Notice:

I am travelling to europe on business so i wont be blogging next week,will resume once back.

Sam

Ad Relink

Continuing my series on the AD Utilities in todays post i will blog about AD Relink.

AD Relink is a utility that is used to Oracle Applications Executables the Oracle8 Server product libraries contained within the Oracle Applications Technology Stack ORACLE_HOME.

In other words AD Relink is used to regenerate an Oracle Applications executable using the Oracle Applications Tech Stack libriries.

A unique feature of AD relink is that it is not a executable like other Ad utilities it is in fact a shell script that uses the UNIX 'make' command. In windows environment therefore its important to have MKS Toolkit or CYGWIN in the path before using AD Relink.It does this by reading the product definition from the {prod}.mk file. This file is located at PROD_TOP/lib location. AD Relink will fail in case the files are missing, courupted or a newer version of the file is required.

Relinking may be required under various scenarios like an executable getting corrupt or lost. Relinking is also recommended after cloning upgrades and patching. But mostly Auto Patch will take care of the relinking process at the end of the patching.

The following is the syntax for AD Relink

adrelink.sh force={y | n} [optionalargs]

Force here is used to specify wether to relink regardless of the status of the library or object files.

Optional Args include back_mode used to specify to backup the executable before relinking.
The values for this are 'all','file'(backs up the executables metioned in the adrelinkbk.txt,this is also the default value) and 'none'.

Eg: adrelink.sh force=y “ad adpatch”

AD Relink is run after logging into the system as the 'applmgr' user and setting the environment.
The following environment variables must be set properly before using AD Relink
PATH, ORACLE_HOME,APPL_TOP, ORACLE_SID or TWO_TASK, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and SHLIB_PATH (HP specific)

Also you must use AD Relink to relink only AD executables to relink other executables it is recommended to used ADADMIN instead. Eg if you wish to Relink your FNDLIBR (Your concurrent Manager executable) you should use adadmin and choose the 'Maintain Applications Files' option, though you could do the same with AD Relink also.

By default AD Relink creates a log file of the actions performed and the errors encounterd in the linking process at the location from where the AD Relink command was run.

It is recommended that you shutdown services of the tier for whose executables you are relinking.

You cannot relink non Oracle Applications executable using AD Relink for that you must use the make command manually.
eg: make -f ins_rdbms.mk install.

AD Splicer

Oracle Applications provides quite a few utilities which are aimed at effective maintenance and monitoring an Oracle Applications instance. In my next posts i will talk about these UNIX utilities which are also referred to as AD utilities.

Today i used AD Splicer so i will start with this one.

AD Splicer is a utility used to add an off-cycle product into Oracle Applications.

Products which have been released between the base releases of 11i are referred to an off-cycle product. Once AD Splicer is used to splice these off-cycle products into Oracle Applications they are recognized by other AD utilities like AD Patch as a valid Oracle Applications product for a given release.

In a multi node environment adsplicer should be used on all the APPL_TOPs.It is recommended to run AD Splice on the Admin node first.

Before using AD Splice you are required to add the new tablespace for the new products that are going to be added. In case you have migrated to the Oracle Applications new tablespace model you would require to create a new tablespace APPS_TS_TOOLs manually before using AD Splicer.

Ad Splicer makes use of the following control files to add the new off-cycle product into oracle applications.

[prod]prod.txt : This is a product definition file which contains the language independent information about the product.

[prod]terr.txt : This is also a product definition file containing language-specific information about the new product.

Both these product definition files should not be edited manually.

For example the product definition files for the off-cycle product Web ADI are bneterr.txt and bneprod.txt

newprods.txt : This file is also know as the product configuration file. You can edit this file optionally. This file acts as a template for configuring the new product that would be added. It comprises of a list of parameters which include

product- The product being added eg.bne .This must not be changed.

base_product_top - This is the base path where the files for the new product will be places using the Oracle applications filesystem architecture. the default value for this is APPL_TOP.

oracle_schema - This parameter refer to the oracle schema which is the owner of the new product to be added.

sizing_factor - The sizing factor which is to be followed for table and index creation.

main_tspace - The tablespace for product tables

index_tspace - The tablespace for product indexes

temp_tspace - The tablespace for Oracle schema’s temporary segments

default_tspace - This refers to the default table space for the of the Oracle Schema owning the product.

All the above mentioned control files namely the prod.txt,terr.txt and newprods.txt must be placed in $APPL_TOP/admin so that adsplce is able to read them.

