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What is a Load Balancer?

Hardware or software which assigns workload to a set of servers in order to optimally use computing resources A server load balancer intercepts traffic destined for a site/application, and redirects it to various machines in the cluster as per method load-balancing.  This optimizes use of system resources, resulting in higher performance, availability and scalability.  Load balancers are recommended for mission-critical enterprise deployments of web-based applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite.

A load balancer consists of a virtual server which comprises an IP address and port. This virtual server is bound to a number of physical services in a server farm. A client sends a request to the virtual server, which then selects a server in the server farm and directs this request to the selected physical server.

We can outline the major functions of a server load balancer:

• Intercepts network traffic destined for a site.
• Splits the traffic into individual requests and decides which machines in the cluster are to receive these requests.
• Maintains a watch on the available machines, ensuring that they are responding to the traffic; if they are not, they are taken out from the load-balancing pool so that traffic can be routed to the machines that are available.
• Provides redundancy by employing more than one machine for fail-over scenarios.
• Provides context-aware load distribution, so that applications that need to maintain session-persistent connections do not fail. This feature of load balancer is very important for Oracle E-Business Suite as the various modules require session-persistent connections. To support this feature, the load balancer reads the cookies set on each request made by the client, and, based on the information in the cookie, it can rewrite the header information, then send the request to the appropriate machine in the cluster, where its session is maintained.

When is a Load Balancer required?

When we experience increase in user volumes- max utilization, need to add more resources to effectively service users.

When you wish to implement scalability and fault tolerance

A load balancer is essential when you have more than one application tier in an instance where at least 2 of the application tiers share a common entry point. You can have multiple application tiers without a load balancer but they must have an independent entry point.

What are the different types of Load Balancers?

• Hardware HTTP load balancers (recommended)
• DNS load balancers – network layer (Limitations include: unpredictable load distribution, DNS caching issues by the browser, lack of fault tolerance. Requires OC4J clustering)
• Software HTTP load balancers (not recommended)–(Limitations include: Most software packages cannot handle large sites or complex networks. Packages that will support larger systems require an abundant amount of hardware.)

A lot went on this week at MEOUG Majlis 2013 Annual Conference held on March 25-26, 2013 at Westin, Dubai UAE, 250+ attendees, 30+ end users success stories and quite a few shiny, new products highlights from Cliff Godwin, SVP Oracle. There was a very good session on empowering people with special needs from ‘Manzil’ organization…a destination, a home, a hope, for a day of community service along with Majlis, it was really very impressive to see how Dr. Ayesha and her team is managing school of special needs.

This year MEOUG Majlis 2013 was the most successful event so far in the history of MEOUG, 400+ individual registered online to attend the conference. We all as part of MEOUG board were very excited and put all possible efforts to arrange this event, starting from planning of each and every activity, agenda preparation, conference logistics, follow for the new customer success stories, in a short time was a challenge but really would like to pass my gratitude to all MEOUG Board and Oracle Dubai office Marketing team for such a breathtaking experience. There was a surprise for me this year in the opening ceremony of Majlis to get Appreciation Certificate…..:)

Entire day went to different breakout session starting from R12 Upgrade success story from Dubai eGovernment to dedicated Health Care session, Oracle BI, Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle Retail, Java and in the day end was ‘Voice of Oracle Users’. A dedicated session for end users to get feedback on different Oracle technology areas. A tiring day was over and started getting ready for 2^nd day and during 2^nd day; I was also speaking on a rapid and cost effective Oracle eBusiness suite R12 upgrade. 2^nd day we have also got good crowd, 100+ attendees. Started with Proactive support workshop session from Oracle Proactive support team, my session also went good and got a good feedback from attendees as session was focusing how companies can go for Upgrade project as internal organizational initiative. Last session of MEOUG Majlis was technology focus from Oracle E-Business Suite Release from Nadia Bendjedou, Senior Director, Oracle. As always Nadia’s session was worth listening. Finally with the closing remarks and group photo of conference attendees brings end to the MEOUG Majlis 2013, full 2 days with Oracle Roadmap, User Case Studies and networking with Middle East oracle user’s community.

MEOUG’s Annual Conference Majlis is back and I got an opportunity to speak during Middle East Oracle User Group (MEOUG) Majlis 2013 Annual conference scheduled to

be held on 25-26 March 2013 at Westin, Dubai, UAE.

My session will be covering secrets and rapid upgrade of successful R12 project.

