Tips and Tricks for Patching R12

Tips and Tricks for Patching R12 Oracle Applications E-Business Suite

Ben Prusinski

[email protected]

About the Speaker

• Ben Prusinski , Oracle ACE and OCP

• More than 13 years experience with Oracle

• Author

Agenda

• Oracle Release 12 Patching Tips

• Focus on E-Business Suite Patching

• New features for Release 12 Patching

• Will not discuss database patching (opatch)

• Performance and Availability for patching

New Features Release 12Oracle Applications E-Business Suite

• Oracle 10gAS replaces previous version for application server with three OC4J instances

• New file system changes: INST_TOP

• Oracle 10gR2 database standard for 12.0

• Oracle 11gR1 database standard for 12.1

• New patching features

New Patching features EBS R12

• Patch Application Assistant (PAA)

• Allows you to update patch activity

• Available in GUI or CLI versions

• Based on perl script called admsi.pl under $AD_TOP/bin directory

Patch Application Assistant (PAA)Oracle Applications Release 12 EBS

• Completed previous failed patching or terminated sessions that have not completed.

• Performs automation for patch tasks which were a manual process before Release 12

• Available in graphical interface (GUI) and command line (CLI) versions.

• Required for some patches per README.txt file instructions.

Using Patch Application Assistant for previous patch operations

Patch Applications Assistant (PAA) –incomplete patch operations previous patch

Patch Application Assistant (PAA)-Incomplete patch operations: Step 2

• Provides instructions to complete patches that failed to run to completion

• Useful tips and scripts provided

Example: Using Patch Application Assistant (PAA) for Incomplete Tasks

Patch Application Assistant (PAA) for Patch Configuration with Oracle EBS Release 12

• View instance details for a patch

Patch Application Assistant-View Instructions for patch

• Useful tool for preparation for major patches such as Release Update Packs (RUP) and Maintenance Packs (MP) with EBS Release 12

• Simplifies planning for patch strategy

• Eliminates common mistakes for EBS patching

• Self documenting tool

Patch Application Assistant (PAA) Continued

Patch Application Assistant (PAA) Instructions

Using Command Line (CLI) Patch Application Assistant (PAA) for EBS Release 12

• Useful for quick generation of scripts before apply patch versusGUI version. Use admsi.pl –cli –help for options with PAA.

Example: PAA with CLI for Release 12Oracle E-Business Suite

• Specify options for PATCH_TOP directory

• Generates HELPME files with patch instructions

Best Practices Patching Release 12 Oracle Applications E-Business Suite

• Availability

• Performance

• Minimize Downtime

• Maintenance and Communication

Best Practices Patching Release 12 Oracle Applications E-Business Suite- Availability

• Use hotpatch option for Auto Patch to avoid downtime

• Syntax: adpatch options=hotpatch

• Be careful with hotpatch for adpatch

• No way to recover if patch fails other than restore/recovery

• Do not use for patches that have templates or require Auto Config!


• Use staged APPL_TOP

• Use shared APPL_TOP


• Why use shared APPL_TOP?

• Simplifies patch maintenance since you can apply patch to one node for a multi-node configuration


• Why use Staged APPL_TOP file system?

• Allows you to apply patch without incur downtime to applications tier to production system.

Best Practices Patching Release 12 Oracle Applications E-Business Suite- Performance

• Distributed AD with Auto Patch

• Merge Patch Utility

• Multiple Workers for Auto Patch

• Compile invalid objects before patching


• Distributed AD for Patch PerformanceUses multiple parallel processing to spread the load of apply the patch across multiple nodes for an Oracle Applications environment. It is especially useful for multi-node configurations. Now let’s explore the method to setup distributed AD.

• Start Auto Patch (adpatch) or AD Controller (adctrl) with the distributed option.

localworkers=<number of workers on node>

workers=<total number or workers>

Example:

AutoPatch session with a total of twelve workers (four workers on the local node and eight workers on a remote node):

$ adpatch workers=12 localworkers=8

Example: Distributed AD

• Node 1: • $ adpatch localworkers=5 workers=15

• Node 2: • $ adctrl distributed=y

Enter the worker range: 1-10

• Node 3: • $ adctrl distributed=y

Enter the worker range: 11-15


Merge Patch option (admrgpch)

• Reduces patch time in many cases

• Patch consolidation

• Fewer maintenance windows required

• Net result= more availability, less downtime


• Options for merging patches with admrgpch

Best Practices Patching Release 12 Oracle Applications E-Business Suite- Maintenance