Like other Ad utilities AD Splice will also require to make a connection to your database instance using SYSTEM and APPLSYS accounts as a result your database and listener must be running while using AD Splice.

An important fact to note is that products that are added through AD Splice are visible to other AD Utilites except autoupgrade.

The metalink Note 76708.1 contains further details and instructions on using AD Splice.

Oracle Jinitiator

Oracle Applications is based upon a thin client architecture. On the desktop Tier you need almost nothing.. Well almost, it does require a certified web browser and the Oracle Jinitiator.

Oracle Jinitiator is a software that provides the JVM to run oracle form based products which run in the form of a form client applet.The oracle Jinitiator uses its own JVM instead of the browsers JVM.It is isntalled as a plugin ( as in the case of mozilla, Netscape or firefox) or as an Active X component (in case of Internet Explorer).

When Oracle Applications is accessed for the first time from a client PC the Jinitiator is downloaded and installed on the client PC.It is not used for Self Service Web Applications, The JInitiator is invoked only upon clicking a form based application.

After Jinitiator is installed it downloads the form client applet along with the commonly used JAR files, this is done to reduce the network traffic to download JAR files form the server every time.

Jinitiator also performs JAR caching, applet caching and incremental JAR loading to improve applications performance.
These JAR files are commonly stored under the users profile directory with a folder named Oracle Jar Cache.

The Oracle Jinitiator executable is stored on the location $OA_HTML/oajinit.exe

Oracle Jinitiator allows only trusted JAR files to run within its JVM. This trust is established by using digital signatures. In the current version of Oracle Applications the JAR files are automatically signed with the digital signatures during the install of Oracle Applications using rapidwiz. However you can still change your digital signature and repackageyour oajinit.exe for security reasons.

During the installation process rapidwiz automatically creates a file in the applmgr user $HOME directory called identitydb.obj, this file has a reference to the SID of the database instance.

If there is a mismatch between this file on the server and that on the clinet PC it often results in the yellow bar problem.

The folowing files are created automatically by rapidwiz in the current version of Oracle Applications

$APPL_TOP/admin/appltop.cer

$APPL_TOP/admin/adsign.txt

$HOME(applmgr)/identitydb.obj

To create a new digital certificate you can use the adjkey command, while the adjbuild.sh is used to repackage your jinitiator exe.You can also regenerate your JAR files using ADADMIN.

A Jinitiator package should typically contain the certificate and the obj file along with the executable.

In previous versions of Oracle Applications (earlier to 11.5.9) an unsigned JAR file would result in a yellow bar problem, but in the current release of Oracle Application attempting to load a forms with an unsigned JAR file would fail with an a java security exception error.

The latest certified versions of Oracle Jinitiator is 1.3.1.26 to run with Oracle E-business Suite 11.5.10, the least certified version is 1.1.8.16 which is used with release 11, though you can use version 1.1.8.X to access your 11i applications it is recommended that you upgrade your Jinitiator to the latest supported version 1.3.1.X.

You can follow the metalink note id 124606.1 to upgrade your Jinitiator.

An important fact to remember is that any patch applied through adpatch which contains JAR files, these new JAR files are not signed with the digital signature, after the patch is applied adpatch will regenerate all the JAR files and these new JAR files will be signed and trusted to run within the Jinitiator.

To see a list of supported browsers that are certified to access E-Business Suite reffer to metalink Note id 285218.1.

11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4

A ATG Rollup Patch (RUP) is released approximately twice every year. It includes the fixes that have been successfully tested and included in the ATG RUP, till it is frozen for release.

Oracle Applications Technology 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 has now been released.

ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 is cumulative and contains all the fixes included in 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 3 and 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 3 contained all the fixes that were included in CU2,which included all fixes of CU1.
So in case you have missed out of any of the consolidated updates (CU1 & CU2) or the ATG_PF.H Rollup 3 here is your chance to catch up.

11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 can be applied only to a 11i instance with 11i.ATG_PF.H. 11i.ATG_PF.H comes with the base installation of 11.5.10, so in case you want to apply this rollup to any instance of Oracle Applications 11.5.9 or earlier you must first upgrade to 11i.ATG_PF.H and then apply 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4

The following products are changed or affect by the current RUP

• Oracle Alert
• Oracle Applications Framework
• Oracle Workflow
• Oracle Application Object Library
• Oracle XML Gateway

The Oracle Applications Technology 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 also includes Patch 5107107 - TXK (FND & ADX) AUTOCONFIG ROLLUP PATCH N released AUGUST this year.

