The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 10

On the final day of our feature the article with the most views all time here is R12: Application server craziness with 1719 page views and a closing ratio of 1:3.15!  Close on the heels of the overall winner this year is Leap seconds, Exadata, Oracle DB and Linux OS we featured yesterday as the second overall post with 1484 views and is clearly the winner this year with over a THOUSAND more views than the post before it!

The major thing I have taken away from this review is something that Jeff Smith brought up a few days ago on a LinkedIn post and he mentioned the notion of evergreen posts that retain their value for a great deal of time after they were posted.  Of the 10 overall posts I reviewed, 6 were about R12, 2 about Concurrent Manager, the other 2 were about DB issues, and only a single post was from this year!  Also from an overall total views perspective, last year I had just passed 40,000 and just a few days ago I passed 80,000 so still growing and more room to grow as well!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• R12 Payables: Invoice Workbench error APP-SQLAP-10108 when committing
• Database FLASH exhaustion

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 9

We are almost done with our "The 10 days of Blogging past" for this year!  What an amazing journey huh?  Well tonight, we get to the post Leap seconds, Exadata, Oracle DB and Linux OS with an astonishing 1484 views over the past 9 months to take the runner-up spot in our overall view count contest!  If you are interested in the ratios, we are almost exactly 1:3 compared to last year so you can see the growth at the top end of the more popular articles on the site year over year.

Talking about just this year, the post 12c: High memory and CPU usage with ocssd.bin takes the runner-up spot with 415 views and I know a few views were actually one of my co-workers trying to investigate an issue they were having on a non-AIX system, and asked me for some insight on their issue since this was posted on my blog!  That was a nice little thrill, because I actually had somebody search for an issue and find my information as a top relevant hit on Google and I saw it right there on their screen!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• What happens when your Concurrent Manager goes crazy?
• Concurrent:Active Request Limit (or how I finally learned to know what my system was saying)

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 8

Tonight we start to kick the blog into high gear as the post R12 Payables: Invoice Workbench error APP-SQLAP-10108 when committing has received 1384 hits which compared to last year at this time is a ratio of 1:3.1 that clearly surpasses the 1:2 ratio we've been hovering around for most of the overall posts this year!  While we look at the posts from just this year the post Global enqueue process LCK0 hangs causing ORA-29770 error and instance crash had 280 hits which is quite low compared to the post on this day last year as our ratio looks like 1:.77 while 1:1 is what we had been averaging until the last few days BUT last year that post had been up for 10 months while this post had been up for less than 6 months!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• Disconnected Concurrent Manager
• duration not active: A Tale of Two Articles

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 7

Tonight we see our 1:2 ratio compared to last year's overall post dip just a bit to 1:1.95 with the article Disconnected Concurrent Manager getting up to 851 hits and looking at just posts from this year R12: NACHA format problem drops leading zero comes in 7th today with just 273 views which is slightly lower than what we had in the yearly post for 2014!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• R12: Hiding the DQM Serial Sync Index Program
• Learning more about DBA_ALERT_HISTORY

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 6

The post What happens when your Concurrent Manager goes crazy? with 837 overall views sees our year-to-year ratio drop down just a bit to 1:2.1 from the 1:2.3 we saw yesterday and the yearly post Weekend Learning: ExaWatcher utility for Exadata received only 254 views which is a few views less than a 1:1 ratio compared to last year on this day in review!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• R12: Application server craziness
• Concurrent Manager holding lock on a report

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 5

With tonight's overall post winner R12: Hiding the DQM Serial Sync Index Program having 828 views I am starting to see a upward trend compared to the overall numbers from last year as we are now with a 1:2.3 ratio instead of 1:2 like the past few days, so it will be interesting to see if that ratio keeps going up!  For the yearly post winner, Exadata 12.1.2.1.1 has been released! I still see a 1:1 ratio compared to last year with 220 views this year and we will see if that continues for the rest of the year!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• ASM Alert: RAC ASM disk offline after rebalance
• Supplier issue in Expense Report Import

EDIT 12/27:  Minor formatting update.

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 4

I hope you all got the presents you were looking for today on Christmas!!  Tonight, I'll make it short and sweet with the articles R12: Problem with Expense Report Export Program and Weekend Learning: EBS R12.2.4 and OAF applications posts with 786 overall views and 213 views this year!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• Database FLASH exhaustion
• Your Oracle DB not playing nice with Hyperion products

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 3

Continuing the year end review, the post with 696 overall views so far is R12: Credit Card Information and looking at just the past year we have the article ZFS Storage Appliance and Solaris can see write performance degradation when filesystem is almost full having been viewed 179 times this year where we see the same trends mentioned yesterday with the overall increasing twofold while the yearly count is trending slightly lower than last year

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• R12: Bouncing Workflow agent process
• System Wait Events Part 2

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 2

Visting our overall statistics tonight we have the post Why the wait event "SQL*Net message from dblink" can suddenly increase for no reason with 623 views and if we were just looking at this year the post of the day would be Exadata: ExaWatcher archives new files instead of old files having just 166 views!  What kind of lesson am I taking away from this?  On this day last year I had half as many hits for the overall, but the yearly hits actually went down just a tad, so there are multiple trends here which will be interesting to see how they hold up as we go through the next few days!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• R12: Problem with Expense Report Export Program
• Disconnected Concurrent Manager

The 10 days of Blogging past - 2015 Edition: Day 1

Coming back from a small hiatus, I return to a classic feature here at the blog with "The 10 days of Blogging past" and on our first night is the post R12: Bouncing Workflow agent process with 591 views which has actually been slipping down in the rankings as it was on the 5th night in 2013, 3rd night in 2014, and now the very 1st night this year!  What if we just looked at posts from this year you ask?  Well, the article Oracle Linux: No buffer space available would be the post tonight with just 141 views so far this year!

Overall view "winners" from past years on this day:

• Concurrent:Active Request Limit (or how I finally learned to know what my system was saying)
• R12: Credit Card Information

R12 Payables: Performance issue with Invoice Workbench and Validation

I often post about performance issues, and even have posted about similar issues in Payables, but tonight on MOS you should look at "REL12 AP: Performance Issue During Invoice Validation at DELETE FROM ZX_REC_NREC_DIST" from article ID 1531928.1 to add this to your testing suites!

Exadata disk drives in Storage Servers at risk for increased failures and performance issues

If you have Exadata in your environment I think you need to take a look at this newest MOS alert "(EX25) Disk drives in Exadata storage servers may experience increasing number of failures, unrecoverable media errors, confinement, and higher levels of read data latencies" via note ID 2073916.1 because several different versions of Exadata are affected by this issue with High Performance disk drives!

R12: How to configure Workflow Notification Mailer to use Cloud servers

If you are on EBS R12 you probably need to look at the "Configuring an Oracle Workflow Notification Mailer with Cloud E-Mail Servers" document 2077434.1 on MOS to find out how you take your application to the next level!

R12 Assets: ORA-20001 and XLA-95103 errors on the Asset Workbench

Hoping to make a return to regular blog postings, tonight it might your time to read "R12 Asset Workbench Errors With ORA-20001 XLA-95103: An internal error occurred" from My Oracle Support note 1590451.1 to prepare your own alerts just in case the data matches this pattern of being in multiple books so you can get ahead of any issues!!

COLLABORATE 16: Accepted for MULTIPLE presentations!!

Last year I had a great experience at the COLLABORATE conference put on by OAUG so this year I was really excited to submit abstracts again and caught by complete surprise when I was accepted for TWO presentations with the third being accepted as an alternate as well!!  There is so much to do and see at a conference like this, from SIGs (Special Interest Groups), GEOs (Geographic regional groups), different ways to interface with Oracle, extra workshop sessions, not to mention all of the awesome presenters with so MUCH content out there!!

Make sure that you register for the conference today to take advantage of Early Bird Pricing through the end of February, and using up any leftover educational funds for the year to make plans for Vegas in April!!

R12.1.3: Internal Concurrent Manager does not manage processes correctly after CPU patches applied

Regardless if you have already applied the CPU patch which causes this or not, you need to prepare for the potential to encounter the "Concurrent Managers Are Not Going Down Properly After Appling Patch 16735285 in R12(12.1.3)" issue reported in MOS document ID 2063862.1 after any change so make sure you add this to your test cases immediately!  You could also have another take away by finding out more about the Concurrent Managers by looking up the package FND_CONC_RAC_UTILS reported in the error message to see if there are other procedures that maybe you could utilize in the future!!

12c: CRS processes restart periodically on cluster nodes

From MOS note ID 2074515.1 we find the article "CRS Processes Periodically Restart In Some Cluster Nodes in 12.1.0.2" which may be very important to keep an eye out for this showing up in your alert/trace files because it is caused by several slow ASM I/Os in a row!

R12.1.3 Receivables: Cannot Close period with unposted adjustment

If you have had to deal with Closing a period in A/P or A/R, you are probably very cognizant about unposted transactions holding up the process!  The article "Unable to Close the Period Due to Unposted Adjustment" on My Oracle Support in document ID 2077446.1 gives us yet another reason how a transaction can be in such an incorrect state so it requires an SR to get a datafix, but with the script and information provided we can build a proactive alert against that situation!

12c: Error ORA-01467 received when using Extended Data Types

With a bug still being worked on by development, there is a workaround listed in MOS document "ORA-01467 In Oracle 12c when max_string_size is Extended Data Types used" via note ID 2022269.1 with a way to convert your query so the sort path is reduced.  If Extended Data Types for 12c is new to you, this would be a great time to learn and find out what My Oracle Support can tell you about the feature!

