Next years JD Edwards budget–what should you plan for?

Here are some good ideas for projects and approximate consulting budgets for running JD Edwards in the next financial year.  These are all about consolidation and strategic alignment with oracle.

Application 9.1	This is a major application upgrade, but use the 100 day upgrade program and get on the latest technology stack.  This move will enable your business to adapt rapidly to change, to implement mobility via ADF, SSO via OAM…  You need to be on Red Stack for many of these	Ballpark between 1000 and 3000 per user. (consulting)
Virtualisation	Use of OVM to virtualise your JD Edwards platforms.  Use OVM templates for rapid implementations.  OEL linux for fast and stable applications.  Start with a simple implementation and begin a gradual migration.  Start with your development or DR – simple and easy.	Hardware 15K (100GB RAM 25 CPU). OVM – Support 1200 per system per year OEL – Suppor 1200 per system per year http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/els-pricelist-070592.pdf Consulting for test system – 5 days
Weblogic Migration	if you are on OAS, dump it and get to weblogic as quick as you can.  This is going to strategically align you with all other middleware offerings from oracle.  Move your JDeveloper skills in the right direction.  Allow for OAM integration and ADF.  No clustering with weblogic, so consider Myriad’s network load balancing virtual device.	Ballpark 1 day consulting per server
Implement BSSV	Get BSSV up and running and become familiar with how it works and how it can work for you!	2 days consulting to get package builds working and demo’s using soap UI.  New JVM for testing.
BIP	Whether standalone or interactive, consider getting this up and running.  You can use it whether you are blue or red (stack), blue has tighter licence restrictions.  This is a core tool in fusion middleware (BIP) that you can now see in EM12c, OAM and other offerings.  Skills in this area are going to be beneficial for some time.  This is also the basis of the new OneView offerings in application release 9.1	1 day for standalone, including DAS or DAD install.  Perhaps ESU’s for integrated depending on your app releases.
Technology Discovery	Have a consultant come in and tell you about all the things that you can do within your licence agreements with oracle.  Have a consultant explain how EM12c can help you streamline support and operations.  Ensure that you are aligned with oracle’s vision	1 day workshop and follow up service.

JDE9.1 555 ESUs applied with Change Assistant

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old and patient.  I know it’s not because I’m reading all of the manuals cover to cover… but, everything about CNC is getting easier.  Honestly.  I installed E1 9.1, installed oracle database, installed OVM based OEL operating systems…  Then was able to install 555 ESU’s to the DV910 pathcode without a single error.  That’s right, it all just worked.  This is not the good bit yet, I then was able to build a full package over ALL objects and did not get 1 error.  (Sure I might not have got the path’s right for VS 10, but that was a quick fix and restart)

This is a first for me!

Are statistics being gathered for your oracle database?

DBMS_STATS is important when running oracle databases with volatile data.  When I say volatile, I probably like the sound of the term more that how accurate the statement is.  I think perhaps it’s better to say dynamic – OLTP applications by nature site above dynamic databases.  As the data moves about, oracle needs to keep up with this movement so that the queries that it executes against this data are as quick as possible.  Oracle maintains statistics (metdata) on the data within tables to allow it to quickly determine the quickest path to that data and also determine the quickest method of getting the data back to the end user.  It allows oracle to estimate the size of the data coming back too, which  is essential.

So, how do you know that your awesome DBA is doing their job and keeping oracle stats up to date – you check up on them!

Oracle is pretty smart about determining which stats that it is going to update, it’s not going to update all of the statistics all of the time – that would be a waste of time.  It is however probably going to update the stats of the dynamic tables in the DB – for JDE that is generally the largest tables!

A good thing is to check the F0911 or some of their large tables, which you are also listing as part of the review.

100 largest oracle tables and their size (not including their indexes)

SELECT * FROM (

SELECT t1.owner, t1.segment_name, t1.bytes/1024/1024 Size_Mb

FROM dba_segments t1, all_objects t2

WHERE t1.owner = 'PRODDTA' AND t2.object_type = 'TABLE'

AND t1.owner = t2.owner

AND t1.segment_name = t2.object_name

ORDER BY

bytes/1024/1024  DESC ) WHERE ROWNUM <= 100

Then check the last analysed date (lets say for the F0911).

select owner, table_name, last_analyzed, num_rows, sample_size from dba_tables

where last_analyzed is not null

  and table_name = 'F0911' and owner = 'PRODDTA'

There is 100000 ways you could combine the above two to give you all of the data that you need.

