Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g available

Since yesterday (Thursday, 02.07.2009) the new Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is available on Oracle Technet:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/middleware/htdocs/111110_fmw.html

The following components are available:

• SOA Suite
• WebCenter Suite
• Identity Management
• Access Manager
• Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer
• Repository Creation Utility

The whole stack is available for Windows and Linux platforms, the remaining Operating Systems will follow.

With the Fusion Middleware 11g a complete new concept of the architecture is established, all based on the Oracle WebLogic Server.

JDBC URL with Oracle SID or ServiceName

Today I face a small problem with a definition of a JDBC URL which is referencing an Oracle Database.

I just define:

• jdbc:oracle:thin:scott/tiger@localhost:1521/PROD.OCZH.CH
  

where PROD.OCZH.CH is the ServiceName of my Database, but it fails :-(

After a some investigations, the solution is simple, if you want to use the ServiceName of your Database in the JDBC URL you have to place // in front of the servername:

• jdbc:oracle:thin:scott/tiger@//localhost:1521/PROD.OCZH.CH

Cool Video about APEX

I discover today a cool video from Oracle concerning Oracle APEX



Enjoy it :-)

Oracle 10.2.0.4.0 on OS X Intel (Part 2)

Today I got some time to test the new Oracle 10.2.0.4.0 on my MacBook Pro. Really cool stuff.

Installation is quite simple, just follow the Installation Guide. Only thing what is missing, is that you have to set the Environment Variable DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib in order to use all necessary utilities (e.g. lsnrctl, sqlplus aso.)

You should also set all mentioned settings according to the Installation Guide, like Kernel Settings and specially ulimits, I forget the ulimits and immediately as I wanted to create a Database I receive TNS-12547 lost contact :-( , just set as the oracle user "ulimit -Hn 65536 and ulimit -Sn 65536" and start the creation of the Database and everything will run :-)

Here you will see, that it's really Oracle 10.2.0.4.0 on OS X :-) (see last line)

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4.0) for Mac OS X (Intel) available

My first post about a long time is about the availability of Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.04.0) for Mac OS X on Intel Platform :-) Cool, now I can use my Mac ProBook with almost every Oracle Tools.

The Download can be found under Oracle TechNet.

Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3 available

Since yesterday the new Release of Oracle (BEA) WebLogic Server 10g Release 3 (10.3) is available. Now the BEA Products also get the same naming conventions like the Oracle Application Server Products, let's see how much confusion this will cause :-)

Under the OTN Webpage your can find some general informations and under OTN download page you can find the latest Release. Here you'll find two types of Installation binaries, the Fullinstaller and a Net Installer.

Some major new features/enhancements are:

• Optional Service Startup
• Web 2.0 Support
• ADF/Toplink support (with 11g)
• JDeveloper Support (with 11g)
  

Moreover a new Version of the Oracle Workshop for WebLogic 10.3 is released, also available with a Fullinstaller and a Net Installer. Workshop for WebLogic 10.3 is now IDE based on Eclipse 3.3 and WTP 2.0

BEA Welcome and Oracle's Middleware Strategy Briefing

I follow right now the "Bea Welcome and Oracle's Middleware Strategy Briefing" and I was really impressed about the plans and direction where they want to go.

With the combination of both product stacks from Oracle Fusion Middleware and BEA Oracle will build up a lot of new and improved components.

Most changes will appear in the Service-Orient Architecture (SOA), e.g. the Oracle Enterprise Service Bus and BEA AquaLogic Service Bus will be unified to the new Oracle Service Bus.

Also a major focus are Enterprise 2.0 Portals, which are already started since last year with Oracle WebCenter Suite. The BEA WL-Portal development will be contiuned and integrated in the WebCenter Suite.

Oracle Identity Management will nearly stay the same, only extended with the BEA AL-Enterprise Security.

The classical DBA who works with Oracle GridControl will also get some new and refreshed Packs for the Middleware Stack.

