Oracle OpenWorld 2015 : Day Off

You might have guessed from my last post, I was feeling a little bit deflated (insert fat joke here) yesterday morning.

I cheered myself up by spending the day in my hotel room doing installations. 🙂

On Friday evening the new Fusion Middleware 12.2.1 stack was released, so spent the day playing with it. I’ve written some articles, but they will need some tidying up when I get home. There are definitely some things I want to change.

The Forms and Reports Services installation is very different compared to the previous version. After completing the WebLogic installation, you have to install the FRS software, run the RCU, then create the FRS domain as three separate steps. In the previous version, the installation and configuration of FRS was a single step. If you’ve configured WebLogic 12.1 clustered domains, it will feel very familiar. If not, it’s probably going to mess with your mind a little at first. 🙂

I’ve done the FRS domain creation also, but the configuration of the web tier is not complete. If you want to see what I’ve got so far you can check it out here, but as the warning says, it’s a work in progress.

The OPMN stuff is out of the door and NodeManager has stepped in. If I don’t have time before, I will work through everything when I get home and knock them into shape.

I reserve the right to throw this all away and start again when I get home and spend more time on it. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Fusion Middleware 12.2.1.0 Released

Just in time for Oracle OpenWorld, a bunch of Fusion Middleware 12.2.1.0 products have been released, including:

The Forms one was a bit of a surprise, especially considering what we were told yesterday. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

WebLogic 11g, Forms, ADF, Oracle Linux and VMware

Following on from my recent batch of “what I’m doing at the moment” style posts, I just thought I would mention some of the infrastructure I’ve been installing and configuring recently…

We are still part way through a migration from Oracle Application Server to WebLogic 11g. There are many applications to migrate and test, fortunately not by me, but they fit into two main categories.

Some of our high profile applications of each type are already running in production on WebLogic and the general feedback has been very positive. I guess most of this comes down to the hardware refresh. 🙂

There are still a few more apps to migrate, but everything is pretty close to the end of testing now, so hopefully it won’t be long before we can say a not-so-fond farewell to Oracle Application Server!

All of these WebLogic installations are running on top of Oracle Linux 6 inside VMware virtual machines. So far we’ve seen nothing untoward about this setup and I would have no reservations about recommending this approach to others.

If you have any questions/concerns about Oracle Linux, you might want to read my Oracle Linux : Frequently Asked Questions article. If you have any concerns about Oracle’s stance as far as VMware support goes, you might want to read this.

Cheers

Tim…

Compiling Oracle Forms against functions using the 11g Function Result Cache…

I came across a rather annoying little bug yesterday…

One of the guys was trying to compile an Oracle Form on the app server and got this message.

*** ASSERT at file pdw1.c, line 4061
PSDGON missing. Can't get object number
Source Location = XNSPC0P99_2013_06_12_17_44_38__AB[71, 7]

Uncle Google pointed me in the direction of this MOS Note [ID 1276725.1].

It turns out it is a problem with the 11.1.0.7 client, which happens to be the version that ships with Forms and Reports Services. The Forms compilation fails when the form references a database function that uses the Function Result Cache in 11g.

I didn’t fancy applying the patch last night, so I just commented out the RESULT CACHE clause in the packaged function, compiled the form, then put the RESULT CACHE clause back in. Job’s a good’un!

This morning I’ve followed the MOS note and applied the patch in out Dev environment and it seems to have fixed the issue.

Just so I don’t forget about this, I’ve also added a mention of it in my ever-growing Oracle Forms and Reports Services 11gR2 Configuration Notes article.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: See Gert’s comment below for his post on the subject 2.5 years ago. 🙂

Oracle Forms and Reports Services 11gR2 on Oracle Linux 6…

Last year I wrote an article about the installation of Oracle Forms and Reports Services 11gR2 on Oracle Linux 5. I’ve now written the article for Oracle Forms and Reports Services 11gR2 on Oracle Linux 6. The latest patch of F&RS is certified for OL6, along with JDK6 and JDK7.

In addition to the installation articles, I’ve compiled a collection of random notes about post-installation configuration into a separate article. I keep adding to it every time I come across a new (for me) issue.

I’m hoping this will stop me falling into the trap I did with AS10g, where I didn’t write down any of this stuff, assuming I would remember it, only to find I couldn’t remember Jack a few years later. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

 

WebLogic and Forms & Reports Services Articles Updated…

I ran through a Forms & Reports Services installation on WebLogic 10.3.6 this morning, so I made some minor tweaks to my existing 10.3.5 articles on that subject.

The current spin of Forms & Reports Services has a prerequisite check for 10.3.5, so you just have to turn off the prerequisites check using this.

$ ./runInstaller -ignoreSysPrereqs

Apart from that it’s pretty much business as usual.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle WebLogic and Forms Installation on Oracle Linux (64-bit)…

In an attempt to delay packing for my trip, I decided to give the server installation on Linux a go.

The installation was pretty straight forward. I will take a look at some of the further configuration stuff when I get back from my trip.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle WebLogic and Forms Installation on Windows (32-bit)…

At least one of the apps at work will be moving to Forms 11gR2, so I thought I better do a run through of the desktop developer installation before someone asks me how it is done. 🙂

Our standard desktop environment is still Windows XP (32-bit), hence the archaic choice here.

The server environment will be Linux 64-bit, so when I get back from the next trip I will probably do a write up of that installation. The install steps will be pretty similar, but I like to have a no-brain-needed guide to follow when I do these things. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Forms and Java 1.7 (don’t panic)…

The company I’m currently working for have a number of legacy Forms apps that will probably never get upgraded, so the recent news about JRE 1.7 and eBS being an issue (because of the Oracle Forms component)  made me worry just a bit. 🙂

Luckily, Kurt Van Meerbeeck has a good post about it here. Looks like there is nothing to panic about after all.

Cheers

Tim…

 

Noons is channeling me, or vice versa…

I read the latest post by Nuno Souto (Noons) and it felt like he was channeling me, or maybe I’ve been channeling him. I guess everyone knows my thoughts on the fiasco that is J2EE, so I won’t go there. After over 12 years in the business, I’ve still never found a development technology as simple or productive as Oracle Forms. Maybe I’m looking at things with rose coloured spectacles, but it’s been 10 years since I’ve used Oracle forms regularly and I can still open it up and knock out an application in a couple of minutes. I don’t think many people could say the same of other technologies.

Those were the days… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…