Review of release 12 laptop – initial usage
I had mentioned to a few people that I would rattle off a few words on this once i'd had some time to play with it. After a gee-ing up email from Clive I guess now is the time to waffle-on.

First things first: I had been mulling over for a while getting hold of a copy of the apps for a home server install. Just so I could play about and maybe try to get to grips with some of the things i dont know a lot about (i.e. Framework development). I had seen an advert from AppsDBA.co.uk offering a release 11i laptop for a very reasonable price. After a short email exchange with the main man (Richard) I was informed that a Release 12 laptop was imminent, so I hung out for that. Delivery was within a week of me sending off my cheque.

So what do you get for your money?
Well for 950 of your British Pounds (excluding the chancellor’s value-added-tax) you get the following:
The Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6400. Full spec of the hardware is as follows…
• 2gig of Ram
• 160gig hard drive
• Intel Dual-Core processor (18.GHz)
• Integral CD/DVD writer
• Some USB ports
• A firewire (IEEE) port
• An SD/MMC media card reader
• 15.4 inch widescreen
• Built-in soundcard.
• Built in modem, wireless, Bluetooth and a Lan port.

It comes installed with Windows XP Professional SP2 (none of your Vista malarkey here), and there are various bits’n’pieces of other software that Dell choose to supply as standard.

The added value from AppsDBA.co.uk is the following:
• Oracle RDBMS 10g R2
• Oracle e-Business Suite – Release 12 Vision install (ie the full works)
• Oracle Developer Suite 10g (Reports, Forms etc)
• Workflow Builder
• Full R12 documentation
It also comes with a few other utilities installed, some of which are needed for the apps build (C++ is one that springs to mind), and a utility called Cygwin (a sort of unix shell emulator).

Usage and Abusage
The laptop fires up promptly, but it does take a few minutes extra to get all the services and processes running once windows is loaded. The flyer leaflet that arrived with the laptop quite clearly stated that one should refrain from jumping straight in until the disk light has stopped flashing when it’s powered up. From memory it took it about 5 minutes to settle down and be ready for action.
The configuration is idiot-proof – you just double-click the IE icon and the application signon screen appears. First time of running this too takes a few minutes to appear. Once you have used it a few times it is much quicker.

The AppsDBA.co.uk install creates a default application user (APPSDBA) to get you started, however as this is a Vision install you do get all the seeded user accounts as well. A quick query using SQL*Plus (and a quick posting on HRMSACES) was enough to furnish me with several sample user accounts to play with.

The first thing I wanted to test was to see how quick a payroll takes. I timed a quickpay at about 5 minutes. You may think that is a long time, but I think that is pretty good considering the processing power the laptop has compared to many client sites I’ve worked at over the years.

Next test was self-service. I’m happy to report that this all seems to run quite smoothly. If you make an allowance for the first time anything runs, then things do seem to run reasonably quickly.

The beauty of having Vision is that you are not limited to HRMS. The whole of the financials suite awaits the temptation of tinkering (PO and RA lookout). I had a quick peek into OLM and managed to cause some havoc by enrolling on classes etc.

From the back-end side, I tested out SQL*Plus, FNDLOAD and SQL*Loader (running from within Cygwin), and I was also able to connect using Workflow builder to view the seeded workflows.
I’ve not played with Reports (yet), but did fire-up the Forms developer and tinker with one or 2 of the seeded forms (once I had found where the source files were hidden).

The layout of the install is quite neat – as one who has had no exposure to Oracle EBS on a windows platform this was all new to me.
The RDBMS and Apps tiers are emulated by different directory structures, with the APPS tier sub-divided into the apps and tech stacks.
The developer suite and workflow are installed into their own homes (as they should be), and I also installed TOAD (again into its own home) without any issues at all.

Other observations
Before I get onto my nag-list, I’ll mention the astounding fact that despite the fact that I have a complete EBS install (plus documentation) and the 10g DB, there is still over 60gig of hard-disk space free. Plenty of space for DB expansion and code.

I’ve not had a proper play with Reports yet. I’ve also not really delved deep into running major concurrent processes, but the concurrent manager is present and does run jobs. I just would not want to dump a load of jobs onto the queue at the same time (otherwise it may slow things down).

The laptop does not have JDeveloper / OAF installed on it. These are free downloads from the OTN site, but make sure you download the correct versions. I have installed it all but do have some teething issues with the OAF sample applications, due to incorrect installation files. Until I get this sorted I cannot do any playing with Framework stuff.

I’m fortunate to have another laptop that I can use for email / word processing and other duties needed, so I do not have to worry about cluttering up this R12 laptop with too much crud. I certainly would not worry about installing MS Office suite on it – maybe Open Office (as its free). Note that it does come with MS Works, which includes Word, so you should be okay for Letter generation (if that is what floats your boat).