11gR2: Bug causes RMAN to remove spfile during database upgrade

The title of MOS document "Upgrade Of Database From 11.2.0.1 To 11.2.0.4 Caused RMAN Duplication To Error On Spfile" from article ID 1951266.1 tells us about a bug which needs to be avoided during 11gR2 upgrades with either a workaround or one-off patch.

Weekend Learning: FREE Online R12.1 and R12.2 EBS training from Oracle

The other night I said you needed to bookmark a My Oracle Support article, but tonight I REALLY mean it as you NEED to add "Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and 12.2 Transfer of Information (TOI) Online Training" from note 807319.1 to your bookmarks because there is an incredible list of free training from Oracle on several versions of R12 including the brand new R12.2.5!!

Weekend Learning: iProcurement Catalog Enhancement Requests

An item you will definitely want to bookmark in My Oracle Support is "iProcurement Enhancement Request - Catalog Shopping" in note ID 1452878.1 for 11.5.7 to 12.1.3 versions of EBS which you can refer back to when a problem crops up so you can see if there are workarounds or patches that can be applied!

Weekend Learning: PeopleSoft webcast archive and scheduled recordings

Ever wanted to know more about Oracle PeopleSoft applications?  Look no further than the "PeopleSoft Enterprise Advisor Webcast Schedule and Archived Recordings" page on My Oracle Support via note ID 1456265.1 for several years of archived webcasts in addition to current upcoming events too!

R12.1.3 Payables: Performance issue with Period Close

MOS article ID 1408983.1 for "Performance issue with the Payables Period Close" reports that this can take up to 30-45 minutes to run due to a combination of wrong table in the query and lack of index so make sure you check the version you have of the files for this and patch if needed!

Oracle Cloud: DaaS customers need to patch due to excessive I/O

Tonight we get an article from MOS entitled "ALERT: Customers with Database as a Service instances must apply a critical patch as soon as possible" from document ID 2068023.1 which is important because specific disk volumes can grow to 90%, prevent backups from running, and a negative I/O performance issue can occur!

Goldengate GGSCI does not respond to commands

Getting more hands-on with Oracle GoldenGate lately I have been keeping an eye open for those types of issues on My Oracle Support, and article "Goldengate GGSCI Commands Do Not Respond" via note ID 2076372.1 strikes me as odd that an NFS mount is getting locked to prevent GGSCI from responding!  Check out the associated article about NFS setup too, just to make sure you have everything setup correctly!

R12.2.4: Application Tech Stack - Forms error with AWT-EventQueue-2 Java.lang.IllegalStateException messages

So much for trying to restart my posting streak right before a vacation huh?  Let's see how many days I get this time!

Trying to stay on top of recent R12.2.4 and R12.2.5 changes, My Oracle Support document "Random Forms Error "Exception In Thread "AWT-EventQueue-2" Java.lang.IllegalStateException: Applet'" from note ID 2075992.1 comes an issue where the wrong version of the $FND_TOP/html/oafcoreR122.js file is installed and needs updating so Internet Explorer 11 users can consistently access the application without errors.

OAUG COLLABORATE 16: Call for Presentations Closing!

Make sure that you submit your abstract to present at OAUG's COLLABORATE 16 conference before the window closes on Friday!!

Weekend Learning: Oracle GoldenGate Director Management Pack - Master Note

Do you have to use GoldenGate?  Would you like to know more about it?  How about changing your configuration to install Director?  Check out My Oracle Support document ID 1307305.1 for "Master Note Oracle GoldenGate Management Pack - Director" and learn something about Director this weekend!

ASM: After disk comes online resync takes excessive amount of time

If you want to learn a bit more about ASM, especially if you have Exadata because it is affected as well, check out MOS article "ASM disk resync takes long time after disk online" from document ID 2061405.1 including the object GV$ASM_OPERATION which if you investigate on your system maybe you could develop alerts based on it!

Oracle EBS R12.2.5 has been released!

From Steven Chan's blog comes news about the release of EBS 12.2.5 which is a cumulative release update pack so can be applied to any R12.2 release without needing to go to any other releases.  There are multiple resources for you available on this article, but just as important are some questions asked and answered as well so make sure you click on the comments link!

Weekend Learning: Oracle Payables - Information Center

I posted this last year in a batch of different Payables documents, but it bears reposting because it is such a great wealth of knowledge about Payables all in one spot so don't miss out on adding MOS document ID 1417598.2 to your bookmarks for the "Information Center: Oracle Payables" article!!

P.S.  I may have taken another unintended break and found out how it is easier to break a routine, than get into one, but I'm looking to start up another streak of nightly posting right NOW!  :}  Thanks for the continued viewership through this time of not so many posts, I hope to give you a lot of good information in the weeks to come so make sure you keep coming back here every day.

Weekend Learning: Problem with granting privileges due to EBS R12.2 Edition Based-Redefinition

Even though the MOS article "Granting Privileges On An Object May Cause Invalidations" from note ID 1987947.1 sounds innocent enough, if you read the details it appears there is a potentially critical issue if you need to immediately change privileges on the current running version of code in R12.2!

ALERT: DB corruption after 12c upgrade for compressed tables during recovery

Did you compress tables on 11g before going to 12c?  If so, you need to check out My Oracle Support article "ALERT Bug 21682261 Corruption during Recovery after upgrading to 12c for Compressed Tables" from document ID 2058461.1 because you can run into corrupted tables if you need to recover them!  This is the worst possible news for a database because it violates all of the ACID principles and if you get to the recovery stage you already have your data in question!

Learning more about Primary Keys

How much do you know about Primary Keys?  Do you know why they exist?  Ric Van Dyke is here to tell us and you might be surprised to know what he thinks Primary Keys should be too!  Also, read the comments and see if you agree with some of the conversation going on there and maybe even pick up a few additional ideas too!

Unable to communicate with ASM mirror copy if Exadata Storage Server is offline

Tonight the MOS document "(DB32) Bug 20217875 - When using normal redundancy Oracle is unable to perform I/O to an ASM mirror copy when an Exadata Storage Server is offline" from note 2057731.1 seems straightforward BUT shows how complicated ASM and Storage Servers are with even more reasons to be constantly monitoring these components!

SQL Developer hits Java GC limit while exporting

Hello everybody, I do live!  I may have taken a week off post wedding and honeymoon, but I am back now and tonight I ease into things with a rather simple issue from My Oracle Support article "GC Overhead Limit Exceeded Message In SQL Developer When Running A Query" via note ID 1634930.1 which has a deceiving title because this happens when exporting instead, but is still worth a read anyways.

Weekend Learning: Setting up, monitoring, and tuning parallelism

Do not miss out on the MOS document "Setup, Monitor, And Tune Parallelism In The Database" this weekend via document ID 1549214.1 to get the scoop on what default parallelism is, parameter settings which influence this, best practices, AND a health check script which can help you determine if there is anything off in your system!

Weekend Learning: Reviewing Purchasing workflow activity

Tonight the My Oracle Support article "Reviewing the Workflow Activity for an In Process or Pre-Approved Purchasing Document [Video]" from note ID 1231023.1 presents different ways to get the data from behind the scenes for workflow by either an Analyzer, a Diagnostic, scripts, or through the application!

12c: DB 12.1.0.2 patch 12 known issues

Did you know that the latest patch for 12.1.0.2 has known issues already?  While article "Oracle Quarterly Database Patch 12.1.0.2.12 Known Issues" found on My Oracle Support by document ID 2052715.1 has a very small issue, it makes me curious going forward about how we find these known issues bug reports in the future for other DB patches as well!

R12.1.3 Receivables: Autoinvoice gives error "The web server returned an error"

Tonight with this MOS article "Autoinvoice Import Errors with The web server returned an error" from document ID 2053754.1 it is important to notice that this affects the Autoinvoice Import (RAXTRX) AND Master (RAXMTR) programs with an unknown cause so it could happen at any time in your environment at a time you could not afford to bounce Apache services!

R12.1.3 Concurrent: Copying previous request all items are not copied

On the R12.1.3 version of EBS did you know that "When Copying A Request Set From A Previous Run, The Delivery Options And Parameters Are Not Copied"?  I learned this from MOS document ID 2055893.1 and now I need to check out if we have the indicated patch so we can avoid this problem in the future, and add this kind of testing condition to our testing suites!

Payables: Transaction Objects Diagnostics Program

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to gather more information about a problem you are having with Payables?  Then check out the My Oracle Support document "R12: How To Run The Transaction Objects Diagnostics Program in Oracle Payables?" from note ID 558196.1 in order to add this program to your toolbox when you find yourself in such a situation!

Weekend Learning: OEM 12c FAQ for Exadata Virtualized Database Machine

If you are running a virtualized Exadata installation, and using OEM to monitor your systems, do not miss out on document ID 1967758.1 for the MOS article "Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Exadata Management and Virtualized Exadata Database Machine FAQ" which details what versions are compatible with each other and how you need to be configuring the agent too!

Weekend Learning: Advanced replication scripts

Do you want to learn more about scripting?  Want to learn "Different ways of Advanced replication" from MOS document 1354324.1?  Of course you do!

R12.2.3 Procurement: No backend server available for connection error message due to performance issue

If you are on EBS R12.2.3 or planning on going to it, make sure you add into your testing suite the issue detailed in article "Performance When Searching Items To Receive In iProcurement: No Backend Server Available For Connection" which note ID 2054046.1 tells us is due to an incorrect index and what patches are available to resolve the issue.

Purging: How do you reduce the size of GL_IMPORT_REFERENCES?

Tonight we focus on purging and reducing the size of your EBS footprint by helping to find out "Can You Purge GL_IMPORT_REFERENCES ?" from MOS document 96204.1 with information about the table GL_ARCHIVE_REFERENCES included as well with reference to the General Ledger User's Guide if you needed to find it too!