As I assumed before the BEA Product Liquid VM will be integrated in the Oracle Product Stack. The only thing what I was not expecting is the move from Oracle Container for J2EE (OC4J) to the J2EE Server from BEA, but we will see how much "quirks" of the OC4J will be integrated :-)

If you couldn't follow the Webcast today, check out http://www.oracle.com/products/middleware/bea.html for details and if you interested in testing the BEA Stack, under http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/bea_main.html you can already download the BEA Products.

One suggestion for the Product Managers of the Fusion Family, maybe you should think about to combine Liquid VM with Coherence, could be really cool just to run Coherence on a Liquid VM ...

Stars are shining bright :-) let's see what they realize and in which timeline ...

Oracle Beehive Release 1.2.1.0.0 available

Since a short time Oracle Beehive is available, which is the successor of the Oracle Collaboration Suite.

The download can not be done via Oracle TechNet, you have to access Oracle Beehive through Oracle E-Delivery.

In the next days, I will start to build up an environment with Oracle Beehive and post my first results and impressions, so stay tune ...

Oracle Assessment for Oracle Application Server

In the last days I discovered in the partner area of Oracle, that you can join some assessment for free, so I just try some of these assessments for Oracle Application Server.

Now I got certificates for:

• Oracle 10g Application Server Specialist Sales Champion Awareness Assessment
• Oracle 10g Application Server Specialist Sales Champion Proficiency Assesssment
• Oracle 10g for Resellers Sales Champion Awareness Assessment

Cool, now I can not only install, configure, tune and troubleshot Oracle Application Server, now I know how to sell them :-)

How to bind a OC4J Application to a Virtual Host

During a review of a customer Oracle Application Server 10.1.3.3.0 environment the question came up, if it is possible to bind a specfic OC4J Application to a defined Virtual Host?

Since Oracle AS 10.1.3.x the OC4JMount is by default configured dynamically, you'll not find any entries in the Oracle HTTP Server configuration file mod_oc4j.conf. The solution is nevertheless simple to bind a OC4J Application to a Virtual Host.

Let's say, we have a Virtual Host definition in our httpd.conf for a Virtual Host listening on Port 8000 with the servername hrapp.mycompany.com. Over this virtual host our OC4J Application hrapp should be reachable, so we have to switch the Oc4jRoutingMode to static and turn the Oc4jMountCopy to off. After we can create the Oc4jMount Options to our hrapp.

Listen 8000
NameVirtualHost *:8000
Oc4jRoutingMode Static
<VirtualHost *:8000 >
ServerName hrapp.mycompany.com
Oc4jMountCopy off
Oc4jMount /hrapp OC4J_HRAPP
Oc4jMount /hrapp/* OC4J_HRAPP
</VirtualHost >

Thats all :-)

Oracle Forms Load Balancing

Load Balancing for Oracle Forms Applications is more and more required and used, but in many cases you don't have the budget for a Hardware Load Balancer.

The first choice is mostly Oracle WebCache to use as a Load Balancer, but as I see in many projects this solution is sometimes really slow. Another alternative is to use Oracle HTTP Server 1.3.31 out of the Oracle Application Server Companion CD 10.1.2.0.2 and configure a Load Balancing for your Oracle Forms Application. But be aware, that you can't use the Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 2.0.52 out of the Companion CD, because the mod_oc4j of the OHS 2.0.52 is not compatible with the OC4J from the Oracle AS 10.1.2.0.2.
A complete description how to configure the Load Balancing with the OHS 1.3.31 you can find in the Oracle TechNet.

To check the status of your OHS Load Balancer you can use the oc4j-service URL http://ohsserver:port/oc4j-service?cmd=p
From the first feelings this OHS Load Balancer seems to be faster, then the usage of Oracle WebCache as a Load Balancer.

New Version of Oracle Software Configuration Manager

Since a few days, the new version of the Software Configuration Manager is rolled out, which can be reached under the URL http://csm.oracle.com

The Software Configuration Manager is the new version of Oracle Metalink

Since the new version is rolled out, now you can access directly from http://csm.oracle.com the Knowlegde Base, your Support Requests, Patches & Updates a.s.o.