Nag List
1. More of an oversight than a nag. As my laptop was one of the first R12 laptops built by AppsDBA.co.uk there were one or 2 items missing from the initial build.
I had Reports but not forms. And I did not have Workflow builder installed.
The forms solution was an easy one to fix, as it is a painless download from OTN, and an easy install.
Workflow builder was a tad trickier as I was not sure which version I should have. An exchange of emails with Richard at AppsDBA.co.uk soon resolved it, with a Workflow builder install CD arriving in the post (with install instructions). It is my understanding that both these items should feature on the normal R12 build.

2. The version of EBS is release 12.0 Current version available for public consumption is 12.0.3 (or RUP3 as its known). I have downloaded the RUP3 upgrade files from Metalink (all 1.5gig’s worth) but have not yet applied it. I do not know how frequently Oracle update the Vision install, so it could be that 12.0 is the only R12 version available. It may be worth checking first before ordering a laptop to see if there is a newer version available.
It should be noted that RUP3 has a pre-req AOL patch as well (which I have also downloaded). Until I have made a full back up of the laptop I will not be attempting the upgrade.

3. The HR legislation is at April 2006. So the Tax and NI rates and rules do not feature the current budgetary legislation. Not too much of an issue for me, but maybe for some of you. Again you could download the latest HRGlobal patch and apply.

Support
AppsDBA.co.uk provide a couple of weeks grace with free email support (catch them on a good day and the response times are almost immediate). After that, they offer a support service and user forums, for which a fee of £100pa is payable. Given that this is essentially their main business I guess this is not too bad (cheaper than Oracle I guess).
I suspect for general support there are plenty of forums and user groups around where one could get general questions answered. If you wanted more specific service then the £100 is tax deductible as a business expense (well for the contractors out there).
They also offer a ‘restore to factory install’ service should you manage to shaft things completely (ie with a screwed attempt at a RUP3 upgrade for instance ). Again the charges are reasonable and they courier the laptop back to you once done.

Summary
Other than point 1 in the nag list (above) the other 2 nag’s are my own, and are not really gripes that would prevent buying one of these laptops. It does do what it says on the tin (as they say).

I have not gone onto the Dell configurator to work out what the base laptop would cost Joe Punter. Even if it was 4 or 5 hundred pounds delivered I think the overall cost is very good value for money.
I’d certainly not want to face having to do an install and build of the DB and Apps myself, not unless I allowed myself a couple of weeks to do it in (and even then I think I’d need a good DBA on the end of a phone).

One of the main reasons for getting this laptop was to get some early exposure to R12 in readiness for upgrades and new implementations that will no doubt come in the next 18 months or so. With the inevitable delay in Fusion, R12 will be with us and I figure that many clients will want to upgrade in the near future.
HRMS has not had a major change (different colour scheme and a few extra SSHR forms); the major changes have come with Financials. So the chance to get to play with Finapps (especially where it interfaces with HRMS) is a welcome bonus, and something that will be handy when looking for my next contract.

I mentioned to Richard at AppsDBA that I may be able to put a few referrals his way. I am not on a kick-back, but have left the door open to discussing referrals with him – I had envisioned that maybe I got land a freebie support contract with him, or maybe get him onboard as the resident Apps DBA for hrmsaces. Anyway, if you do go ahead and get one, do please mention my name (and this review)

So now that the dust has settled, did you manage to apply the patch(es)? What if any other issues have you encountered?

I got one on your recommendation, and mentioned your name to Richard - he charged me double

I am currently engaged in doing a complete image backup of the whole laptop using a freeware product called DriveImageXML, but... well, you know I'm not a techie, so have you got some kind of 'Janet & John' guide to doing DB backups/restores on this thing?

You could ask richard and see if he can offer free advice on backups (if he does post the answers here )

I've not yet done an image backup - and so am waiting to do that before i patch. Unfortunately Christmas and a house move have scuppered all scheduled spare time.

I'm hoping to be back fully operational by mid-jan.

I emailed Richard to get some low-down on how to go about backing the system up. Basically it's like this:

Firstly you need to shut down the database. Then you take a copy - or backup or whatever it is you want to do - of the entire folder C:\oracler12 . Then once you've completed that, bring the database back up.

So how do we shut down? Well after making sure you've closed all your SQL clients, Apps windows and the like, you do this:

1. Go into 'services'. It should be there as a shortcut on your desktop, but if not then from the 'Start' menu choose 'Run' then enter 'services.msc' (without the quotes please) in the Open field. For reasons I will go into later, it's a good idea to have a shortcut to this on the desktop if you don't already have one.