Its important that in case you have implemented Single Sign On using 10g As and OID you must not apply this path but wait for the ATG 11.5.10 RUP4 SSO 10g Integration Patch (4775907) due for release late august.

For SSL configurations you must run the script txkrun.pl -script=InstSSLFix also included within this patch.

Other post installation tasks include upgrading your Oracle XML Parser for Java to v9.0.4 and creating additional tablespace APPS_TS_TOOLS before you can use adsplicer to add any additional products, this is not required in case you have not migrated to Oracle Applications Tablespace model.

Metalink note 365228.1 contains details about the 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 and instructions to apply the same.

XML Publisher

One of the good things that were introduced in 11.5.10 was XML publisher (XDO).Though you can install XML publisher with any version of 11i after applying the require pre requisite patches, it comes bundled with 11.5.10 version of Oracle Applications onwards.

XML publisher is a java based tool which uses data definitions and templates to generate a output of a report in a desired format such as in PDF. It is based on the W3C Extensible Style sheet Language (XSL) and uses XSLFO to convert data into a formatting object. A strong feature of the XML publisher is that it allows extensive customization of Oracle Applications reports by making use of templates without requiring high level of technical skills.

You can install XML publisher during the Oracle Applications (11.5.10) installation or register the product later on using license manager through Oracle Applications Manager (OAM).

In case your oracle Applications release is 11.5.9 or earlier you must follow the steps stated in metalink note id 278727.1 to install XML Publisher.

The XML publisher also comes with a desktop component. Two main components of the XML publisher desktop component are template builder and template viewer.

The template builder can be integrated with desktop tools like word. Once installed, you get additional features to automate the process of template creation like generation of SQL etc.

The XML publisher essentially comprises of the following modules

Data Definition-The XML engine acts as a single point to fulfill all reporting needs for an organization.

Data Layout/Templates-Templates and the final layout are managed within the XML publisher using a Template Manager, these can be customized using desktop tools like MS Word, excel or Adobe Acrobat. The template manager is also responsible for registering your new templates before they can be used with XML publisher.

Translation - The XML publisher uses the translation handler to do the required translation at runtime. It can also convert the output into a XLIFF format which can be used by 3rd party translation companies.

Delivery - The delivery manager is responsible to deliver the output to different destinations like printers,EDI,email etc. The delivery manager also provides flexibility by delivering the same output to different destinations like HTML format can be sent to email while a PDF format sent to the printer.

XML publisher allows conditional formatting of the output by using XSL or XSL:FO code. Additionally XML publisher can also be used to perform b2b communication by using the XML Data Engine.

As i stated before the XML publisher can also be used to generate output that can be used for EDI or EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).To use this feature you must use a eText template. These templates are comprised of a series of tables which contain commands and data field definitions.

If you have applied the consolidated update 1 or above you can generate the output using XML publisher through the concurrent request directly by selecting the appropriate template in the concurrent program definition. Incase you have not applied the CU 1 you must first run the concurrent request to generate the XML report and then run a concurrent request to publish the request.

The behavior of XML publisher can be controlled through a set f properties, these properties can be set through the XML publisher administrator interface or you can use the XML publisher properties file xdo.cfg. This file can be located at /resource or alternately at JRE_TOP>/jre/lib.

To check weather XML publisher is installed or not you can query the FND_PRODUCT_INSTALLATIONS table or you can lookup the reports in Oracle Applications Manager. You can find out the version for your XML publisher from the output of your report or from MetaInfo.class file.

$OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/xdo/common/MetaInfo.class.

Oracle Applications Manager.

The Oracle Applications Manager(OAM) provides a console to effectively manage, monitor, configure and troubleshoot an Oracle Applications environment.
The console is HTML based and as such does not require any additional software excpet the browser.
One of the key features of OAM is the Applications Dashboard which provides information on E-Business Suite installation,including summaries of current status, performance, critical activities, diagnostics, business flows, and security.

In Oracle Applications Manager 2.1.1, there are three System Administrator type responsibilities to use when accessing Oracle Applications Manager.
These Oracle Applications responsibilities are:
System Administrator - this responsibility has access to all functionality in OAM.
OAM Read Only Mode - this responsibility provides administrators with view-only access to most of the data in OAM. This responsibility does not provide access to critical actions such as Stop Services and Edit Configuration Parameters.
OAM Patch History - administrators with this responsibility can view the Applications Dashboard and Patch History pages.