Patches for SQL Plan Management issues

Did you know there are patches which you can apply to limit potential problems with SQL Plan Management?  Check out MOS note 2035898.1 for the document "Patches to Consider for 12.1.0.2 to Avoid Problems with SQL Plan Management (SPM)" which is directed at 12c, but has links for patches that can be applied to 11gR2 as well!

Workflow: Collecting data about CREATEPO items

Have you ever had a CREATEPO item get stuck for some reason that you couldn't figure out?  If you find yourself in that scenario make sure you have added the MOS article "CREATEPO Workflow - Data Collection Script" to your favorites via document ID 1415918.1 or just download the script now for use later!

Weekend Learning: How to use logical hostnames to configure Oracle EBS R12

Want to add a lot to your toolbox this weekend?  Look no further than document "Configuring Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.x Using Logical Host Names" on My Oracle Support from note ID 1968231.1 for a lot of installation and configuration details which you may have never had an opportunity to see before!

Weekend Learning: Learning how to replace an Exadata Storage Server hard drive

This weekend learn both "How to Replace a Hard Drive in an Exadata Storage Server (Hard Failure)" and "How to Replace a Hard Drive in an Exadata Storage Server (Predictive Failure)" from MOS article IDs 1386147.1 and 1390836.1 respectively!

Weekend Learning: Peoplesoft 8.4/8.5 Application Server Troubleshooting - Information Center

Don't miss out on MOS document "Information Center: Peoplesoft Application Server 8.4x - 8.5x: Troubleshoot" from note ID 1455556.2 this weekend to add this to your toolbox!

Tom Kyte takes a (well deserved) break

Since Tom Kyte inspired me to start this blog, the news that he is taking a break from his Ask Tom site, and Oracle in general, for a period of time which is undetermined at this time kind of took me by surprise.  I would highly recommend you read the news article about his break, because he has a lot of great insights about where IT has come from, how Tom got started in IT, how Ask Tom even got started, and what Tom is going to be up to for the next phase of his professional life.

Workflow: Office365 as IMAP/SMTP Server produces java.io.IOException error message

Are you getting ready to migrate to Office365 with your Oracle EBS application?  Well keep in mind the MOS article "Using Office365 (outlook.office365.com) as the IMAP Server causes Validation Error Occurred. Log file has java.io.IOException: Connection dropped by server?" found via note ID 2051685.1 because if you do not complete your setup correctly there are several different kinds of errors which can be found and this is a good opportunity to review them now before you migrate.

How can you tell if Oracle products are certified or can get patches?

Do you know the differences between the terms Premier Support, Extended Support, Error Correction Support and Sustaining Support?  If you have Oracle products in your environment, you really should know so that you are aware of when you can get new patches from Oracle and Steven Chan tells us exactly how to understand these terms tonight by explaining how to find information on the MOS Certification page and deciphering it with the Lifetime Support Policies!

ZFS Storage Appliance and Solaris can see write performance degradation when filesystem is almost full

Tonight MOS has a surprising article in store for us as "Solaris 10, Solaris 11 and ZFS Storage Appliance (ZFSSA) Software may Experience Write Performance Degradation when ZFS Filesystem is Near Quota" from note ID 1985528.1 as an entire pool can lose performance if the poolset comes within 2GB of being totally used!  You can also find out what commands are used to check this, and if you are affected then see what patchsets are available so you can get patched up to prevent this from happening to you.

Gather Table Stats on a partition ends in ORA-01422 error

On Oracle databases prior to 11.2, there is a bug where "Gather Table Stats For Partition Results In Error ORA-01422" which can be found via My Oracle Support note ID 2038480.1 and the resolution is to purge duplicate records from multiple WRI$ tables!

Weekend Learning: Frequent CHECK TIMED OUT listener status on Windows

Want to learn something about RAC configurations?  What about on Windows OS?  Well article "RAC: Frequent CHECK TIMED OUT status of listener and DB resources" from MOS document ID 1608197.1 tells us why these timeouts occur on the Windows platform and how to resolve them as well!

Weekend Learning: Top 5 database/performance RAC issues

If you are running Oracle RAC, check out MOS note "Top 5 Database and/or Instance Performance Issues in RAC Environment" from document ID 1373500.1 to bone up on a few new things this weekend!

Restrictions in place when transacting across a DB link

Did you know that there is a listing of what you cannot do across database links?  MOS document "Database Links Restrictions in Distributed Environment" from note ID 883328.1 has all of the details including some other MOS notes that go more in-depth for some of the restrictions!

How to tell if AWR data takes up too much space in SYSAUX tablespace

Are you looking for ways to reduce space in your environment?  Check out My Oracle Support note 287679.1 for the article "How to Address Issues Where AWR Data Uses Significant Space in the SYSAUX Tablespace" so you can validate your settings and find out if there are ways to eliminate extra data including orphaned records!

Oracle Linux: No buffer space available

Have you upgraded to Oracle Linux 6.5 with UEK3 yet?  If you have, do you know if you will be encountering an issue with the OS running out of resources?  Make sure you read the details in document "Oracle Linux: ORA-27301:OS Failure Message: No Buffer Space Available" from note 2041723.1 because there are simple changes which can help you avoid this happening in the future!

PeopleSoft: COBOL processes error out with unicode database

Greeting Earthlings!  Sorry for the absence the last few days, but Thursday my PC was hit with something nasty and I wasn't able to fix it until just last night so I took a few night off from the blog!

Now that I have my PC repaired, how about we explore the My Oracle Support article "E-COB: COBOL Processes and Remote Calls Error Out & Have Zero-byte Log files Generated on a Unicode PeopleSoft database" from document ID 1629233.1 to learn something new about cloning PeopleSoft on Windows and how non-unicode and unicode databases might differ in this type of environment?

Hyperion EPM: Reporting And Analysis Framework Service not starting completely

If your Search Service in Hyperion EPM is not working, start with MOS document "EPM Reporting And Analysis Framework Service Does Not Start Completely" with note ID 1626173.1 to find out how you can diagnose and resolve this problem by removing data from what appears to be an interim type of table!

ASM: ORA-600 due to corruption in ASM staleness registry

Lately ASM has been a popular topic, and document 2028222.1 on My Oracle Support continues that recent tradition with article "(DB30) Bug 20904530 - During ASM disk resync ORA-600 [kfdsBlk_verCb] occurs due to corruption in ASM staleness registry" which can teach us about how ASM corruption can be verified, fixed, and repaired!

Best of COLLABORATE 15: Me!

A few weeks ago I let you all know about getting selected for the Best of COLLABORATE 15 webinar series for OAUG, but I must tell you that I was kind of nervous with my previous (only) webinar experience being not that great!  This morning I woke up early, got to work really early, made sure nothing was pending so I could rehearse my presentation one last time (part of Tim Hall's presentation tips) so that at 7:45 I was ready for the webinar prep to begin but due to technical difficulties on the organizer's part they did not get online until around 7:55 so the prep was really rushed!  Fortunately, I have had to deal with a few issues while presenting so this really did not throw me for a loop and I was off and running!  Until I got to about slide 3 or 4 that is.  Unfortunately I got stopped by one of the organizers to let me know that the screen had went dead because it seems the person that started the webinar for us left and that caused my presentation to stop sharing out to the participants!  This lead to a few minutes while I scrambled to get my e-mail back open, log back into the webinar, then have to reshare and figure out where I was in the presentation.  It was only a few minutes, but it made me feel rushed through the whole presentation like I had to keep talking and talking without taking a breath, and I am thinking that showed through, but I really hope it did not!  Probably does not help a whole lot that I have felt like I am coming down with a fever the last few days and my throat was sore when I woke up this morning, but I had drank enough fluids this morning so I could get through the session without having to stop and drink at all.

Overall, I think I would score myself around 8.5-9 out of 10 for the webinar because I was able to get through the difficulties and run through all of my information so I feel like the people that joined were able to really get something out of the 50 minutes (even if nobody asked questions afterwards).  I am looking forward to getting into another webinar so I can take the lessons I learned previously and combine it with a chance to run through a presentation without any technical difficulties at all!

Weekend Learning: Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c R1 using DB Upgrade Assistant

Of course I, and this blog, am focused on applications and Support/Operation of those applications, but sometimes we need to step into the shoes of our DBAs to learn something new which we can later apply to our discipline!  MOS document "Complete Checklist for Upgrading to Oracle Database 12c Release 1 using DBUA" is that kind of knowledge which you can find via article ID 1516557.1 to get some more details about files, objects, and other steps/scripts which you could find useful down the road!

Weekend Learning: PeopleTools Process Scheduler - Information Center

Do you have PeopleSoft in your environment at work?  How much do you know about it and PeopleTools?  Could you learn something from MOS document "Information Center: Overview PeopleTools Process Scheduler" found at note ID 1344628.2?  Soak up the how-to's, videos, and troubleshooting tips after you favorite this page!

R12 Purchasing: Requisitions can be locked by other users

Before reading My Oracle Support article "Line #### Of Requisition ### Currently Locked By Another User When Attempting Autocreate a Purchase Order." from note ID 1998470.1 I did not know that requisitions could be locked by other users except when there were true database locks going on in the system!  Check out the reasons behind this, and how it could have been prevented!

R12 Assets: Invoice does not transfer from one ledger

The funny thing about reading MOS posts is that sometimes I am reminded of an issue at work and "Invoice Can Not be Transfered to FA" from note ID 2040971.1 is one of those times as I have seen this issue crop up but maybe this will help us resolve it!  I will keep you updated as to my success with this!

Purging failed transactions from an Oracle DB

From time to time you may find yourself in a situation where a database which connects to your Oracle database loses the connection, but your database thinks that it is still connected and you can leverage MOS document "How to Purge a Distributed Transaction from a Database" from article ID 159377.1 to investigate the tables DBA_2PC_PENDING and DBA_2PC_NEIGHBORS with how to nuke off the sessions as well!

