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: Learning or Obsolescence?

This is an interesting post tonight, because I think most people actively following my blog would fall into the learning category of individuals, but the post from Matthew Morris on actively learning really does hit home for me as I have been using the blog to push myself to keep learning or discussing something every night so that I stretch myself beyond my comfort zone.  Last month I said how I would have had my younger self blog immediately after getting into this field, but another thing I would have told that younger self would have been: shoot for getting certified, but do not fall into the trap of thinking that is the only way you can learn about or become knowledgeable about Oracle technologies.  I feel like I have made plans over the past 3-5 years about getting certified because that was the only path available to me that I could actually map out where the random piecing together (or blogging) of information has actually given me a lot of knowledge that likely would not have been sussed out from certification.

Do I want to get certified some day?  Sure I do!  Am I okay not completing a certification in exchange for completing other tasks like new presentations, new conferences, or my random learning through the blog?  You bet I am!  I think I have finally come to terms with making my own path here through the Oracle technology jungle, with ANY progress being good because it means that I am not being paralyzed into inaction by "failing" to meet a path I set for myself.  That is why I think Matthew's article hit home so much, and why I think you might enjoy it.

Blog spotlight follow up: Steven Chan's EBS blog

Several months ago, I started a feature of spotlighting blogs and now I want to start a follow up feature so where else would I start but with Steven Chan's EBS blog?

First off, Steven and crew have added a lot of updates which I'll break down into several different categories:

Certifications:

Java 1.6.0_60, 1.6.0_65, 1.7.0_40 and Java 1.7.0_45 are now certified with EBS.

Now you can use Transportable Tablespaces on 10gR2, potentially saving you time in your upgrade processes.

IE10 on Windows 7 is now certified with EBS.

The Application Management Pack is now certified with the latest version of 12c and EBS Plug-in 12.1.0.2 is now available for EM 12c.

The initial release of 12c is certified with 11i and R12, while the terminal release of 11gR2 is certified as well and even more certifications are available for 11gR2.

Multiple versions of EBS client configurations are now certified on Windows 8.

Firefox ESR 24 is certified with multiple EBS clients.

Running EBS on SPARC?  If so, 11i is now certified with 11gR2.

Did you know that Office 2010 64-bit is certified with EBS 12?

R12:

The R12.1 Consolidated Update Patch #2 is available, but is not required if you are already on R12.

Steven reminds us that if you're on R12.1.1 or R12.1.2, you're closer to being able to go to R12.1.3 than you think!

Are you unsure if you should go to R12.1.3 or R12.2?  Steven has an answer for you.

Do you know about the new flexfield value set security feature in R12.2?

Are you using Oracle VM Templates?  New templates are available for R12.2.2.

New Information:

An offer to help Oracle shape the future of the next generation of the EBS interface.  I'll sign up, how about you?

Want to see a great reason to attend Oracle OpenWorld next year?  How about getting support timeline updates direct from the source?

The CPU for October has been released.

Did you know that you are expected to be signing your JAR files?

A new white paper on best practices for gathering EBS statistics, while another paper is available on getting optimal performance from the EBS.

Oracle is sharing the presentations from OpenWorld 2013 for a few months!

Elke suggests a series of upgrade recommendations that are available now.

Can you use 3rd party tools to modify your DB?  Steven has an answer on this one too.

Two weeks away from Oracle Certification Retirements

Several days ago I updated you about Fusion Certifications being available and certain tests and paths being retired at that time.  Well, it appears some older tests are also being retired on July 31, 2013 also which makes sense with the whole 12c announcement since 9i and 10g exams are getting the boot with Hyperion 9.3 too.  If you have the skills, or have been studying for these tests, there is no time like the present to get them done.  Actually, the only time is the present because if you wait 2 weeks you won't have any time left!

Fusion Certifications

Back in April, the new Fusion certification path was announced and there are many different certifications in those paths which you can see on the pages for Fusion Accounts Receivable, Fusion Accounts Payable, and Fusion General Ledger.  These announcements are important for me because they fall into my career and education path over the next 2-5 years since I want to get completely on top of all these modules.

Of course with new certifications, come new certification retirements as well.

Not all tests are created the same

Coming at us from this blog entry, the author wants us to know that the SQL Tuning certification test I mentioned a few months ago is not a joke and should be taken quite seriously.  Great news and a warning for me personally, because this is something I see as being on my horizon over the next 12-18 months.

Cloud Control to Major Tom

In case you hadn't heard already from here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or even here, 12c has been released for download.  That's not the whole story though, since you'll want to know why to upgrade or even how to do it step by step as a RAC on your laptop, on Linux 5 and 6, and on Linux 6 using VirtualBox.

So all of that really leaves us in the what do we already know category.  Luckily for us some of the top Oracle minds are already sharing with us:  Kerry Osborne is making a recent presentation on 12c Adaptive Optimization available to us, Jonathan Lewis is giving us great ideas about how to start debugging with 12c, letting us know about a new view naming constraint, and whether or not the with function is deterministic yet, and there is an introduction from Tom Kyte to a new error logging package named UTL_CALL_STACK and a new feature called SQL Text Expansion driven by EXPAND_SQL_TEXT.  All said, no release is complete without webcasts, or certifications!

Whew, I think that's the most links I've ever put in a single post!  I hope you've enjoyed this "metapost" which has brought together some of the best 12c links of the week.

New certification goodness

Not only is there a new certification available for Oracle Exadata Database Machine X3 Administration which I'm really looking forward to investigating more and one day maybe obtaining, but even more interesting to me is the certification that just came out on Oracle Database 11g Release 2 SQL Tuning.  Both certifications require only a single test, although the SQL Tuning has more than one class available for training from Oracle, and may be something which is a worthwhile goal as the investment of time could be advantageous for you.

Free Sessions for 04-02-2013

https://blogs.oracle.com/ebs/entry/boost_your_efficiency_with_oracle

I've attended this before, and it's a good way to get more out of working with Oracle Support.

https://blogs.oracle.com/certification/entry/0867_01

Not really in my timezone, but I'm really looking forward to this anyways to get some insights into certification as I'll be attempting some over the next year or two.

http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=44785:24:0:::24:P24_CONTENT_ID,P24_PREV_PAGE:6940,1

I found this via ArchBeat, and while I am interested to see this particular GoldenGate training because it is in use in our environment, what's more important are the other trainings at this site!