Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3

Establishing a Patch Baseline and Post Go-Live Strategy

David Kelly, February 2015

IntroductionUpgrading your version of Oracle E-Business Suite might not have been a priority in recent years especially at a time when exceptions to Oracle’s Lifetime Support Policy, along with an unwillingness to consider 12.2 and Fusion Applications so soon after their respective releases, may have given your organisation good reason to delay plans for another IT investment. Conversely, you may be on a fairly recent release such as 12.1.2 and see no urgency to upgrade while there is plenty of time remaining before Premier and Extended support ends.

Whatever your version, being proactive and routinely patching your applications is important both from a stability and supportability perspective. Even if you consider your version to be stable, there are many reasons to continue patching such as:

The further you fall behind, the greater the effort to resolve new issues.

Patches may not be provided for older configurations. Having more recent patch levels improves the chances of fixes being available.

The likelihood of encountering an avoidable known issue is reduced.

Your users may benefit from new features introduced.

The effort when upgrading to new EBS versions is reduced.

While many organisations are reluctant to apply major patches due to the cost, time and effort required, tools such as Oracle Patch Wizard can help assess the impact a patch has on your applications and also help target specific areas for testing. This combined with a mature set of test scripts covering a broad range of business scenarios can lead to a faster implementation cycle and may not be as costly as first thought.

As the evolution of the E-Business Suite continues, Oracle will release new versions of its software with various levels of impact across the applications. Oracle versioning can be explained as follows:

Release: Significant application changes that can impact the underlying architecture, functionality and user interface. For example, R12 introduced a huge number of new application tables as a result of changes to the accounting and tax engines along with changes to certain application / process relationships.

Point Release: A collection of patches that fix bugs, improve performance and add new features across the entire E-Business Suite. May introduce major changes to any aspect of an application (forms, tables, reports, etc) or require upgrading the underlying technology stack. Upgrading from one point release to another is not as big as from one release to another.

Release Update Pack (RUP): A cumulative aggregation of product family patches on a given codeline (point release) created across Oracle E-Business Suite after the initial release. Note: while it is recommended that a suite-wide RUP is applied to bring all applications to the same codelevel, individual product family RUPs are often suggested by Oracle Global Product Support to address application issues.

Oracle Point Releases and RUPs are cumulative, meaning bug fixes and new features from previous releases are included in the latest patches.

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Release Point

Release

RUP General

Availability

11 5 10 Nov 2004

12 1 May 2009

12 1 2 Dec 2009

12 1 3 Aug 2010

12 2 Sep 2013

12 2 3 Dec 2013

12 2 4 Aug 2014

Oracle Version Numbers Explained

12.1.3+ Recommended Patch Collections• Combines recommended patches across entire E-Business Suite 12.1.3 into

a single integrated and regression tested patchset. Potentially contains thousands of bug fixes.

• Will also contain fixes for applications you don’t have installed, similar to a Release Update Pack.

• Replaces need to identify and apply individual product family RPCs.

• Includes prerequisite, post-requisite and co-requisite patches.

• Due to Oracle’s internal deadlines for releasing suite-wide RPCs, a patch’s eligibility for inclusion in an RPC is affected by its state of readiness by a given freeze date. Consequently there may be more recent product family RPCs available compared to what is included in RPC1, RPC2, RPC3, etc.

• RPC1 released March 2014. RPC2 released September 2014.

• No formal plans or release schedule for future suite-wide RPCs. Depends on factors such as customer response to RPC1 and RPC2, volume of new patches and release schedules of other EBS releases.

• General approach should be to apply latest suite-wide RPC as the foundation level, then use Patch Wizard to identify any additional patches to apply on top.

Additional Benefits of Applying RPCs• Your upgrade will commence on the latest software baseline. Ideal for

organisations who currently don’t have an established patch strategy for their Production environment.

• May be able to utilise new features / functionality that reduce number of existing customisations or workarounds, or prevent the need to create new customisations.

• Latest patches may resolve longstanding issues not addressed in 12.1.3 baseline.

• Limits the amount of patching required throughout a project and post go-live.

• Can reduce the amount of regression testing required.

• Improves supportability in the event of issues being raised with Oracle Global Product Support.

Release 12.1.3 Considerations• 12.1.3 released in August 2010. Next version up is 12.2.x.

• Simply upgrading to 12.1.3 without further proactive patching can have serious repercussions further into a project and post go-live.

• Although Release 12.1 Premier Support ends December 2016, Oracle usually require a minimum prerequisite level of patching before considering one-off patches, which are generally the latest suite-wide or product family Release Update Packs or Recommended Patch Collections (refer to Oracle’s Lifetime Support Policy and the Error Correction Support Policy).

• There are many Recommended Patch Collections by product family (e.g. Financials, Procurement, Supply Chain, HRMS, etc.) and consolidated patches released since 2010, with thousands of bug fixes available.

• Upgrading individual product families is possible (e.g. from 12.1.2 to 12.1.3 levels) but not recommended. Less risk involved when upgrading everything together.