Using LVM to create new disks, physical volume, logical volume and volume group OEL

New LVM

You’ve worked out how to create a new disk with OVM (honestly, it could be easier!!!)  The placement of options seems non intuitive for me.  Why can’t I be on my virtual machine and say “new disk”?

Highlight server pools, then goto repositories tab.  Click the repository that you want to add to, choose Virtual Disks and add…  (CRAZY!)

Then once this is done, goto your virtual machine, edit it and assign the disk.  Ensure that the order is correct.

Boot your VM and you’ll see the new disk with fdisk –l

 

See what disks you are dealing with

[root@e1web2 ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/xvda: 12.8 GB, 12884901888 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1566 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/xvda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux

/dev/xvda2 14 1305 10377990 83 Linux

/dev/xvda3 1306 1566 2096482+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/xvdb: 30.0 GB, 30000000000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3647 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/xvdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Create your physical volume

[root@e1web2 ~]# pvcreate /dev/xvdb

Create your volume group (vgu01), remember that this can be over as many physicals volumes as you like

[root@e1web2 ~]# vgcreate vgu01 /dev/xvdb

Volume group "vgu01" successfully created

Create your logical volume, remember that this can be any size from the volume group

[root@e1web2 ~]# vgdisplay

--- Volume group ---

VG Name vgu01

System ID

Format lvm2

Metadata Areas 1

Metadata Sequence No 1

VG Access read/write

VG Status resizable

MAX LV 0

Cur LV 0

Open LV 0

Max PV 0

Cur PV 1

Act PV 1

VG Size 27.94 GB

PE Size 4.00 MB

Total PE 7152

Alloc PE / Size 0 / 0

Free PE / Size 7152 / 27.94 GB

VG UUID 0W9kEx-CnVq-jxOp-y5AM-qRho-oU65-Fi8LlH

Create your logical volume

[root@e1web2 ~]# lvcreate -l +100%FREE vgu01

Logical volume "lvol0" created

Display logical volumes

[root@e1web2 ~]# lvdisplay

--- Logical volume ---

LV Name /dev/vgu01/lvol0

VG Name vgu01

LV UUID 3mkbqZ-Fgmk-WuH0-2UUM-f196-E1dm-l82GDd

LV Write Access read/write

LV Status available

# open 0

LV Size 27.94 GB

Current LE 7152

Segments 1

Allocation inherit

Read ahead sectors auto

- currently set to 256

Block device 253:0

Scan volume groups

[root@e1web2 ~]# vgscan

Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...

Found volume group "vgu01" using metadata type lvm2

Activate the volume group

[root@e1web2 ~]# vgchange -ay

1 logical volume(s) in volume group "vgu01" now active

Format the filesystem (ext3 in my case)

[root@e1web2 ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/vgu01/lvol0

Create the mount point

[root@e1web2 ~]# mkdir –p /u01

Mount the logical volume (name from lvdisplay)

[root@e1web2 /]# mount /dev/vgu01/lvol0 /u01

Add perm record in fstab

vi /etc/fstab

sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

LABEL=SWAP-VM swap swap defaults 0 0

/dev/vgu01/lvol0 /u01 ext3 defaults 0 0

Fill the disk!!!

Putty colours (colors), can’t see directories

This is a very simple post, but it’s got some value. 

I use putty day in and day out for my ssh / telnet etc needs.  It’s an excellent product and I highly recommend it.

That default colour for directories in putty (linux based perhaps) is terrible.  I can never read the dir name.

It’s easy to change!

Just goto menu, change settings, colours and change the value for “ANSI Blue”

Make sure you save your session preferences so that the colour will be right next time

Installing JD Edwards 11GR2 enterprise server errors

Okay, so I’m trying to install the 32 bit client so that my enterprise server (yes, database and logic combo) can connect to the database with 32 bit binaries (OCI).

The prerequisite checker fails for missing i386 gcc libs. I tried a load of these, but failed:

yum install “libstdc++-devel-4.1.2 (i386")” etc etc.

The found the same problem, exactly https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=10054870

Then

used “./runInstaller –ignorePrereq”

This then worked like a treat.  Note that you need to install it in a different location to your server binaries / server home.

Oracle 11.2.0.3 downloads

I’m installing a new 9.1 site and am getting patch current.  I’ve checked all of the MTRs and 11.2.0.3 is my bag for JD Edwards.  I don’t want to download 11.2.0.2 and patch it, I do not have the time.  It seems that you ca go to mySupport and download 11.2.0.3!