The OAM is also used in conjunction with autoconfig for making changes to the application and DB tier context files.

OAM also provides advanced configuration wizards that allow you to perform advanced configurations to your E-Business Suite like SSL /SSL Accelerator conversion, Forms Listener servlet configuration and Apache Jserv load balancing.

OAM provides for a in depth monitoring of your Oracle Applications environment.OAM can also be used to monitor your forms listener servlet if you have configured your forms listener to run as a servlet.

You can also get detailed view of the Oracle Applications technology stack components like jserv memory usage, database connection pool details etc.

Additionally OAM can also be used to monitor your concurrent manager and concurrent requests.

In my first post i had talked about Generic Service Management(GSM), in case you have implemented generic service management you can monitor and control your different Oracle Applications services through OAM.

OAM also provides various features that aid in patch management process. There are various patch reports like applied patches which give details of the patches applied along with the timing reports and the changes they have made to the file system. This is a feature that i am sure DBAs who have worked on releases prior to 11i would surely appreciate.

Also included in the latest version of OAM after features like patch wizard and support cart which can be used with metalink services and aid in resolving service requests.

Cloning is also supported from OAM, currently though you cannot perform merging APPL_TOPS(Multi Node to single node cloning) from OAM.

Oracle Diagnostics can also be run from OAM. Oracle Diagnostics enables testing, identifying and reporting functional problems through a web-interface. This tool allows invoking test cases interactively using custom input values or through batch modeusing pre-registered input values.

For more details on Oracle Diagnostics, please see Metalink Note: 262006.1

You can also extend the functionality of OAM by using your custom SQL scripts to run with Oracle Applications Manager.

You can use OAM with any version of Oracle Applications 11i starting form 11.5.1. The latest version of OAM is 2.1.1 whichcan be obtained by applying Oracle Applications Manager Mini-pack 11i.OAM.H.However if you have already applied 11i.ATG_PF.H,11i.FND.H or on Oracle Applications 11.5.10 or higher you do not need to explicitly apply the 11i.OAM.H mini pack.

The metalink note 258330.1 contains details on this pack.

If you are installing OAM from the patch you can either configure it manually by editing the zone.properties and jserv.properties or by using autoconfig.

The metalink note 201703.1 contains details on installing and configuring OAM.

After you have configured OAM it is important that you set your DISPLAY environment variable correctly in your jserv.properties file to enable all the graphs within OAM to be displayed correctly.

Example: wrapper.env=DISPLAY=myacme:0.0

Once OAM has been installed you can acees it from either the Oracle Applications sign on page, from any user with the system administration responsibility or from the following URL http://host:port/servlets/weboam/oam/oamLogin

OracleAS Web Cache

Delevring a content rich site always involves a tradeoff with performace.Oracle AS Web Cache aims to significantlly reduce this tradeoff.

The aim of my current post is give a brief introduction into the faetaures and capabalities of OracleAS Web Cache.

OracleAS Web Cache improves performance of complex applications. Web caching moves frequently used content closer to the user, reducing page building tasks from the application server therby decreasing page load times.

Another feature of OracleAS Web Cache is that it provieds for caching of both static and dynamic web pages allowing scaling of applictions that are planned to be deployed.The dynamic content caching is achived as OracleAS Web Cache employes an advanced validation machanisam to maintain consistency with origin data sources like file systems,content management tools,content feeds and databases.This is further achived as Oracle As Web Cache supports ESI standards. ESI stands for Eege Side Includes which is an open specification for a simple markup language that enables dynamic page fragmentation, caching, and assembly. It improves the performance and reduces the cost of dynamic content creation.
More information on ESI can be found at http://www.esi.org/

Additionally OracleAS Web Cache allows HTTP and HTTPS content caching.Also Oracle As Webcache allows session related caching rules (which is maintatining session tracking without compromiosing on the caching) and Multi version cahing rules(Caching multiple versions for the same URL)

To make use of Oracle AS Web Cacheing you must upgarde your Oracle Applications to use Oracle Appliction Applications Server 9.0.2, the latest certified version however is 10gAS.

OracleAs Web Cache acn also be used to implment a reverse proxy in typical DMZ configurations.Wehn a user sends a request to the Web Cache via the load balanceer or DNS server the web cacahe sneds the request to the application server if it cannot find a chached page for the request,however if it does find a cached page the web cache will deliver the same directly to the browser.