Release 12.2 Features & Considerations The 12.2.4 RUP was released in August 2014 and contains more new features

and updates to address issues discovered in versions 11.2.10 up to 12.1.3 and the current 12.2 base release.

Premier Support for 12.2 ends in Sept 2018 compared to 12.1 Premier Support ending in Dec 2016.

Includes new product functionality, new Fusion Middleware and database components, and introduces new tools for installing, configuring, and maintaining environments.

New online patching capability. Apply EBS patches while users are still entering transactions and using the E-Business Suite. Short predictable downtime to restart the application server (the database server does not need to be restarted).

EBS 12.2 uses WebLogic Server from Fusion Middleware 11g in place of the Oracle Application Server OC4J 10g as part of the release's internal technology stack. This supplements the traditional AutoConfig tool for many system management and configuration tasks.

Enhanced user interface features such as new skins / colours, detachable tables displayed as a popup over base pages, and dynamic views in OAF. This is the first step towards refreshing the user interface over the next several releases.

Undo and copy OA Framework personalisations.

Enhanced Workflow Worklist notification and management features.

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General Patch Recommendations• Don’t dismiss patches without first analysing them to determine the impact on

your applications. Also refer to the Release Content Documents (RCDs) and other supporting documentation for information on new features introduced.

• Research any technology changes and understand the impact on your existing infrastructure, such as hardware and sizing requirements.

• Consider the impact on your customisations.

• Have a patch strategy and keep your versions up to date. Don’t upgrade to the latest patch levels then forget about patching until the next major upgrade.

• Waiting for a Sev 1 issue to occur before patching is also not a good strategy.

• Monitor Oracle’s Lifetime Support Policy and don’t leave your upgrade until the end of the Extended Support period. Plan in advance.

• Keep abreast of new developments in the E-Business Suite roadmap and align with internal goals and strategies.

• Know your upgrade options and consider the pros and cons. Is 12.1.3 the best version for your organisation or is there added benefit in upgrading to 12.2 or implementing Fusion Applications?

• 11.5.10 customers who are not looking to upgrade - refer to Patch Requirements for Sustaining Support for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11.5.10 (Doc ID 883202.1)

Case StudyOracle customer on Release 12.1.2 and looking to implement Services Procurement. The customer is on a stable platform with very few patches applied during the 4 years since it was implemented.

Although it is possible to implement Services Procurement on 12.1.2, analysis of 12.1.3 identified additional functionality available when combined with the latest Procurement Recommended Patch Collection. Furthermore, it was felt that upgrading to 12.1.3 would reduce the number of issues discovered in Services Procurement and improve service received from Oracle Global Product Support.

Patch strategy was agreed after the following was performed:

• Highlight the long term benefits of upgrading to 12.1.3 versus remaining on 12.1.2.

• Release 12.2 flagged as an option not but seriously considered.

• Identify latest product family RPCs and additional effort to apply / test.

• Compare multiple product family RPCs to single RPC1 patch.

• Ascertain whether the very latest product RPCs were required or whether those included in RPC1 was an acceptable patch level.

• Analyse patches in Patch Wizard to understand the overall patch impact.

Case Study (continued)Release of RPC1 came after first test environment was built and all individual product family RPCs were applied. After analysing RPC1 and agreeing to a new upgrade approach, all future environments were patched using RPC1 as the foundation level.

Taking a different approach early on in the project meant the impact was minimal and also made it possible to compare patch timings.

Patch application time reduced from 21 hours (12.1.3 upgrade and all product RPCs) to under 8 hours.

Patches Applied Time to Apply

Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Release Update Pack and associated

technology patches

3.0 hours

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3+ Recommended Patch

Collection 1 [RPC1]

1.5 hours

Individual product patches (to fix defects identified during testing) 3.0 hours

Timings do not include other DBA tasks such as performing backups and post-patching steps.

Patch Analysis: 12.1.3 Baseline + Individual Product RPCs

Final Patch Approach: 12.1.3 Upgrade + Recommended

Patch Collection 1 [RPC1]

About David Kelly

David Kelly has over 15 years of experience with Oracle E-Business

Suite implementations, upgrades and operational support, combining in-

depth functional and technical understanding with project management,

process reengineering and application design.

Consulting and operational roles include complex, large scale projects

and support across Europe, Asia Pacific, North and South America as

well as smaller engagements at regional and national level, ranging

from version 10.7 up to 12.1.3. Most of his experience comes from

working in financial services, manufacturing and construction industries.

David’s recent operational focus has been on implementing PTP

initiatives aimed at making business and system processes more

efficient and targeting cost savings through improved utilisation of

standard Oracle functionality, supplier spend analysis, supplier

rationalisation and redistribution of underutilised resources. As well as

having a strategic and leadership focus, David also likes to remain

hands-on by working on the analysis, configuration and support of new

solutions.

LinkedIn Profile: http://au.linkedin.com/in/1davidkelly