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/ui/flash.html#tab=PatchHomePage(page=PatchHomePage&id=()),(page=PatchSearchResultsHome&id=(flag=search&search=%3CSearch%3E%0A%20%20%3CFilter%20name=%22patch_number%22%20op=%22IS%22%20value=%2210404530%22%20type=%22patch_number%22/%3E%0A%20%20%3CFilter%20name=%22platform%22%20op=%22IS%22%20value=%22%22%20type=%22platform%22/%3E%0A%3C/Search%3E&viewItem=14&from=bookmark))

patch set 10404530

You’ll see a list like the above, but what if you only want the client.

Or in my case I was the 64 bit edition for my database server and 32 bit client for my enterprise server.

I don’t want to download all of the files, just the ones that I need…  So what is in them?

1 is DB

2 is DB

3 is RAC

4 is client

5 is gateways

6 is examples

7 – I don’t know

That is going to save you a lot of time and effort !

installing 9.1 deployment server

You need 32 bit oracle client on this machine before you begin, otherwise DB install will fail!

You’ll work out that you need to reinstall

oracle.sysman.ccr.configCCR.CloneCCRPlugIn has failed

You’ll get the above in the install.log file in c:\program files\oracle\inventory\logs\cloneActions…

Oracle support has [ID 1439675.1] that will show you a lot.

but, shift delete the c:\oracle dir where e1local was being installed  (oci.dll will be locked, rename the file and reboot the machine)

start a cmd window as admin and

C:\Windows\system32>sc delete OracleE1LocalClrAgent
[SC] DeleteService SUCCESS

C:\Windows\system32>sc delete OracleMTSRecoveryService
[SC] DeleteService SUCCESS

use regedit to delete the SOFTWARE\Oracle entries if there are any

download the 32 bit client from here http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/downloads/112010-win32soft-098987.html

Install 32 bit client, easy

install dep server for jde 91 – easy

Uploading templates into OVM 3

A little frustrating…  Yes!  A little annoying, Yes…

Simple to work around, kinda…

The screen above shows how to find the templates in OVM 3.  Remember to find them when the server pools item is highlighted.

The  choose the little import button (blue arrow down).  The super frustrating thing is that you now have to set up apache, or IIS to expose your downloads to this interface: 

Arrgghh, right…  Windows 7 pro. 8GB of tar balls, how can I get a ftp or http in front if these?  I guess that i’m going to use IIS or some basic FTP server program running on my machine.

Okay, I’m going for IIS:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725762.aspx

Don’t just do what I did and choose the ftp items, as you will not be able to manage them – Doh.  Choose the IIS management piece too.

When you get your FTP site set up correctly (make sure the root dir is okay.  Allow anonymous connections and also add an entry in FTP authorisation for anonymous with read permissions), you should see this if you use a url like ftp://myrl001  (your machine name)

Remember that you might also need to turn off your firewall on your windows 7 machine…  Or at least allow ftp port 21 traffic through.

Also, remember that OVM wants to upload these files as compressed tar balls, not just tar balls.  So, don’t think u are being helpful by uncompressing the files on your windows machine prior to the upload, it ain’t going to work.

Now I’m getting errors with the untar… 

(05/18/2012 01:32:51:322 AM) Async operation failed on server: MYRSVMH5D. Object: cfgFile_0004fb0000140000fbea282af82e3ff2, PID: 27993, Server error message: Template import error: Command: (tar xzf /OVS/Repositories/0004fb00000300005dbf9d7f41f5d4c1/Templates/0004fb0000140000fbea282af82e3ff2/tmp/OVM_EM12_1of3.tgz --no-same-owner -C /OVS/Repositories/0004fb00000300005dbf9d7f41f5d4c1/Templates/0004fb0000140000fbea282af82e3ff2/tmp) failed: (2)

I’ll need to run this manually to work out what is going on.

Enterprise Manager 12c for JD Edwards

This is great.  We should all be using 12c to manage our technology, I know that I'm going to be from now on. This is undoubtedly the best management suite that I've had experience with.  Many of the management components are available for nothing (that's right, you heard me), and you need to pay for a number of the application extensions (like the extra functionality provided for JD Edwards management, or SOA management etc).

So I've just downloaded the 64 bit agent software (only just been released) am an trying to get this on my installation.  Downloaded, no problems - but when trying to apply, I get failed.