You can also implemet Web Cache Clustering by configuring multiple instances of OracleAS Web Cache.These provide for a failover in case one of the Web Cache cluster member fails.The cache cluster members poll the failed Web cache server for its current status until it is reachable again.Apart from failover cache clustering also aloow to cache extra content by disturbuting the cache load across multiple Web Caches.OracleAS Web Cache uses the relative capacity of each cache to automatically distribute ownership of objects among the cache cluster members.

OracleAS Web Cache can also be used to do load balancing for Oracle Applications. It provides for Stateless Load Balancing and Stateful (Session Binding) Load balancing.

You can specify the Web Cache to compress both cachable and non cachable objects,in such a scenerio the web cache will compress the opbeject based on the object type and the browser type.It uses the GZIP algorithm for this purpose.

You can also go through the OracleAS 10g Web Cache FAQ available through metalink.

Due to the extensive deployment of OracleAS Web Cache it is essential for us to secure our Web Cache. Currently OracleAs web Cache security can be implemented using Restricted Adfministration,SSL and SSL Accleration.
Reffer to Securing OracleAS Web Cache for more information.

NLS/MLS in Oracle Applications.

With the globalization of business the NLS/MLS feature in Oracle Applications has come into use quite extensively.

NLS (National Language Support) refers to the ability to run an Oracle Applications instance in any one of the supported languages other than American English.

This includes the user Interface that is the customer facing forms reports etc.

The base langue (that’s is the underlying logic for the instance)continues to remain American English, though this can also be changed.

MLS (Multi Language Support)should not be confused to be different from NLS it is infact an extension of NLS. MLS refers to the ability to run a single instance of Oracle Applications in more than one supported language apart for the American English.

MLS enabled applications store the seeded data in both the base language and the translated language.

Also most applications with Oracle Applications are MLS supported.

You can check the base and installed languages of your oracle Applications by querying the table FND_LANGUAGES.

Your base language will be represented with the 'B' flag and other installed language with 'I' Flag.

>SELECT LANGUAGE_SHORT_NAME, INSTALLED_FLAG
FROM FND_LANGUAGES

Before implementing NLS/MLS it is important to make sure that your database character set will support your additional language.

The metalink note 333785.1 contains a table of all the supported languages and the langues that are planned to be supported along with their supported database character sets.

If you are implementing multiple languages or planning to install additional languages you can choose UTF8 as your database character set.

You can install the additional language during the installation of Oracle Applications (in this case you would have to stage the NLS software along with the Oracle Applications Software) or you can add an additional language after you have setup and installed Oracle Applications. You should must however apply translations for any paths that you may have applied after the installation of Oracle Applications and before the implementation of the additional language.

If you are installing the language after the installation of Oracle Applications it includes a series of steps starting from Licensing your language, updating your multilingual tables and using auto patch to install the NLS patch.

NLS release notes for 11.5.10.2(215868.1) contains the details steps of installing additional languages

At the database level once NLS/MLS is implemented Oracle Applications stores language specific attributes in a separate table know as the translation table, where as the language independent attributes are stored in the base table. As a result it is important to consider additional space requirements as far as the database sizing is considered before implementing NLS/MLS

Oracle Applications currently does not support the uninstalling of the languages once they are installed. You can manually update the FND_LANGUAGES table, though this method is also not supported by Oracle.

To print from Oracle Applications while using UTF8 to support NLS/MLS you must use PASTA (FNDPSTAX) utility which is shipped with Oracle Applications. This uses the pasta.cfg file for various print options.The file is located at $FND_TOP/resource.

There are various seed printer drivers that can used with PSATA printing like PASTA_LANDSCAPE, PASTA_PORTRAIT, PASTA_LANDWIDE and PASTA_DYNAMIC.

When applying patches on an NLS/MLS environment you must first apply the base language patch immediately followed by the translation patches of the other installed languages.

Shared APPL_TOP and Application Tier Filesystem

In the Shared APPL_TOP feature introduced by Oracle in E-Business 11i, Oracle allows multiple nodes to share a single APPL_TOP .In a shared APPL_TOP configuration, the APPL_TOP and COMN_TOP file systems can be installed on a single shared disk. The shared disk resource can then be shared via various network file protocols across multiple nodes to provide standard application tier services such as forms, web and concurrent processing. A shared APPL_TOP also significantly simplifies the patching or upgrade process since it has to be performed only once and changes made are immediately visible to all the nodes.

