, but the request had errored and I was presented with "ORA-08103: object no longer exists" which did not make a whole lot of sense.  I started thinking back to what could have caused this, and I realized that this Alert was looking to query from objects in our BPEL environment but at the time it was supposed to query from the AQ (Advanced Queue) we bounced the BPEL consumer.  This does not seem correct as BPEL is supposed to be a passthrough, and the AQ should be on another non-BPEL system, so I do not understand why the Alert needed the BPEL consumer to be up for it to be able to query the non-BPEL AQ.  Another mystery!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Weekend Learning: Deploying OEM 12c plugins

Do you want to learn a bit more outside of the Support realm?  Visit My Oracle Support document "EM 12c: How to Deploy the Latest Database Plugin to the OMS / Agent ?" via article ID 1388143.1 to pick up something new tonight with this article that goes step by step with a good number of screenshots to help reinforce the instructions!

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Weekend Learning: Basics of Infiniband Networking and ODI Supportability

Opening up the MOS document "ODI And Support The Use Of Infiniband Networking" by way of article ID 1962254.1 I thought there may be some deep revelations about ODI but instead it had a lot of the basics of how Infiniband works!  Check out this article to see why Infiniband may or may not mean anything if you put it in an ODI architecture.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Weekend Learning: AR AutoInvoice - Information Center

Continuing the trend of picking up Information Centers on My Oracle Support with details specific to certain EBS modules, you should check out article "Information Center: Overview of AutoInvoice in Oracle Receivables (AR) 11.5 and later" via note ID 1137414.2 which has value even if you are already on R12!  Learn more about AR and the AutoInvoice (RAXTRX) program today!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Exadata X5 has been announced!

Did you miss Larry Ellison's announcement yesterday?  You did?  Well here you can read the press release and do not miss the video either!  Check out all the product data sheets on the page and prepare to be amazed!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

R12.1.3: Requisition Import slows down due to number of records processed

If you check out MOS article "Requisition Import(REQIMPORT) Process Slow performance issue" via note ID 1631101.1 you will find an interesting situation where this report will slow down if it has to process more than 3000 records!  It even is choking on a relatively simple UPDATE statement too!!  Not only am I going to see if we are suffering from this issue, but think about a way to get a handle on how well reports perform according to the volume of data it needs to process.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

One Year of posting!

Just a year ago on January 20th I had missed posting on the blog after a very long streak of consecutive days, and at that time I set a goal for myself: post once a day for 365 days straight.  Tonight, I celebrate that 365th post!  At that time I had around 10,000 pageviews and today a year later I have over 42,000 total pageviews!!

Thanks for spending your time reading all of the stuff I have been putting out, and here is to another year ahead of us!

Monday, January 19, 2015

Learning more about your Oracle installation via IaaS cloud

In this series of articles from the Oracle Systems Blog Austria I think that one can get a better sense of all the parts and pieces involved in making sure your system is up and running 100%.  Sure you could also read these articles to learn more about going to an Infrastructure as a Service with various Oracle services or products, but reading more about servers, storage, OS or virtualization will just broaden perspectives, that we may not have today, for the future.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Weekend Learning: Exadata Database Machine - Information Center


With as much as I have talked about Exadata on the blog over the last few years, it is surprising that I have just found MOS article "Information Center: Oracle Exadata Database Machine" from document ID 1306791.2!  Have you already added this in your MOS bookmarks?  If not, you should!

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Weekend Learning: Database Security Products - Information Center

In this day and age of cyberattacks or security leaks you need to bookmark My Oracle Support note 1548952.2 for the document "Information Center: Overview of Database Security Products" to keep up with the latest in Oracle security features, products, whitepapers, and new exploit information.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Weekend Learning: OEM for MySQL

Were you aware that you can leverage your current Oracle Enterprise Manager application to not only monitor Oracle DB products, but now MySQL DB products as well?  I had no idea either!  Are you in a "mixed" shop with both of these technologies?  Well now it looks like you have an option to consolidate the monitoring of them in just one place!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Thursday Twitter - 1/15/15

Thursday Twitter my old friend, I have not seen you for quite a while!  Of course I am trying to get back to a regular feature here as part of my New Years resolutions, but I figured I would try tonight with at least a little bit of what has been in my feed over the last week.