Specifically, I get

Exception: OperationFailedException: Below host metric patches are not applied to OMS.[13242773, 13707704]

So, I can go to oracle support and find the following patches:

 13707704 TRK BUG FOR TOP-LEVEL PATCH - PLATFORM OMS HOME - BP1 PORTS BUCKET 1 12.1.0.1.1 Generic Platform (American English) Other Recommendations Enterprise Manager Base Platform Apr 29, 2012 1.5 MB
 13242773 ENTERPRISE MANAGER BASE PLATFORM  - OMS    12.1.0.1.0 BP1 12.1.0.1.0 Linux x86 (American English) Other Recommendations Enterprise Manager Base Platform Mar 10, 2012 687.3 MB

Okay, all good. Surely there is some self update functionality to apply the patches... Surely there is a button to press?

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e35229/toc.htm

Hmm, seems like they want me to re install!!!

Using Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12.1.0.1 release in a non-production test or sandbox environment
You should analyze how much configuration setup you have done in Enterprise Manager and the number of Management Agents you have deployed. Based on this analysis, you should uninstall the existing Cloud Control and do a fresh installation if this is feasible

This also means that you have to reinstall all your existing Management Agents. This is the simplest way to get to the benefits and features of the latest patched Cloud Control release, which includes BP1 and the latest plug-in releases.

The Enterprise Manager uninstall instructions are available at the following location:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/install.121/e24089/part_deinstall_em.htm#sthref642

You can get the updated Enterprise Manager binaries with BP1 from the following location:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/enterprise-manager/downloads/index.html?origref=http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/index.html

Right, I'll continue this once I've install BP1...

Disaster recovery DR in the cloud

What is this cloud thing all about?  What do people mean when they say “put it in the cloud”, I think it really depends on who is saying it.

For my purposes I’m talking about processing power / operating systems in the cloud.  I’m not saying physical machines, as I believe that these are dinosaurs (I honestly do).  Dom0 and the hypervisor is a reality on a physical machine, but this does not run any business applications – that is the realm of DomUs. 

Everything is heading down virtual alley, and if you are not on the train – I’d advise buying a ticket (at least get familiar with the time table)!

Schematic of the OVM virtual architecture.

While I’m at it, here is a plug for oracle VM

Oracle VM is free, next generation, scalable server virtualization software that supports Oracle and non-Oracle applications. Oracle VM provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for creating and managing virtual server pools running on x86 and x86-64-based systems across an enterprise; both Linux and Windows guests are supported. Part of Oracle VM includes the Xen hypervisor, and Oracle's engineering team contributes heavily to feature development of Xen mainline software—Learn More.

“Use the Cloud”

If the CIO is saying it, he’s basically saying – I don’t want to worry about cooling, heating, rack space, anything physical about the machines.  He knows that he still needs to maintain patch levels, database levels and licensing (unless SAAS) etc.  He knows that he needs to secure his cloud based resources and he knows that he must get the latest data there in case there is a need for DR.

The CIO knows that he cannot put his physical hardware in the cloud as easy as his virtual machines.  The CIO knows that putting his non commodity hardware (pSeries, iSeries, HPUX) machines is going to be more expensive and more difficult.

If the marketing manager is saying he wants to use the cloud, he’s saying I want to pay a monthly subscription and I do NOT want to go down to the IT team for support ever again!  He does not care about backups, DR, HA – he does not even want to know what these acronyms stand for – he just wants his graphical funnel based sales figures available at the click of a button EVERY TIME he clicks the button.

When I say use the cloud, I mean a mix of the above and a dose of reality.  Cloud does not take away all management, cloud does not do away with testing or maintenance.  Cloud needs to be fully synchronised with production environments.  Cloud needs to be manageable and secure.  Cloud needs to be bought back to production if there is the need for DR!  Plan for the fail-back as well as the fail over.  There are a lot of advantages, but there is also a lot of work.

For my clients, what does the cloud mean in a DR context?  The ability to provide Disaster Recovery (DR) services to the business in a cost effective way.  DR is not SAAS (for JDE) it’s more HAAS, It’s having the right machines stood up in the cloud and having their data kept in synch (or at least 1 hour behind) with the production environment.  It has known connection methods, it’s secure and it’s TESTED!

To implement DR in the cloud you need to understand the moving parts in your ERP (mainly the database) and ensure that movement is replicated.  You must also be regimented in the way to replicate any production changes to the cloud for things that are not in the database.

DR in the cloud is a non capex based method of providing complete and tested DR capabilities.  The great thing is that it’s in the cloud, you can get competitive quotes you can change cloud vendor, you can do what you want to get the DR solution that you need at the best possible price.