R12 Payables: Finding where "Submit Positive Pay Program Immediately" gets stored in the system

If you have ever wondered "Where Is The Information Stored When User Checks "Submit Positive Pay Program Immediately" During Running Of The Record Print Status Program." My Oracle Support tries to answer that question in article ID 2043169.1 which is actually a more complex answer than just yes or no so take a moment to learn something about this process in Payables and a bit more about tables IBY_PAYMENTS_ALL and IBY_PAY_INSTRUCTIONS_ALL!

R12 Purchasing: Error when merging Supplier

Make sure you get the patches associated with MOS article "Supplier Merge with Global Agreement - Error The Supplier and/or Site cannot be merged." from document ID 2017875.1 if you encounter this problem merging a supplier which is tied to multiple organizations!

Weekend Learning: Sequences in a RAC environment

I posted about some general RAC information previously and today I want to share some more advanced information about "RAC and Sequences" from MOS note ID 853652.1 for those that want to understand more about the Oracle DB which may help you diagnose why transaction sequence numbers just might not be 100% foolproof!

Weekend Learning: Data Pump and Oracle DB parameters to increase Data Pump performance

Tonight My Oracle Support article 1611373.1 "What DataPump And Oracle RDBMS Parameters Can Significantly Affect DataPump Performance ?" is a very straightforward listing of parameters which could teach you how to speed up Data Pump but also it can teach you about the Oracle DB as well by introducing you to some of these parameters maybe for the first time!

Weekend Learning: Profile options for EBS Concurrent Manager

Ever wonder if there are profile options which may impact the Concurrent Manager in the EBS application, that you might not know about?  Then check out this article "Report Manager Profile Options" from My Oracle Support note 1521253.1 to learn more about profile options that impact modules like BNE, GL, and more!

Workflow: Notifications show bad characters with multiple languages set

With the Oracle EBS there are NLS settings which you need to be aware of, and "How To Correct Workflow Email Notifications Showing Junk Characters In A Multi Language Environment" on My Oracle Support via note ID 1663060.1 shows what the RESET_NLS parameter can control in the system.

ORA-06508 or FRM:40735 errors when opening EBS forms

Tonight, we have a general lesson in upgrades either with the EBS application or the Oracle database as My Oracle Support note "R12: Finally Close or Cancel FRM:40735: WHEN-BUTTON-PRESSED Trigger Raised Unhandled Exception ORA-06508" from document ID 2021590.1 shows us the simple reason why this happens as well as teaches us how to use adadmin also which you may not see if you are strictly Operations or Support.

Exadata: New feature Exadata I/O Latency Capping causing ORA-27626 errors

Tonight we find out in My Oracle Support document 1925661.1 "ORA-27626: Exadata error : 2201 (IO cancelled due to slow/hung disk)" that the new feature Exadata I/O Latency Capping introduced with Exadata Storage Server 11.2.3.3.1 can actually interfere with I/O reads so learn what error messages you can prepare for in the log and trace files!

R12 Payables: Setting up payment terms for Credit Memo

To learn a bit more about the EBS application check out My Oracle Support note "R12: How to Setup Payment Terms for Credit Memo Instead of Using Standard Invoice Payment Term?" from article ID 2035942.1 to see if this is possible and maybe even learn something about forms personalization options!

Weekend Learning: Collecting information to troubleshoot SQL performance problems

Have you ever run into a situation where SQL is not performing like it should?  We have a lot of tools now compared to "back in the day" (before Oracle Enterprise Manager) but some of the classics can be found in MOS article "SRDC - How to Collect Standard Information for a SQL Performance Problem" from note ID 1594386.1 and even if you do not need to work with Oracle to help solve the problem you can utilize these tools to diagnose and possibly resolve it!

Weekend Learning: Can you void Support Services from Oracle by not applying the solution they offered?

I share a LOT of articles from My Oracle Support so it is appropriate that I share a post ABOUT My Oracle Support for once!  If you have ever wondered "If an Alternate Service Request Solution is Implemented in Lieu of an Oracle Recommended Solution, Does That Void the Support Services from Oracle?" then check out article ID 2008181.1 for the answer because I am glad that I did!

RAC: Getting information about the application or users

I have been working in a RAC environment for so long that the lesson being taught in "How To Get Information on Application / Users in a RAC Environment?" from MOS document ID 2003350.1 is second nature to me, but I think this is really useful information to have so I have decided to share it tonight!

Wait event "Library Cache Locks" seen during invalid logins

Of course the My Oracle Support article "High "Library Cache Locks" Wait Time Due to Invalid Login Attempts" has some straightforward value in note ID 1309738.1 but there are some scripts in here to allow you to design some proactive alerts around exclusive locks AND incorrect login attempts/attacks!

R12 Payables: Error APP-SQLAP-10065 if supplier name changes

Have you ever seen "APP-SQLAP-10065: The Supplier Name Has Changed Since Payment Creation" that is being reported via MOS document ID 2032954.1?  It looks like this is a rather benign issue, but it does help point out another way that testing suites can help out by looking at how we can change the data and see how it affects the EBS application!

RAC: ORA-245 can be thrown due to controlfile not being shared

Make sure you check out article "ORA-245: In RAC environment from 11.2 onwards Backup Or Snapshot controlfile needs to be in shared location" on My Oracle Support from document ID 1472171.1 to learn a bit about RAC and RMAN!

EBS: Managing proxy setup to grant access

If you have been supporting an EBS application for some time, one of the common issues is granting proxy access for workflows or approvals but did you know you can use proxies to grant access AS a person?  I did not realize this either until I read MOS article "How To Add People (Grant Access) Through Preference--> Manage Proxies Setup" from document ID 1378402.1 and now I get to think how I can bring this back to our environment!

Weekend Learning: iProcurement and Oracle Exchange supported SSL certifications

Do you know "Which Type Of Certificates Are Supported By Oracle Exchange And iProcurement Punchout. Does It Support SHA 256RSA ?"  If you answered no, then check out note 1999543.1 on My Oracle Support to find out the answer and learn if you need to be making extensive plans to test and work with your suppliers/vendors and what conditions require different certification paths!

Weekend Learning: Critical Exadata issues

Did you know that Oracle keeps a list of "critical" issues for the Exadata platform?  It is true and MOS document "Exadata Critical Issues" is found from article ID 1270094.1 and might give you a lot of information this weekend about possible patches that you may need to apply to avoid potential problems!

Clusterware OC4J resource marked as OFFLINE

It seems like everybody knows that the localhost address is 127.0.0.1 if you are in IT, but what happens when Oracle does not remember that fact?  Well, you get what we had here in MOS article "ORA.OC4J Resource in Clusterware keeps going OFFLINE" via note ID 2025042.1 where you have to change configuration to hardcode the localhost address because it was not being resolved correctly and failing what looks like a heartbeat check.

R12 Payables: Invoice Approval Workflow problem

I usually advocate creating testing suites on many different aspects of the system, and one I try to touch on regularly is file/file system checks and MOS note 1989619.1 has a good article "Problem With Invoice Approval Workflow" that highlights how a possible check like this could prevent an issue before it happens!

R12 Assets: Exchange rate incorrect used in tax book

In the My Oracle Support document "R12 Incorrect Exchange Rate Used For Calculating YTD And Accumulated Depreciation In Tax Book" in note ID 1932466.1 we find out that there are different rates for assets, YTD depreciation, and accumulated depreciation too due to a bug which has had patches released for both R12.1 and R12.2!

EBS: Removing username and password hint

Not only do you learn something about how to "Remove/Change User Name/Password Hint" for the Oracle EBS from My Oracle Support document ID 1585864.1 but the article also has another link for personalizing the login page for R12!

EM: Ops Center shuts down every day around the same time

Sometimes we get abstract lessons which we can apply, and the MOS article "The Enterprise Manager Ops Center Node is Shutting Down automatically approximatively at the same time of the day" from note ID 2026395.1 has that kind of lesson for us where our automation might get away from us if we let it!

Weekend Learning: Recovering with RMAN from before last resetlogs

Did you know that each time you open an Oracle database using the resetlogs parameter it will synchronize with RMAN and as a result it remembers what "version" of your database has been opened so restoring to a point prior to that takes some work.  Take a peek at note ID 1070453.6 on My Oracle Support for the document "RMAN: Point-in-Time Recovery of a Backup From Before Last Resetlogs" that has all of the details!

Weekend Learning: Oracle Hyperion Planning - Information Center

Make sure you brush up on Hyperion with "Information Center: Oracle Hyperion Planning" from MOS via note ID 1349181.2 and add this to your favorites in MOS as well as adding some more to your toolbox of skills this weekend!

Selected for Best of COLLABORATE 15!!

While this week may have started off with the disappointing news about not being selected for Oracle OpenWorld this year, it sure as heck is not ending with disappointment!  Are you an OAUG member?  Did you leave COLLABORATE this year thinking you missed something, or wished that you could have had just a little more learning packed into your conference?  Well look no further than the "Best of COLLABORATE 15" webinar series with about 40 FREE sessions for OAUG members!!  Not only is there that great news, but also I was selected to be part of this awesome assembly to re-present my COLLABORATE 15 session "E-Business Suite R12: Application Lessons Learned for Support and Implementers" via webinar early (for me in Phoenix) Monday morning August 17th at 11:00 ET!!

I look forward to hearing from you about the content I share, what you may have wanted to see instead/also, AND helping me with some pointers if you think there are some things I could do differently the next time I present this (materials, or manner of presentation, etc).

Hyperion: Analytic Provider Services does not start post Financial Close Management installation

Due to an unpublished bug, document "After Installing Financial Close Management (FCM) Analytic Provider Services (APS) Will Not Start." from My Oracle Support note ID 2032952.1 gives us a workaround based in WebLogic administrative setup on FCM 11.1.2.4.000 and later versions!