What is really cool, is the bubble look'n feel of the Support Requests :-)

Applying Oracle Application Server Patch 3 on Linux x86_64

Since a short time the Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 Patch 3 (10.1.2.3.0) is available.

If you try to apply the Patch on a Linux x86_64 system, you will run in linking errors. To avoid this errors, execute as root user following steps:

1. cd /usr/bin
2. mv /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc.save
3. mv /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/g++.save
4. # create a new file under /usr/bin named: gcc with following content:
   /usr/bin/gcc.save -m32 $*
5. # Dont forget to make it executable:
   chmod 755 gcc
6. # Create a sym link for g++
   ln -s gcc g++

After this steps login as the oracle installation user, switch to linux32 bash and start the runInstaller

Now the Patch should be run without linking errors.

Don't forget to move back after the patch installation to your original gcc and g++

Identify your JDBC Connection in v$session

A major problem for DBA's is the fact that in the v$session view it's really hard to identify which session comes from which J2EE Application.
A select over the v$session view just shows the connected users and from which machine the connect is established, but we can't see from which J2EE Application the sessions are coming :-(

With Oracle AS 10.1.3.x we have the possibility to add a property in the data-source.xml, that is displayed in the column "PROGRAM" of the v$session view.

Following changes have to be done at the data-source.xml configuration file:

1. Check if the factory class oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver is used
2. Add the line inside the connection-factory
3. After the changes, restart your OC4J Instance


<data-sources xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" nonamespaceschemalocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oracleas/schema/data-sources-10_1.xsd" version="10">

<managed-data-source name="conn_pool_hr_app">

<managed-data-source name="conn_pool_hr_app_reporting">

<connection-pool name="conn_pool_hr_app" limit="3"
connections="3">

<connection-factory class="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" user="scott" password="tiger" url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/PROD"> <property name="v$session.program" value="conn_pool_hr_app">
</property>
</connection-factory>
</connection-pool>

<connection-pool name="conn_pool_hr_app_reporting" limit="3" connections="3">
<connection-factory class="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" user="scott" password="tiger" url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/PROD">
<property name="v$session.program" value="conn_pool_hr_app_reporting"></property>
</connection-factory>
</connection-pool>
</data-sources>


If we now select over our v$session view, we can see which session comes from which J2EE Application :-)

SUN's JRE 1.6 Certification for Oracle Forms

Since a short time SUN's JRE 1.6.0_04 is now certified for usage of Oracle Forms 10g Release 2.
The only pre-requirement is that the Patchset 3 (10.1.2.3.0) for the Oracle Application Server (Oracle AS) must be applied.

The installation of the Patchset 3 for the Oracle AS normally don't cause any problems. My first tests with the JRE 1.6.0 shows, that the initial startup time (loading of the Applet) is faster :-) Additional informations about my tests will be posted later.

Original Statement from Oracle Technology Network:
"We have finished the certification of Sun's JRE 1.6.0_04 for use with patch set 3 of the Application Server that was released two weeks ago. No issue were encountered and no additional patches are needed to run the Forms client with 1.6 of the JRE. The certification was done with Firefox 2.0 and MS Internet Explorer 7."

Good old Days

Original posted 18th Apr 2008:

Normally, you will find here something about Oracle Application Server, but today I discover the "Good old Days" again with Oracle 4.1 on MS-DOS

The startup was really simple, just type the command ORACLE

and after this startup your instance with the IOR utility

Look at the SGA Size: 16K nothing with MB or GB.

Instead of SQLPlus, we got the UFI (User Friendly Interface):

Even on Oracle 4.1 user scott was existing.

And an excellent help was available

I love this old stuff . . .

OpenWorld 2007 Presentation about Oracle AS 11g

Original posted 21st Nov 2007:

Today I found a cool presentation about the future of Oracle AS 11g from John Lang (Group Manager, Fusion Middleware Product Management).