SQL Server convert JDE Julian date to char

I love writing an adhoc query for business users or managers.  I sit back and admire the data that I give them.  Generally I do NOTHING to make the data sensible, just give them a big pile of data.  I have learnt over the years, that to save some back and forthing, I tend to provide more data than less…  What?  That’s right, a bit of pro-activity for my end users.

What do I mean?  Simple really.  Include things like “Report descriptions”, “Version Descriptions” and a classic – convert the julian dates for them!  Nice…

So instead of:

select  VRPID, VRVERS, VRVED

FROM ps_pd811.pd811.f983051
where vrpid in (
SELECT t1.siobnm
FROM ps811.ol811.f9860 t1, ps811.ol811.f9861 t2
where simrgmod = 'C'
and t1.siobnm = t2.siobnm
and t2.sipathcd = 'PD811'
and t2.siobnm like 'R%')
and vrved > 111000 ;

Which gives

I did this:

select top 10 VRPID, simd as "Report Description",  VRVERS, VRJD as "Version Description", CONVERT(char(10), DATEADD(day, ((vrved - (CONVERT(int, vrved / 1000) * 1000)) - 1), DATEADD(year, CONVERT(int, vrved / 1000), '1900-01-01')), 121) as "Last run date"
FROM ps_pd811.pd811.f983051, ps811.ol811.f9860 t4
where vrpid = t4.siobnm
and  vrpid in (
SELECT t1.siobnm
FROM ps811.ol811.f9860 t1, ps811.ol811.f9861 t2
where simrgmod = 'C'
and t1.siobnm = t2.siobnm
and t2.sipathcd = 'PD811'
and t2.siobnm like 'R%')
and vrved > 111000 ;

 

The actual information is all custom reports or reports that have been customised and the last time that they were run

Introduction to One View Reporting. Only available in 9.1

Oracle have developed some really good pre-built BI screens that work with some of the most popular JD Edwards screens.  The BI capabilities have been written with BI Publisher and read the data directly from what is on the JD Edwards screens.  Of course you can quite easily write your own too!

This is a MAJOR breakthrough and a paradigm shift from traditional (and boring) E1 reporting.

This functionality does come at a cost though, please see the last screen shot for pricing details.

Empower end users to create operational reports

· Empower end users to design, create, run, and share reports to meet their needs

· Intuitive and powerful process that does not require coding skills

· Reduce the backlog of user requested reports with IT

Enhance Real-Time Decision Making

· Use interactive reports with lists, charts, graphs and tables to drill down to the level of detail required to make informed business decisions

· Provide users real time access to operational data

· Visibility into business data directly from the JDE E1 applications

Decrease Cost of Reporting

· Single reporting solution for all JDE E1 modules and custom apps

· Free up IT resources for projects

· Embedded administration and management of reports

Sample license costs...

Please see http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/jd-edwards-enterpriseone/view-reporting-1547328.html for more details on the features and functionality.

JD Edwards Modification Analysis Investigation Series

Everyone wants an upgrade, it’s been made manageable and simplified by the 100 Day Upgrade program – so what’s next?

You know what, the one thing that is still answered with “How long is a piece of string” – Frustrating answer…  Is the cost of modification retrofit.  It’s a difficult question to answer.  There are programs out there like “DWS Dimension” – a great product that will give you a really good answer, very accurate.  I’m looking for something that perhaps I can do with SQL and jiggery pokey to determine how much is actually modified, how much of those modifications are used and then calculate how much time I think that the retrofit is going to take.

I start by assembling this information:

• modified objects
• custom objects
• Modified objects that have been (this is my “relative modification complexity matrix”)
• Checked in
• Checked out
• Transferred
• Designed
• custom jobs in F986110 & F986114
• Custom programs in the menus
• custom programs in security tables
• When was the last time custom jobs were run
• How many lines of ER code is different between pristine and prod by object!! (Yes I can do this).

 

The amalgamation of all the information above gives me a pretty good idea of the relative complexity of your site and your modifications.  It then takes a couple of spot checks for the more complicated objects to give you a pretty good idea of how long things are going to take to get back into place.

A series of spread sheets and combination of scripts and direct connects to the database assembles the information into a form that is easy to understand and interpret.

Note that the query that brings back the “Relative Modification Complexity Matrix” is EXCELLENT and gives you a very good idea of real modifications in a very short period of time.  It also tells you the complexity of the modifications based upon the OMW “action” that they have been part of.  Start here is you want to have a crack yourself!