• Maintenance Notification

• Restricted Mode with Apache

• Timing Reports for Patch Activity

• Patch Wizard for Automation of Patch Tasks


Manage Downtime Schedules Feature

• Useful for scheduling patch activity

• Provides communication to user community and management

• Easy to setup and configure



• Notification webpage for maintenance window


Enable Restricted Mode for Apache

• Useful for the Applications DBA when performing maintenance activity and need to access Oracle Applications Manager (OAM)

• Allows limited use of OAM interface

• Easy to setup

• Toggle on/Toggle Off as needed

• Uses txkrun script to configure


How to configure Restricted Mode for Apache?

• Login as applmgr account to applications tier and source environment

• Shutdown application tier service with adstpall.shscript under $INST_TOP/admin/scripts or $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME directory

• Run txkrun.pl script under $FND_TOP/bin directory

with following options:

txkrun.pl –script=ChangeApacheMode

Restart application tier services with $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME/adstrtal.sh script


• Example:

Patching Oracle Release 12 EBSExample: Restricted Mode for Apache

Example Continued: Enable Restricted Mode Apache for R12 Oracle EBS

Access During Restricted Apache Mode

• Requires usage of ad_monitor account

• ad_monitor schema account must be unlocked from SQL*PLUS since it is disabled by default

• Access to URL must be specified in Apache configuration files for httpd.conf

• Auto Config variable s_trusted_admin_client_nodes must contain hostname to access OAM during downtime

• Metalink (MOS) Notes 789450.1 and 310969.1 have further details.

URL for Restricted Mode Access to OAM For Release 12

• For Release 12 the default URL for Restricted access to OAM with ad_monitor:

http://<host>.<domain>:<port>/OA_HTML/weboamLocal/oamLogin

• Default password for ad_monitor account is lizard

Configure ad_monitor account for Restricted Mode Access to OAM During Maintenance

Example: Access Restricted URL with ad_monitor

Restricted Mode for Patch Monitoring with OAM

• Restricted Mode provides monitoring of patch activities but not all functions available from OAM

Disable Apache Restricted Mode

• Shutdown application tier services (adstpall.sh)

• Run txkrun.pl script under $FND_TOP/bin with following options:txkrun.pl –script=ChangeApacheMode

Specify Mode as Normal for Apache

Enter name and location for Context file

• Restart application tier services (adstrtal.sh)

Worked Example: Disable Restricted Mode for Apache





Timing Reports for Patch Activity

• Provides accurate method to measure requirements for maintenance windows

• Useful when apply patches between environments to estimate downtime for service level agreements (SLAs)

• Excellent way to troubleshoot a patch process

• Should be used as part of DBA patch strategy


• Using Timing Reports for Patch Activity

• Available from Patch Wizard Utility in OAM

• Requires SYSADMIN level access

• Navigation Path:

Site Map-> Maintenance->Timing Reports

Best Practices Patching Release 12 EBS Maintenance: Using Timing Reports

• Excellent way to track status for patch activities


• Allows you to measure and track patch run times and issues during and after patch sessions.


• Provides macro to micro level of detail for patch status and log files

Best Practices Patching Release 12 EBS Maintenance: Inside the Patch Wizard

• Patch Wizard arrived in 11.5.10.2 (11iCU2) release for E-Business Suite

• Excellent tool to simplify and automate many tedious patch functions:

• Such as download recommended patches

• Also useful for patch impact analysis

• Helpful when you don’t have a test environment for patching!

Best Practices Patching Release 12 EBS Maintenance: Inside the Patch Wizard

• Navigation Path to Patch Wizard:

• SYSADMIN then Site map->Maintenance

Best Practices Patching Release 12 EBS Maintenance: Using the Patch Wizard

• Recommended Patches

• Patch Analysis

Demonstration Oracle Applications Release 12 Patching Tips and Tricks

• Patch Wizard

• Patch Application Assistant (PAA)

• Timing Reports for Patching R12 EBS

• Schedule Maintenance Window

Q&A Discussion

Thank You!

• Please provide feedback

• Email: [email protected]

• I will be available in the Oracle ACE lounge

• My blog has further tips on Oracle technology:

• http://oracle-magician.blogspot.com

Date post:	26-Oct-2014
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Tips and Tricks for Patching R12

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