"Latch free"/"Real-time plan statistics latch" wait events seen during slow system performance

Tonight provides us an opportunity to learn more about the SQL Monitor interface from MOS document "Slow Performance Featuring Contention on "latch free" with "Real-time plan statistics latch" Having the Most Sleeps and Causing High Operating System Activity" by searching for article ID 2030320.1 which will lead you not only to the Database SQL Tuning Guide if you were not already familiar with it, but ALSO the section detailing the Real-Time SQL Monitoring and Real-Time Database Operations.  Why would you be concerned with this?  Well, do you know how your system is setup to monitor SQL?  Would you like to AND feel comfortable that this feature will not cause you problems in the future?

Hyperion Planning: EPMA Dimension Server does not start using RAC

If you have Hyperion in your environment, how much do you know about Planning?  The EPMA Dimension server?  How about where some of the configuration files are you can run?  Learn about all of them by reading My Oracle Support note "EPMA Dimension Server Not Starting When Oracle RAC is Used for Database" via article ID 1672160.1 to add to your toolbox!

Oracle OpenWorld 15: Rejected!

While I may have been rejected for OOW last year, this year I thought for SURE I would get in this year!  Well, it was not to be!  What seems to be different this year is how many other people have been rejected as well, which from what the grapevine says is, because the Moscone Center is being renovated and not 100% completed yet so the conference is going to be smaller than it has in years!  Wondering who else got rejected?  Click on #TeamRejectedByOracleOpenWorld on Twitter and then follow some of these people, because there are a lot of Oracle ACE Directors, Presidents of companies or Oracle User groups which have been rejected and maybe you can get something positive out of this!

Weekend Learning: Oracle Database Support News via Oracle Premier Support

I am not too sure if document 230.1 on My Oracle Support is always for their Premier Support group, or just for the latest Oracle Database Support News, but I am going to bookmark article "Oracle Premier Support - Oracle Database Support News - Issue June 2015, Volume 52" on the off chance it gets updated each month and then I will be bookmarking "Oracle Premier Support - Oracle Database Support News Archive" from note ID 1284265.1 as well so I can stay up to date on news from Oracle Support groups!

Weekend Learning: Assets archiving, purging and restoration

Are you archiving or purging anything from Oracle Assets?  Did you know that you can restore what you archive and purge?  Learn more this weekend from My Oracle Support document "Oracle Assets Troubleshooting Guide For Archive, Purge And Restore" from note ID 144432.1 and see if you can't make your EBS footprint just a bit smaller!

Payables: Performance issue with purge routine

Even though you may be on R12 the article "Slow Performance When Running Payables Purge" on My Oracle Support deals with 11i, which can be found by document ID 2030741.1, and will remind you that there are purging routines for the Payables EBS module if you have not already set them up!

Exadata: Cell corruption due to repeated CREATE and ALTER GRIDDISK CLI commands

Tonight you need to read "Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software 12.1.1.1.1 and Earlier may Cause Cell Disk Metadata Corruption if Many 'Create' or 'Alter' griddisk Commands are Run Over Time" via note 2029568.1 on My Oracle Support and then open up the referenced document inside to verify if you have disks which have this corruption so you can open up an SR with Oracle as this corruption cannot be resolved and you need to engage them immediately!!

R12 Payables: Payment Exception Report returns no data after 12c DB upgrade

Note 2029537.1 on My Oracle Support for article "R12:AP Payment Exception Report Does Not Retrieve Data After Database Upgrade to Version 12c" reminds us that any type of change we introduce into our systems is reason enough to run through our testing suites to validate each and every piece of the application because any change can cause problems for us!

PeopleSoft: Is PeopleTools 8.54 supported by Internet Explorer 11 Compatibility Mode?

To find out the answer to if it is supported for either Classic or Fluid in PeopleTools 8.54, you will need to visit My Oracle Support document "E-PIA: Does Peoplesoft PT8.54 support IE 11 Compatibility Mode?" by clicking on note ID 2029032.1!

Using an array update statement may cause row or block corruption

While advanced PL/SQL programming structures like an array can be advantageous at times over row by row (Cary Millsap's slow by slow), the article "ALERT: Bug 7662491 - Array Update can corrupt a row. ORA-600 [kghstack_free1] ORA-600 [kddummy_blkchk][6110/6129]" found on My Oracle Support by way of note ID 861965.1 shows that not every decision we make is without consequences!  Think you do not need to know about this if you are in Support?  Think again, unless you already know what table holds data about blocks which get corrupted and in that case you probably already have an alert built looking at that table to see when corruption occurs right?

Weekend Learning - Enhancement requests for 11i and R12 Receivables

Tonight, you should brush up on "Receivables Top 20 Enhancement Requests and Processes" with 20 for R12 and 20 for 11i EBS platforms via document ID 1589474.1 to see if some of your common issues or pain points are addressed here so you can add your voice to the bug reports!

Weekend Learning: Exadata security information

Do you run an Exadata installation?  Are you responsible for the security of said system?  Well then you might want to check out document "Responses to common Exadata security scan findings" on My Oracle Support note ID 1405320.1 and prepare for a lot of homework/investigation on your platform because this document is EXHAUSTIVE!

Booting multiple PeopleSoft Application Servers ends in error

Tonight the article "E-PRCS/E-AP - When booting multiple Application Servers/Process Scheduler an Error is received (ORA-12537: TNS:connection closed)" on MOS from document ID 2015847.1 teaches us something about DB connections in general for ANY Oracle DB so check it out!

An explanation of what killing a process really does

Tonight I want to introduce My Oracle Support article "Kill A Process - Not able to clear session" via note ID 1493261.1 which will give you the commands to kill the process, and terminate it, but what happens when that still does not disconnect the session?  The article has a fairly detailed explanation of what the interaction between the DB and target session is, which may surprise you as there are steps where commands are not given and instead are interpreted as asking!!

JDBC query with bind variables can have performance issue

It seems like I am on a performance kick after finding this note on My Oracle Support "Poor Performance With Query Called From JDBC Using Bind Variables Compared To A DATE Column" from document ID 1557194.1 which teaches us about the reasons a JDBC query might not use the best access path/plan based on what kind of DATE or TIMESTAMP variables you use.

Missing Indexes on Foreign Keys?

In the interest of better performance, you may want to check out My Oracle Support article "Script to check for Missing Indexes for Foreign Keys" from document ID 16428.1 and then run the attached script looking for ways to possibly improve your system performance!

Hyperion Planning: Managed Server produces core dump after crash

Tonight check out document "Planning Managed Server Crashes and Creates Core Dump." from My Oracle Support document ID 2002962.1 to see what parameter you need to change in which .sh file in order to have this stop happening!

Weekend Learning: Performance tuning PeopleSoft on Microsoft SQL Server

The article "Performance Tuning Advice For Microsoft SQL Server" on My Oracle Support found via note ID 2020083.1 does not say that it helps with PeopleSoft installations, but it links to several MSSQL documents including one specifically for PeopleSoft applications on MSSQL!

Weekend Learning: Optimizer Filter Push Down

Are you trying to learn more about the Optimizer and how it can make decisions for predicates?  Then you may want to check out this document on My Oracle Support "Optimizer Filter Push Down" via article ID 1082122.1 to learn a bit more for your toolbox!

Exadata: Fixes needed for ASM File System due to data corruption

Fresh off the presses, and on the heels of my post about ASM allowing disks of 2TB, is article "Important Fixes required to implement Oracle Automatic Storage Management File System (ACFS) on Oracle Exadata Database Machine" found on My Oracle Support via document ID 2022172.1 which explains there are multiple concerns of data corruption in ASM including one affecting disks which are larger than 2TB!

Leap seconds and Fusion Middleware

Since I have talked about the leap second in conjunction with Exadata and Linux OS, as well as Exalytics, I think the My Oracle Support document "Leap Second Vulnerability on Fusion Middleware Products" from article ID 2024181.1 is a great resource even if not on Fusion yet because of all the links it has about the issue!  While Fusion Middleware does not appear to be affect by this, the document DOES admit that there are certain reasons why you would need to address this issue with some of those relating to the precision required and if your application needs it as well.

Payables: Can you reimport an expense report?

I have never really seen a question like this before, but "Is it Possible To Reinstate an Expense Report That Has Already Been Imported Into Payables and Deleted As An Invoice?" on My Oracle Support from article ID 2023674.1 has several other notes available related to information on this subject AND it has details about the application which you may not have already known!

Exadata: DB/ASM I/O request hangs if one cell has a problem

Very similar to my post on LCK0 hanging, there is a specific slant to the My Oracle Support document "Exadata Database Or ASM Instance Hung On IO Request When Single Cell Is Having Problem" via note ID 2002084.1 is worth checking out because there are some log entries we can look for to alert us about the next time we have this problem PLUS there is the bug that we can patch our system with too to prevent it!

The blog turns THREE!!

Last year I marveled at how I hit 20,000 views to the blog, but this year I am blown away by the fact that in just a year I have tripled that figure and will be hitting SIXTY thousand views in just a few days!

I have been lucky enough to cross off a few goals by presenting at additional conferences like RMOUG's Training Days and OAUG's COLLABORATE while this year I am excited to set goals for presenting at Oracle OpenWorld and becoming a member of the Oracle ACE community.  Over the past few months I have been working on several different projects at work that I am looking forward to sharing with all of you this year, but I also just received some news this week which excites me great a deal and I just CANNOT wait to share it with you soon!