Announcements:

https://twitter.com/Exadata/status/555440480356691969 - Sure this could fall in other spots on the list, but did you know we are getting another OTN Virtual Technology Summit coming up next month?

https://twitter.com/oracledatabase/status/555809222571466754 - New!  12c!  Whitepaper!

https://twitter.com/otn_garage/status/555770692613201920 - Join the Solaris Customer Advisory Board to work with Oracle!

Training/Free Stuff:

https://twitter.com/IOUG/status/555820614691594240 - Did you know that IOUG is offering several seminars this month?

General News/Information:

https://twitter.com/sharmanpete/status/555835535759925250 - Pete Sharman reminds us that 11.2 enters Extended Support on February 1st!

https://twitter.com/epm_queen/status/555738482337804290 - Some EPMA tricks and tips from Sarah Zumbrum!

Conference News:

https://twitter.com/NEOOUG/status/555824913584779264 - Do not miss the Great Lakes Oracle Conference in May!  Kerry Osbourne is giving the keynote!

https://twitter.com/Enkitec/status/555760161516560384 - Enkitec is having their E4 conference again for Exadata and other large system topics.

Social Media/DevOps:

https://twitter.com/uwehesse/status/555706012192501760 - Uwe Hesse shares an interesting graphic about how to share older social media information!

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

R12.1.3: Supplier Paid Invoice History report does not pick up credit memos

Tonight's post comes from the MOS document "APXINVPH Is Not Picking Up Credit Memos" found in note ID 1959162.1 which can be read several ways: first, maybe the report is not designed to pull these lines (a credit memo is not a paid invoice right?); secondly, why do you have to put a seemingly random negative amount in the parameters to get these credit memos to appear?  Since there is a bug attached, I believe this will be fixed going forward but I would love to hear from the rest of you about this and get your take on it.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Hotsos Symposium Early Bird pricing ends 1/16

This year I did not submit for the Hotsos Symposium, but I made sure to keep it in my plans to attend this even virtually if I had to.  Did you know that the Early Bird pricing for the conference is ending in just a few days?  Hurry up and sign up now because it will be a really great event!!

Monday, January 12, 2015

Understanding your Exachk report

Do you have an Exadata system?  How well do you understand the Exachk report?  Visit the MOS page "Understanding, Navigating and Troubleshooting the Exachk Report" via note ID 1947100.1 to learn a bit more about it and catch a lot of switches that the report can be run for while understanding the scoring behind the System Health Score.  Of course it could be a lot better if the pictures loaded, but maybe that is just a problem on my end?

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Weekend Learning: Receipts Workbench - Information Center

Do you need to brush up on the EBS Receivables module?  How about checking out the My Oracle Support page "Information Center: Overview of the Receipts Workbench in Oracle Receivables (AR) 11.5 and later" via document ID 1362278.2 to keep up changes with the Receipts Workbench regarding Lockbox and other subjects too!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Weekend Learning: Oracle OpenWorld 2014 Presentations

While I have mentioned this before, I wanted to take a moment to remind you about the opportunity to download presentations given at Oracle OpenWorld last year!  Also, do not forget to sign up if you want to be notified when you can submit your own presentation for OpenWorld this year!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Oracle HCM World Early Bird pricing ends 1/12

Not wanting to leave out any potential conferences that people out there reading the blog may want to visit, I want to make sure that you do not miss the Oracle HCM World conference!  Even though the conference is in March, the Early Bird rate ends on January 12th so if you have been thinking about attending there is no time like this weekend to actually sign up for the conference!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

JRE 1.8 upgrade activates TLS settings that knocks out Oracle Forms

I have talked about HeartBleed and POODLE vulnerabilities recently which both relate to SSL and TLS but tonight MOS document "Forms with SSL not Working After Upgrade to JRE 1.8 from 1.7" from note ID 1675195.1 combines them both with JRE updates and Oracle Forms!  Are you getting reading to update your version of the JRE soon?  Need to know more about JRE 1.7 and how it will be autoupdating to JRE 1.8?  Learn from Steven Chan's blog entry on the subject!