There will be a complete break of technology, structure, concept and administration of the Oracle AS. Some highlights are:

• Separation of binaries and configuration files
• Several command line interface (CLI) will be merged into one CLI called asctl
• J2EE 1.5 Standard
• One Software installation ($ORACLE_HOME) can contain multiple Oracle AS Instances, this means if you need another Oracle AS Instance on a server where is already an Oracle AS installed, you just have to execute a command through the new CLI asctl
• Unified Management through JMX MBean
• New web based Administration GUI - FMWControl = Fusion Middleware Control
• CLI asctl (Scripting language Jython based)
  
• JMX Client
• DMS metrics are fine graded published in the new FMWControl
  

But unfortunately a release date for the Oracle AS is not published in the presentation , so please be patient.

The full presentation can be found under http://www28.cplan.com/cc176/catalog.jsp and search for Session ID S292004.

WebUtil and Oracle AS 10.1.2 PatchSet 2 Problem

Original posted 13th Oct 2007:

During the last weeks I faced with two customers some problems concerning WebUtil and Oracle AS 10.1.2.2.0, e.g. a Reports Call over WebUtil was not working or the WebUtil function file_open_dialog was not working a.s.o. Under Oracle AS 10.1.2.0.2 everything was working fine.

The problem came out of the PatchSet 2 (Patch-No. 4960210) which didn't apply the frmwebutil.jar to the Oracle AS you wanted to patch. To solve this problem just follow these steps:

1. unzip the PatchSet 2 to any directory which you prefer
2. go to the directory /Disk1/stage/Patches/oracle.developer.forms.builder/10.1.2.2.0/1/DataFiles/ in your unzipped PatchSet 2
3. Place the jar utility of the Oracle AS into your $PATH with following command: export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin:$PATH
4. Extract the needed frmwebutil.jar from the Java archive webutil.2.2.jar with following command: jar xf webutil.2.2.jar frmwebutil.jar0
   Attention: the filename to extract is frmwebutil.jar0 (=Zero)
   
5. Make a backup copy of the actual frmwebutil.jar in your $ORACLE_HOME with following comand: mv $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java/frmwebutil.jar $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java/frmwebutil.jar.save
6. Copy the extracted frmwebutil.jar0 to your $ORACLE_HOME with following command: cp frmwebutil.jar0 $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java/frmwebutil.jar
   

After these steps just restart your Oracle AS or at least restart the OC4J Instance OC4J_BI_Forms and test your Forms Application with your WebUtil functions.

Network Traffic in Oracle Forms

Original posted 4th Oct 2007:

Regularly I get the questions from my customers "What is the network traffic in my Forms applications?". A simple way to display the number of transmitted bytes and number of round trips is to add the parameter networkStats=true in your Named Configuration inside your formsweb.cfg configuration file. Additionally you have to modify the corresponding base*.htm or webutil*.htm as follows:

<PARAM NAME="networkStats" VALUE="%networkStats%">

Inside the Tag <EMBED...> add following:

networkStats="%networkStats%"

After the modifications startup your Forms application and in the status bar of your application you'll find on the button right side a counter n:m. Where n = number of transmitted bytes and m = number of round trips.

Installing WebCache Standalone 10.2.0.2 on Redhat 64bit

Original posted 14th Sept 2007:

Sometime ago I run in some problems during the installation of Oracle WebCache Standalone 10.2.0.2 on an Redhat 4 x86_64 system. All prerequirements were made, the Oracle Universal Installer didn't complain anything, but during the link process following error message came up:

• error while loading shared libraries: libclntsh.so.10.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
  

After some investigations my ex-colleague from Trivadis (Engelbert Wystrach) and me came to following solution:

• create as root user following two files in the directory /usr/bin

• gcc296
  #!/bin/sh
  exec /usr/bin/gcc32 -m32 -static-libgcc -B /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/ $*
• g++296
  #!/bin/sh
  exec /usr/bin/g++32 -m32 -static-libgcc -B /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/ $*

• execute as root following commands:
  cd /usr/bin
  mv gcc gcc.save
  mv g++ g++.save
  ln -s /usr/bin/gcc296 /usr/bin/gcc
  ln -s /usr/bin/g++296 /usr/bin/g++
  

After you made this changes, start the Oracle Universal Installer once again and install the Oracle WebCache Standalone. This error occurs only on Redhat 64bit systems :-(