I also have noticed how much I am depending on My Oracle Support the last few months, but I have also noticed that there is seldom an absence of good material on that site that successful Support individuals need to keep up with changes or bugs in Oracle hardware or software.  I will try to tap into some of my other sources for content, but right now I do not have a whole lot of extra time dedicated for the blog, so it will take some extra effort on my part.....but that is something I am not beyond doing and will look to do over the next few months!  I hope you are enjoying my blog posts, and welcome any kind of comments you have to share which will help me give you more content that you are looking for!!

Weekend Learning: PeopleTools performance guidelines

If you have PeopleSoft and PeopleTools in your environment, then you should check out this 67 page "PeopleTools Performance Guidelines Red Paper" found on My Oracle Support from document ID 747389.1 in order to enhance your knowledge this weekend!

Global enqueue process LCK0 hangs causing ORA-29770 error and instance crash

Learn more about Oracle DB internals from MOS document "ORA-29770: Global Enqueue Process LCK0 .. Is Hung For More Than 70 Seconds" in note ID 2020465.1 so you can understand how PMON holds up other processes and what kind of wait events or DB log events that you need to be on the lookout for before your instance crashes!

R12: Expense report with 25 lines produces error

Make sure you look at MOS article "Submitting 25 Line Expense Report Causes "Internal Server Error"" to see if you are encountering the issue described in note ID 1475137.1 and to get this added to your testing suites for future patches and upgrades!

R12 Payables: Positive Pay File does not show voids on output file

My Oracle Support document "R12: Positive Pay File is Not Showing Voids in the Output" by way of note ID 1396297.1 tells us that it is possible for the output file to show the wrong information because of incorrect coding within a template and since we know this can be wrong you need to be on the lookout for this in your testing suites now too!

11i: Tax button not calculating taxes on invoice

While I usually focus on R12, I believe that it is important to not forget that people are still on 11i, so when I ran across article "11i: Invoice Tax Not Being Computed Via Calculate Tax Button" on My Oracle Support from note ID 2014831.1 I wanted to understand how big of an issue this is.  Now only is there an issue, but this details several different test scenarios that you can add to your testing suites to make sure you do not encounter this type of issue in the future!

Register for OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2015!

You may remember OAUG's Connection Point - AppsTech from me presenting there in 2013 and 2014, and this year you need to register for a very low price of $195 as an OAUG member in order to get almost 20 sessions many presented by experts in their fields!!

Weekend Learning: Oracle Exalytics - Information Center

Make sure that you check out MOS document "Information Center: Oracle Exalytics" this weekend from note ID 1505330.2 if you want to get up to date on this platform, and add it as a favorite in MOS if you are on it and need to stay updated on news for Exalytics!

Weekend Learning: R12, Stats, and Oracle Text

Over the past few years I have been blogging, I have seen a few articles about the Oracle Text module but never paid a whole lot of attention to them because we do not have it installed.  Or so I thought.  If you have upgraded to R12 make sure that you read the MOS article "Using statistics with Oracle Text" from note ID 139979.1 because if you investigate your system you will find objects like these so any articles we find in the future about Oracle Text just may be relevant to us after all!

BONUS: I did post something related to Oracle Text at the beginning of the year, and this article has links to help you understand what Oracle Text is as well.

ORA-00600 encountered while performing DBMS_STATS on table with too many columns

My Oracle Support document "ORA-00600 [kkqtutlAddSelItem] when Running DBMS_STATS on Table with Large Number of Columns" from article ID 1619803.1 reminds me a lot of a previous article where I found out about an ORA-00600 error when you try to select from too many tables at once!  It seems like you can run into these issues at "random" times when artificial limits are imposed within the Oracle database internals so be aware of these issues!

Exalytics and leap seconds

As my original post about leap seconds is now my most viewed post I'll assume the topic is popular and share with you what I just found in MOS note "Leap Second Issue on Exalytics" via document ID 2017196.1 as some kernels supporting Exalytics ARE affected by the leap second difference that is coming up on June 30th!

ASM: ORA-15196 error encountered when disk is over 2TB

Always talking about getting to a better proactive position, My Oracle Support note 736891.1 gives us yet another angle to approach this from document "ORA-15196 WITH ASM DISKS LARGER THAN 2TB" because it affects many different versions of the database AND the Exadata platform!  There are patches available to prevent this from happening to you, and the aforementioned Exadata platform has patches available which allows a larger ASM disk!

Weekend Learning: Security by Asset book whitepaper

Earlier this week I posted about Assets and linked in that MOS post was "Security by Book White Paper" found by article ID 111129.1 but I think it is important to highlight it here in Weekend Learning because there is always an opportunity to learn more so check this 30+ page PDF out to pick up something new!

Weekend Learning: How to add comments to tables and columns

One of the neatest things I learned from Collaborate this year was that we can use standard Oracle tables built for documentation to add comments on tables and columns!  You can learn more about this from MOS article "How to Select COMMENTS For Tables and Columns" from document ID 1008873.6 so you can leverage this for your own system and build standardized comments that can be deployed to track characteristics of your custom tables!

Auto-Tier LUNs on Flash System may not be automatically released

If you have an Oracle Engineered System like Exadata or Exalogic, you may want to know how in some cases the Flash System doesn't get space released as found in MOS document "FS System: Deleting Auto-Tier LUNs May Not Increase Free Space for a Storage Domain" via article ID 2015849.1 so you can take a proactive look at your system to see if you suffer from this as well.

EBS 12.2.4: Forms server crashes after JVM heap size change

Either needing to upgrade from 11.5.10, 12.1, or a lower version of 12.2, you need to be aware of what I found in MOS note "Forms Server Fails With "Could not reserve enough space for object heap" Changing JVM Heap Size To 2G In 12.2.4" from document ID 2014509.1 because increasing heap size here can actually cause you problems instead of resolving them!

Assets: Can you have multiple organizations assigned to a single asset book?

The old MOS document "Can Multiple Organizations Be Assigned to One Asset Book?" from note 253753.1 is very timely for me, because I am having an issue at work regarding this issue and the answer may surprise you!

ALERT: ORA-600 on Standby after switchover

I have been told that SCNs and ITLs are some sacred parts of the ACID test for transactions, but article "ALERT Description and fix for Bug 8895202: ORA-1555 / ORA-600 [ktbdchk1: bad dscn] ORA-600 [2663] in Physical Standby after switchover" found via document ID 1608167.1 on My Oracle Support gives us reasons that both SCNs and ITLs can be violated!

Exadata: Error with CABLE_CONN_STAT reported after upgrade to 2.1.3-4

Like the article the other day for cellsrv hanging that was also aimed at the X2-2 platform, tonight the My Oracle Support document "Component Error Detected. Component Name: /SYS/CABLE_CONN_STAT during the firmware upgrade to 2.1.3-4." via note 1642972.1 shows us why there are several reasons these errors can be recorded in /var/log/messages!

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting WF_CONTROL issues for Workflow Agent

Check out the MOS document "Troubleshooting WF_CONTROL Agent issues" via note ID 469045.1 to catch up on things you may already have setup in your system like the concurrent program that needs to run to clean this queue up or find out what AQs you can query to verify your system is running just fine!

Weekend Learning: Procurement upgrade steps from 11.5.10

As there are many moving parts in an R12 upgrade, note "Upgrade: Steps To Execute In iProcurement Before Upgrading to Release 12, 12.1 or 12.2 From 11.5.10" via article ID 1481255.1 on MOS might be helpful if you are in that phase of your project investigation.

Exadata: NFS mounts unavailable after applying kernel update

I talk about testing suites a lot, so this one falls under the category of OS validation from My Oracle Support article "NFSv3 Exports Not Mounting After Exadata Node Upgrade From OL5.10 To OL6.6" from document ID 2006173.1 because applying Exadata patch 12.1.2.1.0 does upgrade the OS as well just in case you were not prepared for that.  This is where a testing (or validation) suite comes in handy because it could find that your system has changed in such a way, and then warn you when you do this in QA so you can start looking for problems proactively which may now affect you due to the change!

R12.1.3 Payables: Error when adding bank account after patch

While you may upgrade to R12.1.3 and have no issues like those reported in this MOS document "ERROR PAGE ON ADDING AN EXISTING BANK ACCOUNT ON SUPPLIERS AND CUSTOMERS PAGE" via note ID 1908015.1, the details in the document show that this actually happens as a result of applying a patch to fix another issue so you could encounter this at pretty much any time!

Exadata: Cellsrv hangs after 12.1.1.1.1 upgrade

The good news from MOS article "Cellsrv is Hanging and RS Restarting with cellsrv RS-7445 After Upgrading to 12.1.1.1.1" in note 2013522.1 is that it may be confined to X2-2 cells, but there is always the chance that it will start to appear in other configurations as well!

R12.1.3 Payables: Payment Manager performance issue after upgrade

Post upgrade to R12.1.3, there is an issue in Payables which you can find from MOS in the note "Performance Problem In Payment Manager (Payment Dashboard Page) After Database Upgrade" by way of document ID 2014319.1 where it details how several different actions can take up to a minute!  First you must gather stats, then set or remove several database parameters, and bounce to make sure it takes effect so you should check out this note to see if you need to review the parameters and then take action if so!

Oracle Linux: Can openssl work with TLS 1.2 on OS 5.x?

In relation to my articles on POODLE and Heartbleed attacks with vectors on ssl, the My Oracle Support note "Oracle Linux 5.x: openssl could not work with TLS v1.2" located by document ID 1986516.1 may be of interest to you if you are still trying to make sure your environments are clear of these issues!

Weekend Learning: Wait event "library cache lock" Reference

Not only does the document "WAITEVENT: "library cache lock" Reference Note" found via article ID 34578.1 have detailed instruction on what the wait columns mean, how to find blockers in this wait event, but also many tips for troubleshooting the wait event AND dozens of articles about the bugs you can find related to this as well!