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

R12: Basic information about the XLA_EVENTS table

With all of the changes that R12 has brought, XLA (Sub Ledger Accounting) is one of the biggest so it is no surprise that I am on the lookout for any new tidbits of information about it!  Tonight MOS document "R12: What is the Meaning of EVENT_STATUS_CODE and PROCESS_STATUS_CODE in XLA_EVENTS Table?" from article ID 1457611.1 gives us one more small glimpse into these XLA changes.  Might as well take stock of this information now so you have it when you need it some day!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Procurement approval not being updated correctly

Were you aware that there is a new AME related problem with Procurement approvals?  My Oracle Support leads us to the document "iProcurement Approval Action Is Not Updated Correctly" by way of article ID 1956448.1 that tells us about a problem that happens when an approver acts after being the second person delegated to in the hierarchy.

Monday, January 5, 2015

RMOUG Advanced Pricing ends 1/13

Having been selected to present at the RMOUG Training Days 2015 conference this year, I wanted to remind you that their best pricing rate ends in just a few days!  Do not miss out on this incredible value for two and a half days of conference material from some of the best and brightest in the industry!!

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Weekend Learning: Oracle Forms Developer - Information Center

Yesterday I mentioned a Receivables Information Center on MOS so I go from a specific EBS application module to the more technical details behind the EBS application by introducing you to the "Information Center: Oracle Forms Developer" found from document ID 1370782.2!  Think you do not need to add this bookmark in MOS just because you are already using Forms Developer and there is nothing you to know?  Think again!  There are updated articles that might be relevant because while Forms Developer may not change, there are many different things related moving around behind the scenes that could affect how the Oracle Forms work!

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Weekend Learning: A/R month end - Information Center

Do you want to know more about the EBS platform?  Is the Receivables module something you might not be strong in?  How about visiting the MOS document "Information Center: Month End Processing in Oracle Receivables (AR)" this weekend via note ID 1370198.2 to catch up on a lot of things related to month end processing in Receivables?

Friday, January 2, 2015

11.2.0.4: Upgrade failing with error about DBMS_XDBT package

It is a new year, and we should not waste any time visiting My Oracle Support to learn from their article "Upgrade to 11.2.0.4 Failed with ORA-24344 due to DBMS_XDBT Package" via note ID 1953099.1 to find out what log file gets written to during installation, what Oracle Text is (from the included referenced note), and several ways you can resolve this problem!

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!!  It is about this time that I reflect and thank everybody for being such loyal viewers of the blog, which is especially true this year after the reveal yesterday that I have finally crossed the 40,000 page views mark!!  What are some of the resolutions I have this year for myself and the blog?  Without further ado here is a short list I have come up with:
  • Return to my weekly Twitter column - This is something that is going to take a lot of effort on my part to complete, but I need to be reading more than just a few hours of my Twitter feed a week.
  • (Super secret project) - I know, I know.  This is not fair to list like this, but this project is going to be a focus of mine for the coming year and I will post more about it as soon as I get back to work and catch up about how it will come about.
  • Continue to create new presentation content - This ties into the item above, but I am going to be looking for other opportunities to generate new content which the Support community at large will find valuable!
  • Visit new conferences - Obviously going to RMOUG for the first time ever in February this one is checked off, but I am not going to rest on my laurels so I am going to pursue new opportunities as they arise!
  • Get published again - I found out that Oracle had published my whitepaper early last year, but I have not had an opportunity to push towards this again and I hope to change that this year.
  • Start discussions about Support - While I have been on vacation I had hoped to have more details about this cemented, but with a lot going on I did not yet get a chance to put my cunning plans into motion.  Watch the blog for more details around Support discussions!
  • Keep working towards Oracle ACE - Being considered for the Oracle ACE program last year was a really big deal to me, and even though I did not get in, that does not mean that I am not shooting for this eventually or that some of my plans are not related to it.  Looking forward to getting some momentum going on this, so by the end of the year I will have a good candidacy.