If you are going to be in MEOUG Majlis , please join my session.

Middle East Oracle User Group (MEOUG) – an Independent Oracle User group will hold its Annual Conference MEOUG MAJLIS. An exciting day of Oracle Roadmap, User Case Studies, SIG meetings and Round table.

How to troubleshoot when Oracle eBusiness Suite Concurrent Request shows “Inactive NoManager”

Navigation Path to go to Concurrent Manager

System Administrator Responsibility -> Concurrent -> Manager ->

• Administer Form -> Verify the Concurrent Managers Status

Now Login into your apps node where concurrent program is is and you can verify with command

ps –ef | FNDLIBR process

Start Concurrent Manager through adcmctl.sh

Ensure All Managers are running now.

Oracle ATG team recently released through webcast few more details about R12.2 deployment and administration changes.

Planned Features for Oracle eBusiness Suite R12.2

Native Technology Stack Installation availability that means Transparent integration with
Oracle Universal Installer, Silent-mode calls to install and configure Oracle Database 11.2, WebLogic Server (WLS) and Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and Selective AutoConfig integration

Out-of-the-box RAC Install availability with following features:

• RMAN Database Restore
• Simplifies Integration with Grid Infrastructure
• Seamless integration with different storage methods (OCFS2, NFS, etc)
• Faster integration with Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

Dual File System availability, which will: Enables Online Patching, Installs 2 File Systems which allow replacing files with minimum downtime and Improves High Availability, Dual Port Pool configuration and easy port assignments. This will also allow port customization in runtime and patching file systems.

Optional 11g Oracle Home for Upgrades will allows integration with an existing 11gR2 Oracle Home to simplifies Technology Stack Upgrade & reduces Upgrade time. There will be check list option to select during Database Node Configuration to “Use existing Oracle Home (No New Database Home Install)”

Native Fusion Middle Ware Cloning will:

• Uses native Fusion Middleware tools to clone WLS & OHS Homes
• No longer needed to copy the FMW Home files
• FMW is automatically packaged into clone directory during preclone

In 12.2, Autoconfig has a reduced role in the configuration of OHS and WLS. The remaining configurations performed by Autoconfig stay the same.

Previous post on Oracle eBusiness Suite R12.2 are:

A Journey from Oracle E-Business Suite R12.1 to R12.2

E-business Suite R12.2 – No More Downtime

E-Business Suite 12.2 – Online Patching Cycle

Few days back I thought, let’s try to install Oracle fusion applications and started glancing different docs available and finally reach to a question number 1, what hardware required? Do I have that infrastructure to support me for this thrust? All these questions played vital role to write my earlier post on hardware sizing for Oracle Fusion Applications. In the last whatever hardware was available with me, just started to try out as an experimental basis and we will see J later on.

Downloading fusion applications media from http://edelivery.oracle.com  took few days based on my internet speed and meanwhile I was just exploring installation guide Oracle Fusion Applications Installation Guide 11g Release 5 (11.1.5) E16600-07

Another thing what I have done is just captured all the steps which I have followed during this installation drive and just going to share through this post. These all steps based on my own research and maybe there is error or wrong so I would suggest all of you to just follow Oracle’s standard guide to install Oracle Fusion Applications. However do let me know if you find any point erroneous or require modifications.

What will be covered in this?

• Basic Concepts/Architecture of Oracle Fusion Applications
• Where to start? How to start?
• Oracle Fusion Applications Media download from edelivery
• Download and Installation of Oracle Linux from edelivery
• Installation of Virtual Box
• Installation of Operating System – Oracle Linux
• Stage the Oracle Fusion Applications software
• Install provisioning framework
• Install a transaction database
• Install and configure Oracle Identity Management components
• Configure Oracle Identity and Access Management components
• Integrate Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Access Manager
• Create a provisioning plan for the new environment
• Provision a new environment
• Complete required post-installation tasks

You can download from this link

Part-1

http://www.oraerp.com/Thread-Installation-of-Oracle-Fusion-Applications

A lot went on today 15^th Jan, 2013 at Oracle CloudWorld, Dubai, I believe this was the maximum crowed of attendees in

any oracle event in Dubai during recent years. Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, United Arab Emirates was a good venue with ample space and was also very well planned and organized by Oracle. Reached early morning and registration also went smooth.