Weekend Learning: How ZFS calculates used space

If you are running an Exadata solution, or other Big Data type installations from Oracle, then you are probably familiar with the ZFS appliance but do you "Understanding How ZFS Calculates Used Space"?  Visit My Oracle Support note ID 1369456.1 to get all the details and find out how using the du and df commands do not get you accurate estimates on a ZFS platform!

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting ORA-8103 "object no longer exists"

Tonight the article "OERR: ORA-8103 "object no longer exists" Master Note / Troubleshooting, Diagnostic and Solution" from MOS document 8103.1 is VERY extensive in all the different ways that this ORA message can come up, the different solution available, and MANY related notes that you can read as well to catch up on this topic!  The next time I get this error, maybe now I have a few more tools to try and identify or resolve it!!

12.1.0.2: Upgrade failing due to edition problems

While the MOS article "Database Upgrade to 12.1.0.2 Fails with Error: “ORA-38802: edition does not exist”" has a pretty clear title, note ID 1995415.1 does not have a whole lot of details beyond the bug and that there is a patch associated to fixing this.  Well looking at the bug has the details we are looking for since it seems like several objects, especially ORA$BASE, have no edition information so the installer is crashing!

R12.1.3 Payables: PO lines are matching out of order

While it may seem like an innocent problem, your business may not enjoy the bug behind "PO Line Matching In Invoice The Lines Are Coming In Reverse Order" found on MOS via note ID 2007474.1 as they may want things to be matched on invoices in the correct order!  Visit the article to see what patch details are available to get this resolved!

Exadata: Synchronous I/O can cause disk corruption

Sure you might be saying to yourself, most I/O operations for Exadata are asynchronous and this only affects versions 12.1.1.1.2 and 12.1.2.1.1 of the Storage Server software so why is this a big deal?  Do you know for sure you will not be upgrading to one of these versions of software?  Do you think these versions are the only versions where this bug will crop up?  Does this make you wonder how to monitor your disks for this kind of thing?  Well the good news is that you can visit My Oracle Support document "Bug 20830449 - Disk corruption possible when a disk media error occurs while synchronous I/O is performed" for note ID 2009841.1 to find out which version of software has a patch available, and which one does not have the patch yet at this time!

R12.1.3 Receivables: Posting Execution Report does not generate after upgrade

Like most of you, I was intrigued after reading this MOS title "ARXGTR.rdf Posting Execution Report fails to regenerate" so I clicked on note ID 2010272.1 to find out this was the expected behavior after upgrading to R12.1.3 as the report is obsolete with another report taking its place.

Weekend Learning: Procurement Accrual Accounting Analyzer

Check out document ID 1969667.1 on MOS "EBS Procurement Accrual Accounting Analyzer" and download this new analyzer to run it at least once so you can see if there are any outstanding issues that need fixing in your environment.  After you find out, then make sure to convert this into a concurrent request so you can keep on top of any issues that might popup before they become critical issues!

Weekend Learning: 12c: Automatic Dynamic Statistics

Did you know that Oracle Database 12.1 introduces some new ways to sample dynamic statistics for query optimization?  You are probably familiar with setting this in the 11gR2 world but 12c allows us to set this at a more granular level so it can be done at a statement level and you can find all the details at "Automatic Dynamic Statistics" on My Oracle Support from note ID 2002108.1 to see what has to be enabled for this to work.

Weekend Learning: Customizing EBS logon behavior

Something that we take for granted is logging into the EBS application, but have you ever been curious about the how of it?  I never thought about it until I read the MOS article "How to Customize Logon Behavior" found by note ID 30860.1 and learned about the logon trigger which passes username and password information from the application server to the database!

PeopleSoft application server does not distribute load evenly

While I do not cover PeopleSoft often, it is in our environment so I need to pay attention to the issues with it, and tonight I found the document "E-AS: Application server load not distributing evenly" on My Oracle Support via note ID 644361.1 which details under what conditions the application server loads will not get distributed due to the algorithm used by the platform.

R12.1.3 Purchasing: Accrual report does not provide output after upgrading

I harp on getting testing suites up and running all the time, and MOS document "AP And PO Accrual Report Did Not Generate Output After Upgrade" from note ID 2003582.1 is a perfect example of why since this would have been a simple item to notice if the report was plugged into a test suite.  Visit the document to find out what patch is required to get the report working!

Hyperion: Calc Manager is displaying dialog while running ruleset

While I do not focus on Hyperion a whole lot on the blog, tonight I want to share with you article "Calc Manager Run Time Prompt Dialog Displays When Running A Ruleset" on My Oracle Support found via document ID 2006615.1 when there are multiple business rules and "Merge Variables" enabled.

Payables R12: Cannot remove last payment from payment instruction

In terms of verifying patches, I am going to verify the patch associated from note "R12: Payables/Payments: Error: You may not remove the last payment from a payment instruction. Consider terminating the payment instruction instead." via document ID 2007497.1 so I can make sure we do not suffer from something like this in our own system!

Weekend Learning: ASM not starting after upgrade to 11.2.0.4

My Oracle Support article ID 2006534.1 has note "ASM fail to start with error ORA-00132 After Upgrade From 11.2.0.3 To 11.2.0.4" which has a very simple solution to the problem.  Now my next challenge is to understand why the spfile has to be modified in the way Oracle suggested!

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting PDF errors in Procurement

Today I share with you a document from MOS about "How to Diagnose and Resolve the ‘System failed to generate the PDF’ or 'PDF Document Generation Failure' errors in Procurement" which you can find via article ID 1520871.1 and is very detailed from the forms to archiving options to patching to troubleshooting and A LOT of other links to articles on MOS that you may find relevant down the road.

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting Internet Expense reports

Do you already know everything there is to know about Internet Expenses and think you cannot learn more?  Well article "How To Find And Troubleshoot Internet Expense Reports Within Workflow" on My Oracle Support from note ID 185004.1 has a lot of information including something new I found called an "Oracle Internet Expenses Enhanced Diagnostics" tool!

Getting to know issues with 'read by other session' wait event

Do you like adding tools to your toolbox?  Have you been in a situation where you needed to research the wait even that a session is just sitting in?  Then tonight the article "Resolving Issues Where 'read by other session' Waits Occur When I/O is NOT Slow and Cause is Unknown" from MOS note ID 1476081.1 is probably exactly what you are looking for to add a little something to your arsenal!

R12.1.3 Purchasing: Workflow errors after editing requisition with approver completing checkout

While this affects R12.1.3, it also is encountered in R12.2.3 so "ORA-06512 In Workflow When Using Edit Requisition And Approver Completes Checkout" on My Oracle Support from document ID 1969203.1 is quite new and there are patches for both versions which you should check out to make sure you can resolve an issue which I have seen several times in our own R12.1.3 instance!

Linux: Slow response time using sshd to log in

The MOS document "Slow Login Response From sshd" via article ID 2000698.1 was not what I thought it would be, as I have experienced slow logins with ssh when certain events happen such as server load or network/firewall issues, but I had not figured in how DNS (or RDNS) may take out our ability to log into a server or set of servers.  Read up on this as you never know when it could help you out some day!

Workflow is filling up FND_LOG_MESSAGES

This is a problem I have posted about previously, but since I just presented some of this information during my session at COLLABORATE, I think the new post on MOS "Workflow Messages Are Filling Up FND_LOG_MESSAGES" via article ID 2006609.1 comes along at exactly the right time for EBS Support personnel!  Find out what else you need to be looking for, besides the profile options to get logging turned off for this table!

Weekend Learning: Investigating correct setting of SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS and OPEN_CURSORS parameters

Take a few moments this weekend to visit document ID 208857.1 in My Oracle Support to brush up on this "SCRIPT - to Set the 'SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS' and 'OPEN_CURSORS' Parameters Based on Usage" so that you can help make your databases a bit more proactive by monitoring this on a regular basis!

Weekend Learning: ASM capacity and free space for Exadata

Add to your toolbox this weekend by getting up to speed on both ASM and Exadata considerations of capacity and free space by reading this very good MOS document "Understanding ASM Capacity and Reservation of Free Space in Exadata" from note ID 1551288.1 with some information about both High Capacity and High Performance.

Weekend Learning: R12.2 Information Center - Announcements

Make sure you bookmark the document "Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 Information Center - Announcements" from note ID 1583109.1 on My Oracle Support in order to stay up to date on new developments for R12.2!

Payables: PPR is completed and invoice is "Selected For Payment"

Do not miss out on this article from My Oracle Support about the Payment Process Request, "PPR Completed And Printed, But Invoice Status Still In "Selected For Payment"." from document ID 2001492.1 to find out what query you can run to find invoices locked in this way so you can be a lot more proactive about the matter!

Assets: Not able to create assets via Workbench

Before we went to R12 I posted an alert I created for Fixed Assets, and it still was relevant on R12, so tonight when the 11.5.10.2 targeted article "Cannot Update Assets Using Asset Workbench form FAXASSET: Error: Depreciation Request Status S Is Not Known." was posted on My Oracle Support via note ID 2005126.1 I took notice.  Why did I take notice?  Because we may encounter the same issue on R12 and ANY chance to be proactive in a situation like this is important!

Expenses: Can you use location to obtain mileage?

That is the question being asked in My Oracle Support note ID 2003154.1 "Is It Possible To Derive Mileage By Location In Iexpenses?" and the answer may surprise you since other Oracle customers are looking at using third party products to do this job.

R12.2.3: Transfer To GL report performance degradation after RUP7

Check out My Oracle Support document "Transfer To GL Process Takes Longer Runtime Than Expected Time When upgrading from 11.5.10.2 to 12.2.3" from article ID 1985157.1 to find out what country this affects and which patch you need to apply to resolve the issue!

