Metalink Note – Is OID 10g Compatible with Microsoft Active Directory 2008 [ID 944298.1] states that OID 10g is not certified with MS AD 2008. However, OID 11g is certified with MS AD 2008.

So, as OID 11g is not yet certified with Oracle Apps 11i, integration deployments with Oracle Apps 11i/OID 10g cannot be integrated with MS AD 2008.

Well, there is a way around to achieve this. However, that will involve introduction of additional component I.e. Oracle Identity Manager (OIM), a component of Oracle Identity Management Suite, provides a identity provisioning solution for Oracle and non-Oracle products. Oracle Identity Manager is certified to use with Oracle Internet Directory 10g and MS Active Directory 2008.

Oracle Identity Manager provides connectors for OID 10g and MS AD 2008, which allows users created in MS AD 2008 to be reconciled into OIM, which in turn will propogate user information to OID. In turn, OID will propagate those changes to Oracle Apps 11i FND_USER table.

References:

• Metalink Note: Is OID 10g Compatible with Microsoft Active Directory 2008 [Doc ID 944298.1]
• Oracle Identity Management

Performance reporting scripts tool is a collection of scripts which create a schema named OWA_PERF in the database to store performance data captured from OracleAS log files. OWA_PERF schema can be created in Metadata Repository database for test environment. Since the performance data loading and access consumes significant database resources, it is recommended that this schema should be created in separate database, other than the database used by OracleAS i.e. neither Metadata Repository database nor a customer database (used for application data).

Administrators can upload performance data from OracleAS log files, into the database using set of scripts provided. Performance reporting scripts set provides set of SQL scripts, which can be executed against OWA_PERF schema to access performance statistics for various Portal components in simple tabular format reports. 

Portal Page Access by Day Report

Performance reporting scripts provide a HTML file which contains links to performance reports generated via these set of scripts. 

Portal Performance Reports

References:

• OracleAS Portal Performance Reporting Scripts tool

IDM Suite comprises of more than dozen products to manage end-to-end lifecycle management for user identities. There are two different products that are available in Oracle IDM Suite to provide Single Sign-On functionality for web and desktop application resources:

Oracle Access Manager (OAM) : This is a identity management solution for web applications (legacy and custom applications) and user identity administration. OAM secure applications by providing centralized authentication, authorization and auditing to enable single sign-on for enterprise web applications. It also provides delegated administration and self-registration options with approval workflows.

OAM can use any LDAP-based directory as its backend repository to store policy, configuration, workflow, user, group and organization data.

OAM supports following authentication methods:

• Basic Username/Password
• X.509 Certificates
• Smart cards
• Two Factor Tokens
• Form-based
• Custom authentication via Authentication APIs

Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On Suite: Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On (eSSO) provides single sign-on functionality for all the enterprise applications i.e. web based, client-server and legacy applications. Users are able to use eSSO functionality whether they are connected to corporate network, traveling, or roaming between workstations. Oracle eSSO uses any LDAP directory or any SQL database as its user profile and credential repository. It accepts primary authentication from Windows logon. It acts as a Password Manager and provides n-level of authentication.

So where does OracleAS Single Sign-On fits into current identity management solution offering? or when I can’t use OracleAS Single Sign-On?

OracleAS Single Sign-On is a single sign-on solution available for Oracle Application Server 10g applications e.g. Portal, Discoverer, Forms, Reports etc. It also provides Single Sign-On functionality for Oracle Applications 11i/R12.

OracleAS Single Sign-On (SSO) has few limitations as far as OAM and eSSO is concerned:

• It needs Oracle Internet Directory as a authentication and authorization source, whereas OAM and eSSO can use any LDAP-based directory as a backend repository.
• OracleAS SSO cannot talk directly to any other directory service e.g. Active Directory or Sun LDAP. To achieve this, Oracle Internet Directory need to integrate with 3rd party directory service. It means customers ending up with one more directory service as a part of solution, even when they don’t need it.
• It has a limited auditing capabilities.
• OracleAS SSO provides a Windows Native Authentication (WNA) option for Windows users, which allows users to login seamlessly to OracleAS SSO applications e.g. Portal, Oracle Applicatons 11i/R12 etc., once they have logged in successfully into Windows domain. However, it provide single sign-on functionality for applications, which are integrated with OracleAS SSO only. Whereas, Oracle eSSO provides single sign-on functionality for all web and desktop applications (majority of them) that are running at user’s desktop, with minimal deployment effort.

To summarize, customer should use Oracle Access Manager to provide single sign-on functionality for web applications, and Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On Suite to provide single sign-on functionality for desktop+web applications.

Stay tuned for more discussion on Oracle Identity and Access Management technologies and deployment scenarios.

References:

• Oracle Identity Management
• Oracle Access Manager
• Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On

This patch set can be applied to following releases of OracleAS 10g:

• OracleAS 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.0, 10.1.2.0.2, 10.1.2.1.0, 10.1.2.2.0)
• OracleAS 10g Release 2 Standard Edition One (10.1.2.0.1)
• OracleAS Forms and Reports Services (10.1.2.0.2)
• OracleAS Portal 10g Release 2 (10.1.4, 10.1.4.1)
• Oracle Developer Suite 10g (10.1.2.0.2)
• Oracle BI 10g Release 2 (10.1.2, 10.1.2.0.2)
• Oracle BI Tools 10g Release 2 (10.1.2, 10.1.2.0.2)

This patch set will also upgrade Portal version from 10.1.4.1 to 10.1.4.2.

Oracle Applications 11i or R12 customer must check the certification matrix before upgrading standalone OracleAS 10g instances which are integrated with Oracle Applications environment.