Oracle CloudWorld was the first event from series of Cloud events across the globe with the theme of “Mobile, social, and cloud are redefining how business gets done. Discover what your company can do to take advantage of these new opportunities and gain a competitive advantage at Oracle CloudWorld. Experience insightful keynotes, real-world case studies, in-depth Q&A sessions, hands-on demos, face-to-face networking, and dedicated tracks for different audiences.

Before sharing about the conference I thought let me put some highlight on ‘Cloud’ There are many definitions of Cloud Computing are, here is one of them that seems to represent the most commonly held view.  It’s from the National Institute of Standards (NIST).

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable

 computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Breaking it down, cloud computing is composed of:

• 5 essential  characteristics
• 3 service models
• 4 deployment models”

Mark Hurd, President of Oracle came first time to Dubai to launch this event, started with the opening key note of Mark Hurd “Parting The Clouds: Transforming How you Do Business in the Age of Collaboration and Advocacy”

Few of the highlights of keynotes are: Oracle’s strategy to simplify IT with the introduction of full stack offerings along with On-Premise, Private Cloud, Public Cloud and Hybrid Cloud

Few of the bits on statistics grabbed from Mark’s keynote:  In 2 years data in the planet will double, some of which will be worthless, we should figure out to get wisdom out of it. Staggering Stat: Internet users exceed 2 billion worldwide with global penetration reaching 42% by 2016. More smartphones sold than PCs in 2012.

Executive from Emirates Airlines presented case study of Emirates during the keynote.

Last speaker of keynote session was Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and she presented session “Social Business and Cloud”, this session was awesome. ‘Social business is about relationships’ very truly presented to audience of CloudWorld and ‘Master the art of failure’ Charlene tells, Follow the Google mantra: “Fail fast. Fail smart” and learn from mistakes. She also presented 6-stages of Social Business Maturity: Planning, Presence, Engagement, Formalized, Strategic, and Transformation. You can get more about Charlene on http://www.charleneli.com

There were number of tracks covering sales, Customer Service and Support, Finance and Operations, Human Resources and Application Developers during the entire day.

We as a part of Middle East Oracle User Group (MEOUG) got stall from Oracle to showcase volunteer group of Oracle

Users community and attract more volunteers to come forward and join MEOUG.

In the evening there was a Networking Cocktail Reception with surprise touch of regional Arabic belly dancer J

In the end, will wait for your comments ……. Be Sociable, Share!

From last few months, we are trying to figure out,

• What are the hardware requirements for Fusion Applications?
• How to do a hardware sizing?
• What are the parameters to baseline optimum hardware for fusion applications?

After Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Oracle also started pushing more efforts on Fusion applications to market in Middle East… Similarly from last few months we are struggling with the ‘mysterious’ sizing requirements for Fusion Applications. I read lots of forums posts, goggled and from different people asserting what the hardware requirements for Oracle Fusion Applications are….. and we are not able to find from any of document to clearly states the overall hardware requirements essential for Oracle Fusion Applications. We can find the hardware requirements for the individual components, but we cannot simply sum up of these requirements.

Few statements lead us that it requires 128GB RAM, other claims 60GB RAM or 90GB RAM.

After searching on Oracle Support I have found MOS note: Fusion Applications – How to get Sizing Requirement? [ID 1379929.1] and the Oracle’s comments are:

 “Oracle wants to ensure that each customer is successful with Fusion Applications and as it has over a hundred different components giving a sizing estimate has proven to be a bit of a challenge.

So instead of giving a one-size fits no-one estimate Oracle has a special process in place that will lead to a proper sizing advice.

It consists of contacting your Oracle Sales / Account person who in turn engages the Oracle Fusion Applications environment sizing experts team.

Based up on your inputs they will provide a proper sizing report recommending the disk and memory requirements and CPU sizes for your configurations and usage level.”

And the Fusion Application Installation guide says “Consult an Oracle Fusion Applications sizing-certified representative to obtain specific, customized system hardware requirements.”

Till now, we haven’t heard any other comments from hardware vendor to facilitate this process like major hardware vendors are providing Hardware sizing questionnaire for Oracle eBusiness suite (refer my earlier post for eBusiness suite hardware sizing requirements)

In short, we don’t have other choice to workout except to approach Oracle Sales Team for hardware sizing recommendations…..

Update on 17-Jan-2013

Oracle has organized Fusion overview training for partners in Dubai; there was a one session for Oracle Fusion hardware sizing process and the final conclusion is that oracle has dedicated team to work for hardware sizing and they have build Set of questionnaire to ask input from customers.