Weekend Learning: R12.2 EBS DB upgrade prep guidelines

Since I just presented a session on a R12 upgrade from the application and project perspectives, I thought it was a good time to remind you about this document on MOS "Database Preparation Guidelines for an E-Business Suite Release 12.2 Upgrade" via note ID 1349240.1 so you can address the other side of the house with more technical details about the database!

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting Workflow Notification Mailer

Have you ever had to find out what is causing Workflow Notification Mailer issues in your EBS environment?  If you have not encountered these issues yet, you probably will, especially when upgrading so bookmark MOS article "Troubleshooting Notification Mailer OUTBOUND_SERVER or INBOUND_SERVER Validation Failures" from document ID 1672562.1 for many different solutions to several problems you could hit.

Weekend Learning: Allowing access to crontab with non-root user

In our environment we have non-root user accounts that can list and modify the crontab entry, and while I never knew the how behind it, today I know after reading My Oracle Support article "How To Allow Only Specific Non-root User(s) to Use Crontab" from document ID 2002877.1 which may help you modify your setup to use specific power user accounts that do not need root access to the OS.

12c: High memory and CPU usage with ocssd.bin

The My Oracle Support document "12c ocssd.bin high memory/CPU usage" via note ID 1965082.1 has shown up several times on the list of recently updated articles, so I figure tonight is a good time to make sure everybody is seeing this.  Make sure you apply this patch to prevent the 8MB an hour memory leak, and then investigate the other issues reported here on the AIX platform!

11gR2: srvctl is not starting allowing database to start up

Yesterday I talked about how granular your testing suites should be and tonight note 1989922.1 on MOS "Database With Status UNKNOWN on 'crsctl stat res -t' and Could not start using srvctl" gives us another vector we can start plugging into a testing suite which makes sense because this happened after a patch to GI home!

Linux OS: Opening raw device can slow down on certain kernels

Last week at COLLABORATE I talked about measuring your baselines so you can determine when a negative (or even positive) change has happened, and the MOS document "Open Raw Device is Slower with Kernel 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64" from article ID 1999421.1 proves that we have a lot of measuring still to automate because this is a basic OS operation which needs investigation in order to find out when it gets off kilter.

R12.1.3: Payables accounting date not in sync with General Ledger accounting date

I say a lot about bringing proactive data checks to Support teams, so tonight it would make a lot of sense to check out the My Oracle Support article "R12: Accounting Date And General Ledger Accounting Date Is Not In Sync" from note 1985068.1 because you will find out a setup issue that can cause a data mismatch between the EBS modules plus get a script which will allow you to identify if you are encountering this issue!

Weekend Learning: Oracle DB Architecture learning

Want to get up to date on some fundamentals about Oracle Database Architecture?  Check out this slideshow from Michal Simonik that I found via a LinkedIn group which you may want to join as well!

Weekend Learning: Troubleshooting row cache enqueue locks

Check out MOS document ID 278316.1 to get up to speed with "Troubleshooting: "WAITED TOO LONG FOR A ROW CACHE ENQUEUE LOCK! "" which was created for Oracle databases 8i but appears to be completely relevant for us today on 11g and 12c databases!  There are a TON of other articles linked on here as well that you should take a look too!!

Weekend Learning: New A/R program for Month-end Close

If you did not get the chance to hear my co-worker's presentation (@viswavadlamani) during OAUG's COLLABORATE conference, you may have missed a new development from Oracle regarding the Account Receivables module at Month-end Close!  Have you ever had transactions which prevent the A/R period from being closed?  Have you had to open P1 SRs to engage Oracle during the Close cycle?  Visit the document on My Oracle Support "How to Setup the New Manage Accounting Exception Program in Receivables?" via note ID 1937611.1 for all the details on a new concurrent manager process which appears to wrap some of their known issue identification scripts in order to find these issues PRIOR to Close!

OAUG COLLABORATE 2015 - Day 4 + me

8:30 AM - 9:30 AM - Samer Barakat - Getting Optimal Performance from Oracle E-Business Suite

Define the problem - where is the time going?  Identify the techs tack components in-play, refer to architecture Ex. Problem in wrong Linux library, which is not in the Oracle "stack"!

Gather the right data to analyze issue, 1121043.1 for Best Practices, get a "good" SQL trace -> time in the DB? -> time in SQL execution? -> a few bad SQLs?, enhanced performance diagnostics for EBS 1362660.1 -> Gather Diagnostic Data for Traced Session, monitor OS stats -> 301137.1 461053.1, TKPROF 39817.1, Trace Analyzer TRCA 224270.1, SQLTXPLAIN 215187.1, AWR -> $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/awrrpt.sql

Identify root cause

Search for solution

If it is a product issue, pass it on to Support/Development through MOS, do not just ignore it or deny Oracle feedback!

Try to identify temporary workaround until permanent fix!

If you have a bottleneck that is concurrency related, use global hash-partitioned indexes for hot leaf blocks which can be identified by AWR.

Recommendations about optimization:

Stay current - recommended performance patches 244040.1 & http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/resource/certifications.html

Use optimal logging settings - FND: Debug Log Level set to Unexpected

Optimize Workflow Processes - 260884.1, 1129203.1

Run (research) $FND TOP/sql/wffngen.sql - I forget why Samer suggested this, but there was something about this optimizing workflow for you.

Research RAC affinity - this was something about getting SQL or processes pinning to a certain node and I need to do some research on it too.

Optimize Forms Processes

Optimize JVM Processes

Size the Middle Tier for Concurrency - JVM, forms, CM processes (especially Java programs)

There is a formula to calculate physical memory for oacore heap!

R12.2 1905593.1 and E22950 are good documents on MOS for sizing!

Optimize the Concurrent Manager - manage CM jobs lifecycle and CM managers - 1 or 2 managers per CPU cores, CM state data -> 842850.1 - 2GB reports.log! (that is in MY presentation too!), CM schedules, Workload Management Strategy

Tune init.ora 396009.1 & 216205.1 R12/11i

Huge Pages in Linux 744769.1

ORION - 727062.1

Optimize Backend Code Execution Path - pin top PL/SQL packages, check for cursor leaks, consider dropping old editions if you get to 25 in R12.2!

Gather Application Statistics - disable 10/11g automatic jobs, 1586374.1, analyze schemas at 10% as a general rule.

Gather Dictionary and Fixed Stats - DBMS_STATS.GATHER_DICTIONARY_STATS or DBMS STATS.GATHER_FIXED_OBJECTS_STATS

9:45 AM - 10:45 AM - Rusty Schmidt (me!) (@TheOracleEMT) - E-Business Suite R12: Application Lessons Learned for Support and Implementers

For the first run of this presentation, it was a pretty good experience!!  The only thing that tripped me up a bit was the room monitor did not kick the previous presenter out so I only had 5 minutes to set up and catch a breath, and that was when I realized that the notes of the presentation were not showing at all like they should be but by then I was already in it and thankfully I have done enough testing that I got through it!  I heard some really good feedback in the COLLABORATE app, and from some people afterwards, plus I saw lots of people scribbling notes down so I think it was a presentation that really had the 40-50 people engaged and hopefully will lead them to better patches/upgrades or at least to read MOS a bit more!  I did catch myself saying um a few times, and there was one thing I spaced on, so I will grade myself at a 9.5 and even though it was not a perfect 10 I am really happy with it!  Looking forward to giving this again for either OAUG or Oracle at the upcoming OpenWorld!!

11 AM - Noon - Werner De Gruyter (@Yoda_EM) & Courtney Llamas (@courtneyllamas) - Under the Hood of Enterprise Manager - A Troubleshooting Primer

I think honestly I misread this session, as I was expecting how to use EM12c to troubleshoot an issue/problem, but it was all about troubleshooting EM12c ITSELF!  Of course the Internet blowing up a bit about the new Star Wars trailer or my relief at getting my presentation done may have contributed to not paying attention a bit since Werner went WAYYYY into details I never dreamed of so I will look forward to getting the materials so I can learn about it on my own time.

EM12c is total cloud control!

4 key processes - notifications, data loading, jobs & tasks, and user interaction & real time monitoring.

Information flows are initiated by background processes (callbacks).

Beacons can be added so you can monitor responsiveness of EM over time - very meta because you are monitoring the monitor!

Use EMCLI to trace any UI - I think this is what he was saying there.

More memory in Java heap size with more targets, which sounds like a no duh kind of thing but it is good to mention anyways.

Default 150 sessions, based in Apache limits.

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Mazen Arar and Jake Westphal - Testing Oracle E-Business Suite Applications: Best Practices from Development

Testing challenges - schedule, scope, resource - optimizing any of these negatively affects quality!

Testing is 30-50% AT LEAST of your project.

Cost of fixing an error is greatest post release!

Methods for testing - Users, Process, Governance, Technology, Data

Users - theme based testing, exploratory testing (usage patterns, vulnerable areas, derived exploratory testing)

Process - Process Flow Testing

Governance - Role Based Testing (what, why, how), Use Cases, Security Testing (what, why, how)

Technology - Online Patching Testing (during upgrade, during OLP, after OLP), EBS architecture -> QA perspective

Data - Test Data Management, subsetting and masking

<manual ------ automated> - this is the typical range the "Methods for testing" above follows.

Do we test everything?  How much testing is enough?

Oracle Application Testing Suite - Oracle Functional Testing Suite for Oracle Applications - QA reduced automation time by 60%, need to redo 70% of your 70% with some changes

Demo recorded, pausing every few seconds to talk through it - which I thought was interesting how you could record a small 2-3 minute demo and make it last 5-10 minutes with talking through it.  I wonder what demos I will be doing in the future after seeing all of these going on this week!

EDIT 4/26/15:  Modified the title slightly, and fixed some formatting in the post as well.