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++