Here it is important to note that there is a difference between a Shared APPL_TOP and a Shared Application Tier File system. In a Shared APPL_TOP though the APPL_TOP(APPL_TOP and the COMMON_TOP ) is shared across different nodes, each nodes still have their individual ORACLE_HOME. In a Shared Application Tier FileSystem both the APPL_TOP and the ORACLE_HOME (ORA_TOP) reside on the shared disk.

The Shared APPL_TOP architecture was introduced in 2003 however with the release of 11.5.10 Oracle has extended this feature to share the entire application tier filesystem thereby further reducing disk space and bring down maintenance tasks.This is what is referred to now as the Shared Application Tier File System.

This feature i found to be particularly useful if your oracle applications environment uses multiple languages. Using the Shares APPL_TOP feature i do not now have to apply the translation on all the application Tier nodes but just to the Shared APPL_TOP.

In both the cases any changes on the shared TOPs like for example patch application is immediately visible to all the nodes of the application tier.

Another important factor to be kept in mind is that SHARED APPL_TOPS will not work if different nodes are on different Operating systems. So its mandatory that the different nodes of the application tier run on a same operating system or in other words the different nodes must be binary compatible.

Also as of now the SHARED APPL_TOP feature is not available for the windows version of Oracle Applications.

Apart from reducing maintenance tasks a shared APPL_TOP/Shared Application Tier Filesystem also improves scalability of the system as it less complex to bring in an additional node to improve performance.

There are various methods by with you can implement shared APPL_TOP like using Rapid Install or by merging existing APPL_TOPs

It is mandatory for you to have implemented autoconfig before you can proceed with the implementation of a Shared APPL_TOP

The metalink note Sharing the Application Tier File System in Oracle Applications 11i 233428.1 talks about implementing shared APPL_TOP under different Scenarios

While patching a shared APP_TOP you can just apply the path to any of the nodes and it will become visible to all the nodes, in case of applying a patch to 8.0.6 home or IAS_HOME you need to apply the patch only once but to a primary node.

Shared APPL_TOP and Shared Application Files system concepts are different from a Staged APPL_TOP. A Staged APPL_TOP is implemented to reduce your patching related downtimes by creating a exact clone of your production system, patching that system and synchronizing your cloned at database and application level to the production system.

This approach significantly reduced your patching downtime.

To knopw more about a Staged APPL_TOP refer to metalink note 242480.1

Oracle Applications Framework

The Oracle Applications Framework 11.5.10 was one of the exciting features that i found in the latest release of Oracle Applications 11.5.10

Oracle Applications Framework is also referred as OA Framework. OA Framework is a Java framework that excels at creating 3-tier web-based applications that link to an 11i Oracle Applications instance while maintaining all the security features of that 11i instance.

OA Framework makes a connection to the database using JDBC drivers.

An important significance of the OA framework model is that it facilitates the customization of existing out of box i modules as well as it allows development of new Self Service Web Application modules.

As a result the OA Framework provides with benefits of Productivity, Scalability, and Customizability etc.

Though the OA Framework is J2EE based, it also used various industry standards like HTML, XML, Java, JSP, SQL and Web Services.

The OA Framework Architecture is based on the J2EE MVC design pattern. The MVC architecture is a component-based design pattern with clean interfaces between the Model, View, and Controller. The Model is where the application implements its business logic. The View is where the application implements its user interface and the Controller is where the application handles user interaction and directs business flow.

Additionally OA framework also contain extensions to Oracle 9I JDeveloper called Oracle Applications Extension or the OA Extension. The Jdeveloper is a IDE client which allows you to do customizations and additions to the OA Framework.

The metalink note 275878.1 contains FAQ to use JDeveloper with the OA Framework

There are a number of profile options which are used to configure the OA Framework behaviour.

To know maore about OAF profile options reffer to note 275876.1

You can test your OAF by go through a series of tests which are accessible from the following URL

http://:/OA_HTML/jsp/fnd/aoljtest.jsp

Note: use your hostname and port identifier

The latest release of OA Framework is 11.5.10, if you are on 11.5.9 or any prior release you can user matalink note 275874.1 to upgrade and configure your OA Framework to 11.5.10.

You must also upgrade your JDK to 1.3 before proceeding with this, The metalink note 130091.1 will be helpful for upgrading JDK to 1.3

Another good note which might be useful is Oracle Application Framework Troubleshooting Note:275875.1

Extensive literature regarding OA framework has been published in the OA Framework Developers Guide