2. In this new Services window, all the known services from all your programs etc are listed in alphabetical order. Scan down the list until you start to see the service names beginning with 'Oracle...'. Some will have a status of 'Started'. On my setup, I had the following showing this status:

Oracle Process Manager for VIS_localhost
OracleConcMgrVIS_localhost (which appears to be dependent on the following process)
OracleServiceVIS
OracleVIS_db102_RDBMSTNSListenerVIS
OracleVIS_localhost_TOOLSTNSListenerAPPS_VIS

In the above list, the bold black represents the SID, whilst the rather fetching red text indicates the Oracle Home.

3. Highlight these services one by one, and in each case you will be presented with some 'links' to click on: either 'Stop' or 'Restart'. Click the 'Stop'. I will be honest here and say that I am unaware as to the significance of the order in which these are shut down, aside from the dependency outlined above. Basically, shut them down in the order above and it seems not to be a problem.

Your database is now shut down. so you can do your backup as you see fit. Once complete, it's probably easiest to just restart the laptop in order to reinstate the Vision DB automatically.

Recall that I recommended you have a 'services' shortcut on your desktop? What do you mean, 'no'? Here's why: Rather than count up to 5 minutes before deciding to take a punt on your database being up and about, you can fire up the Services window to monitor progress (there is a refresh button to keep the screen up to date). Each of the services outlined above will initially show as 'Starting', then 'Started'. Once they're all showing as 'Started' you're good to go!

I know what you're thinking: How can we script the shutting down of all of those services? God, how lazy are you then?

OK, if you set yourself up with a command file e.g. dbshut.cmd then in there put a bunch of commands to do:

net stop "<service>"

Note that the only one you actually need double quotes for is the first one, as it has spaces in the name. The rest you can get away without the double quotes.

Then have a shortcut on your desktop to point to that command file. Just double-click the shortcut to kick off your shutdown!

Finally, and all joking aside, please understand that I am in no way responsible for any loss or damage arising from anyone taking the above actions. To do any of this must be at your own risk.

Hope this helps!

Barry, Clive,
great news! So I'll have at least 2 experts to solve my questions on R12 from now on!

I have a release 12 but running on Linux...on a vmware virtual machine which sits on Windows XP, using an external 500GB HD. The only other requirement is 2GB of RAM on the laptop.

For JDeveopler OAF R12 you need to download patch 6491398 from metalink.

Regards,

Jairo

Jairo - is this your own machine?



Don't forget that the patch-level of your R11/R12 install will dictate which JDev OAF patch you need...All explained on metalink (but will post up the blurb once i've retrieved it from my document store).

As promised...(taken from Metalink in case you dont have direct access)...
Release 11i
OA Framework 5.10 patch JDeveloper 9i Patch
ATG.PF.H (patch 3438354 or Oracle Applications 11.5.10) needs Patch 4045639
ATG PF CU1 (patch 4017300) needs Patch 4141787
ATG PF CU2 (patch 4125550) needs Patch 4573517
11i.ATG_PF.H RUP3 (patch 4334965) needs Patch 4725670
11i.ATG_PF.H RUP4 (patch 4676589) needs Patch 5455514
11i.ATG_PF.H RUP5 (patch 5473858) needs Patch 6012619
11i.ATG_PF.H.RUP6 (patch 5903765) needs Patch 6469392

Release 12
ATG Release 12 Version JDeveloper 10g Patch
12.0.0 Patch 5856648 10g Jdev with OA Extension
12.0.1 (patch 5907545) needs Patch 5856648 10g Jdev with OA Extension
12.0.2 (patch 5484000 or 5917344) needs Patch 6491398(replaces 6197418)
12.0.3 (patch 6141000 or 6077669) needs Patch 6509325 10g Jdev with OA Extension ARU for R12 RUP3
12.0.4 (patch 6435000 or 6272680) needs Patch 6724031 10G JDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR R12 RUP4 **not yet released

Err... If you don't have access to Metalink, how will you even download the patches?

But thanks anyway Baz! Let us know when you've done it mate, will you? I'll want to see screenshots that show your system is up and running, alongside a copy of that day's "Sun" for proof!

Barry,

correct, we are on 12.0.2 hence the patch number I mentioned.

All the software is freeware, CentOS linux, vmware server, etc...

Jairo

Hmmm, an interesting conundrum that one...Cos in theory if you have a copy of EBS then you should have a license and hence be able to gain access to Metalink.
But....one should make hay whilst the sun shines, and make good use of access when working on a project.

For you CT, i could assist in obtaining the relevant patches for you using my account. Once i have blown-upupgraded my R12 install to the latest patch set then i could supply you with a secure off-site backup of my patch files (always good practice to keep a copy off-site in case of fire )