Following is the update from the session:

Sizing Process Overview:

• Identify Modules
  • Identify Fusion Application Modules
  • Pricing Calculator from ASM is a great place to start
• Gather Information
  • Use sizing survey to gather sizing information
  • Users, Servers, Virtualizations, operating systems, high availability, etc
• Perform Sizing
  • Use RAS tool for Fusion applications to create sizing
  • Manual sizing will be needed for some modules
• Verify Prerequisites
  • Verify pre-requisite components using price list supplement
  • May need to consult more than one price list supplement
• Create Bill of Materials
  • Use License Configuration workbook to create overall license configuration and bill of material
• Create Pricing
  • update or create pricing calculator for technology components
• Create Overview Presentation
  • Use sizing overview presentation template to create a customer presentable sizing overview presentation
• Review with Tech Team
  • Review the sizing overview with both the applications team and the technology team

Sizing Roll-up – Process Model

Reference Architecture Sizing Tool:

I got a chance to attend Oracle Fusion CRM PartnerLab (ECEMEA PILOT) 2 days workshop organized in Dubai on 18th and 19th Dec-12 by Oracle. This PartnerLab was based on discussions, presentations, demonstrations and hands on exercises.

Following areas were covered as per agenda items with discussions, Lab and review/Q&A.

• Territory Management
• Customer Hub
• Campaign Management
• Lead Management
• Opportunity Management
• Forecasting Management
• Extensibility

Trainers were good, having good knowledge of subject, we were very excited to work on Fusion applications, my first impression directly working on Fusion CRM application was prodigious and we all attendees were trying to compare Oracle eBusiness suite vs Fusion Applications vs Siebel CRM experience. Fusion application is entirely different taste, 100% web based and look/feel is almost the same, what we are getting on social media sites like facebook/linkedin/twitter. Functionality wise i will cover later on…

I will cover few of the takeaways here from this workshop; here are quick screen grabs of Oracle Fusion Applications. Login page of Fusion CRM (the instance we got for Lab)

Lead Creation Page looks like:

Glimpse of Social Network direct integration, you can see from below screen shot

Highlights from Road Map of Oracle Fusion CRM 

Fusion Mobile R5 (Current) is having native applications on iOS, Blackberry, you can get Fusion Mobile sales on blackberry

Got a new term Social Makeable Language being referred in fusion apps development for social media.

Native MS outlook client for Fusion is available –Customers, leads opportunity will show directly in outlook and opportunity details will be directly viewable in outlook

Oracle Fusion R6 (Planned)

• In Fusions R6 marketing will support for sms
• RightNow integrated with Fusion and opportunity Reports can be viewed in RightNow
• Fusion Tap native application for ipad will be released for opportunity, leads, customers, contacts.

Oracle Fusion R7 (Planned)

• FUSE the new ‘any device’ user interface for sales team – a glimpse give a good user interface based on today requirement what common users are using in social media
• Fusion R7 will support for web landing pages and microsites

Oracle Fusion R8 (Planned)

• Fusion Mobile for Android to get real time CRM data,
• Audit Trail will also be introduced,
• Simple quote, sales agreements, pricing will be introduced,
• B2C – Person centric contact management,
• Dynamic layouts
• Oracle Social network will support custom objects,
• Outlook extensibility via Apps Composer, separate tab will be available for outlook
• Object Renaming like customers can be renamed to customer client etc

Fusion R9 and above (Planned)

• UI Refresh Look & Feel
• Cloud Onboarding – concept to give trial on cloud for prospects
• Enhanced Social ROI reporting to get what company is getting from social media
• Audit Trail on Custom Objects
• Create Incidents from Fusion
• Complex quotes for Telecom
• Student recruitment and enrolment
• Oracle Voice – works like Siri for Sales, Native application interaction

Reports and Analytics – BI Report Composer, web-based report creation/customization cycle you can see from below screen.

New Customer Creation form in Fusion CRM

In continuation of my previous post How to install Redhat Linux for Oracle eBusiness Suite R12.1.1

Following updates are done in the document v1.1

• Redhat Linux Installation
• Pre-requisite/Preparation for Oracle eBusiness suite R12.1.1
• Readiness with Oracle EBS R12 software from Media or eDelivery
• Installation of Oracle eBusiness suite R12.1.1

You can download from http://www.oraerp.com/Thread-Installation-of-Oracle-eBusiness-Suite-R12-1-1 and don’t forget to share your feedback/comments to improve this document.