Saving, EBS, Privacy, APEX, Recovery, Patching, New Year of EBS

Saving

It's a subject on everyone's mind these days. Chris Warticki has a great post this week on ROI from Oracle and Oracle Support, including a link to 16 examples on how to cut costs and save in this posting.

EBS

From the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog this week: 

11gR1 11.1.0.6 Certified on Windows x64 for E-Business Suite Release 12

Privacy

Well, International Data Privacy Day has come and gone and I don't feel any more invulnerable. Maybe that's why it's celebrated (or marked? I don't think one can actually celebrate data privacy). In any case, the Talking Identity blog has a posting about it with some good links.

APEX

The David Peake on Oracle APEX blog has a nice techie posting on Preserving User Saved Interactive Reports.

Recovery

Recovery

You should never have a big gap in logs and need to recover, right? Well, no, but I've been there, as have most DBAs I know, and I've helped several clients in that boat over the years. Here's a posting with link to a document in Alejandro Vargas' Blog to help:

How to Synchronize the Standby When there is a Big gap, and all Required Archived Logs are Lost

Patching

The actor David Niven once summarized his advancing age this way: "Once you hit fifty, it's just patch, patch, patch."

 The DataCenter Automation and Configuration Management blog has a very intriguing article this week on patching.  If there is one thing I hear consistently from clients, it is that complex, manual patches cause pain. The goal is to have fire and forget patching with an intelligent program that decides precisely what is needed and applies it. We've eliminated the old goal of humanity, getting roadmaps that fold up easily, not causing frustration, by buying GPSes. So all that is left is curing the common cold and the whole autopatching thing. Posting here: 

Jan CPU 2009 : Identify Vulnerability and Patch in Automated way

An EBS New Year

The In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite starts the Year of the Ox with a summary of last year's EBS highpoints and some informed and prophetic glances into the future:

A Look Ahead to 2009 - Oracle eBusiness Suite and Happy New Year!

Contributions by Angela Golla

Data security is a top issue for DBAs to manage. Learn about the latest features for data encryption in this Oracle Magazine article. http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/09-jan/o19tte.html

Oracle E-Business Suite R12: Recent ATG patch releases

The following are recent EBS R12 ATG patch releases and the description of the known issues they address:

1. MOAC Related Issue - Patch 7649893
Customers using profile option "MO: Operating Unit" instead of "MO: Security Profile" to configure access control for a single operating unit may encounter the error "You don't have access privilege". This error occurs when accessing screens or running reports/programs in operating unit based applications like Payables and Receivables.

2. Flexfield Related Issue - Patch 7653364
Customers using Key Flexfield structures with the same value set assigned to multiple segments, e.g. a chart of accounts with company and intercompany segments sharing the same value set, may encounter the error "Value entered for the segment does not exist in the value set assigned to the segment". This error occurs during entry of Accounting Flexfields in transactions/setups even when the value being entered exists.

A Business Book for the Times

Business Book for the Times

I read a lot of business books. Ok, I admit that I START a lot of business books and read them in parallel on my Kindle, plinking away as a I get time, and don't finish a lot of business books. But the one I've started reading this week is a winner, and I highly recommend it. It's called Billion-Dollar Lessons, and it's about business failures. Yes, that right, failures. Most business books look at successful business and how to emulate their triumph. This books looks at a series of disasters and talks about how to avoid them. The approach is useful, both because it explains the danger signs of a disaster in the making for an employee of a large company or an investor, and because all of us have a psychological tendency to be captivated by train wrecks. The books goes through one financial train wreck after another, what led up to it, how it played out, who got hurt. It's depressing to read how many financial train wrecks hurt the investors/passengers when the engineers/executives/salesman have long since jumped off for a soft cushy landing on bags of money.

Highly recommended. I may even read this one all the way to the end.

http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Lessons-Inexcusable-Business-Failures/dp/1591842190/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232828924&sr=8-1

and the Kindle edition: 

http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Lessons/dp/B001EU9FT2/ref=kinw_dp_ke?ie=UTF8&qid=1232828924&sr=8-1

Top, Spinning, Hyperion, EBS, Dataguard, Security, Certification

Top

If you're like I was in my DBA days, you just brought up top in Unix and fished for what you were looking for. Well, the Coskan's Approach to Oracle blog brings us a way to customize Top to get exactly what you want. So you can toss the fishing pole.

Spins and Latches

You'll find a lot of chapters in a lot of performance books about spinning and latching. To tell the truth, many of them get a bit carried away on what it often an area where there is little to be gained. The I'm Just a Simple DBA blog has a good article on exploring the fascinating world of Oracle latching and spinning and some good links to Oak Table authorities on all things optimization.

Hyperion

The Look Smarter Than You Are blog has some kind words to say about Hyperion 11 here.

Also in the realm of Hyperion is Tim Tow's announcement (confession?) that he is a CPA. In the article he introduces some very interesting links on the future of Hyperion, such as cloud computing and Essbase.

EBS

This week at the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog:

Using Cisco ACE Series Hardware Load-Balancers with EBS 12

Still Using Personal Home Page With EBS 11i?

Troubleshooting Mouse Focus Issues Using JRE Clients with EBS 11i

Update: Using EBS 12 Portlets in Third-Party Portals

Dataguard

Over at Alejandro Vargas' Blog we have something to keep you busy for a while: Data Guard Fast Start Failover Implementation Step by Step Do it with data you love.

Security

One of the better Oracle security blogs out there is Slavik's Musings on Database Security. He has a real must read article on the CPU this week. The article shows that you should be applying the CPU, applying as soon as feasible for your business, but also a very important lesson. It's not enough. Imagine you get a whole bunch of gold and put it in a house. You'd put a good lock on the door, but you'd also put in an alarm system, maybe even hire a guard to sit nearby. That's the kind of triple security you need for your company's gold, your data. Yes, change the combination lock on the door (passwords), repair the places around the edge where thieves tools can get an edge in (the CPUs), but also consider setting up automated scripts and keeping everyone in your IT organization up to date on their security responsibilities. Keep an eye out for strange activities and resist social engineering attacks (both part of that security guard in the metaphor).

Certification

There's a new certification over at the Oracle Certification blog, as of 21-JAN-2009, the Oracle EBS R12: Install, Patch and Maintain Applications (1Z0-238) certification.

Grid Computing: Recent White Papers

Grid Computing White Paper: Oracle Grid Solutions for the Next-Generation Data Center
This Oracle white paper describes how businesses of all sizes worldwide are using Grid best practices to modernize their IT operations and increase performance, availability, energy efficiency, and operational agility.

Data Grids and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Oracle Coherence Whitepaper
Successful SOA strategy must ensure data availability, reliability, performance, and scalability. A data grid infrastructure with clustered caching creates a competitive edge, improves financial performance, and sustains customer loyalty.

Grid Computing with Oracle Database 11g: An IDC White Paper
This IDC white paper discusses the evolution of the data center toward grid computing and the role of Oracle Database 11g for businesses adopting grid computing.

Contributions by Angela Golla

Tech Article: Oracle Transparent Data Encryption - Experience from the Trenches
One user's experience implementing Oracle TDE reveals some helpful advice about the best approach to encrypting existing data.