References:

• OracleAS 10g Release 2 (10.1.2) Support Status and Alerts (Metalink Note: 329361.1)
• OracleAS Patch Set Notes Addendum 10g Release 2 (10.1.2) Patch Set 3 (10.1.2.3.0) (Metalink Note: 555681.1)

In this post, I would like to highlight the options available to search the content in Oracle Portal. Following are the options to search content in Oracle Portal:

• Basic Search – Item and Portlet: This is available as a built-in item type and portlet for Page Designer/Developers. It does not provide an option to provide search operators while performing search.
• Advanced Search – Portlet: It provides additional search operators for search. It also provides an option to search based on item/document attributes e.g. search based on Author of the item/document.
• Custom Search – Portlet: In addition to features available in Advanced Search portlet, it provides an option to define the layout of Search Form and Results Page. It also allows Portlet Publishers to use separate Search Results page for each of the Custom Search portlet. Another useful feature of Custom Search is that it provides an option to automate the search action based on search term specified i.e. whenever user will access the page, Custom Search portlet will perform the search and will display the results in portlet region. For example, end user can create Custom Search portlet to show list of documents uploaded to Oracle Portal in last 7 days.

Oracle Portal search options mentioned above, provide an interface to perform search on item/document uploaded to repository. Oracle Portal Search crawls and index the content/document in Portal repository at regular interval. Oracle Portal Search uses Oracle Text for indexing of items/documents uploaded by default. Administrators can enable/disable the option to use Oracle Text for Oracle Portal search. However, if Oracle Text is disabled in Oracle Portal, search will only return results based on terms found in item/document metadata only. In order to search the content of the documents uploaded e.g. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF etc. Oracle Text must be enabled.

Oracle Portal Search perform the search based on permissions available to end user i.e. users will be able to search the content/document for which he/she is authorized. Thus, it will not violate the security policy by searching the un-authorized content and returning results to users.

References:

• Oracle Text

SQL Worksheet

• Flashback. For 10g and 11g, you can use flashback on your data. See the Flashback tab on Tables.
• Separate unshared worksheet for connections for long running queries. Use the keystroke ctrl+shift+N. This will create a separate, unshared worksheet.

Navigator

• Run Manage Database report ( as SYS) to shut down and rest rat database
• Generate DB Doc (right-click for context menu on connections) for all objects in a schema. Open the generated index.html file in a browser to review objects.

Figure 1: Sample output generated using Navigator: Generate DB Doc option

Connections

• Support for LDAP and Authenticated Enterprise users
• OS Authentication

Tuning

• Open *.trc file in SQL Developer for a formatted trace file.

Reports

• ASH and AWR reports

It seems that Oracle is continuously extending the functionalities available in SQL Developer with every new release. However, I am definitely looking for a dashboard kind of reporting for specific or multiple databases. Hope we should be able to get that feature in future from Oracle or via 3rd party extension.

References:

• OTN: SQL Developer Home Page

For those who are curious, like me, to find out what Oracle is introducing in next release of Portal, I have summarised few of the new features in this post that I found useful:

1. A two-step portal export/import model based on database links configured between source and target portal instances. It will really improve the code deployment process among Portal deployments.
2. OmniPortlet will provide an advanced parameter form that allows you to populate a LOV dynamically based on a SQL query/database column. This feature is available in Portal 10g as well. However, it was not out of the box, it was required to tweak portlet configuration files, which was quite error prone. Another option is that develop your own custom parameter form based on PL/SQL. So, this new feature will definitely reduce the complexity and time involved in custom parameter form development.
3. BPEL-based Process Content Routing and Approval – a useful feature for customers who are using Portal as a document/content management framework, whether they want to leverage simple workflow included in Portal or more complex approval chain based on Oracle BPEL Workflow.
4. New list of portlets:
   1. Oracle Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (search submission and search results)
   2. Oracle BPEL (notifications, task analysis, reporting),
   3. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Siebel BI Tools)
   4. Hyperion System 9 BPM (Business Performance Management)
   5. Support for incorporation of portlets from Peoplesoft Applications, including PeopleSoft Version 9These features will allow customers to leverage Portal interface to publish dispersed content from various enterprise applications in personalized interface.

So next release of Oracle Portal will also enhance customers’ application integration experience where they want to extend Oracle Portal by building new presence-aware and context-aware applications on top of Portal layer, using Oracle WebCenter. Thus, adding Web 2.0 capabilities to Oracle Portal.

This is a glimpse based on Statement of Direction document, final product release will give us a real insight into what new features Portal Release 11 holds. Let us wait and watch.

References:

• OTN: Oracle Portal Release 11 – Statement of Direction
• OOW 2007: Oracle Portal Release 11 – New Features and Product Roadmap

LOHA provides a solution for a loss of host when you want to restore the original instances to a new environment without having to reinstall the instances and preserve the application data. LOHA automates the tasks necessary for the Oracle Application Server administrator to migrate Oracle Application Server instances from one host to another. The new host can be a different host running the same operating system or the same host after system re-install.

Following are the few points to be considered while using LOHA:

• LOHA supports all middle-tier installations (Web Cache, J2EE, Portal/Wireless, Business Intelligence and Forms), and the new host’s name can be the same or different from the original host.
• For metadata repositories and Infrastructure installations, only the target host name must be the same as the original host.
• For an Oracle Identity Management installation, full automation is supported if the new hostname is the same as the original.
• LOHA does not support the Toplink standalone install type.
• Manual work is required for different host names.

LOHA can move all the Oracle Application Server instances from one host to a new host if the new host does not have any other Oracle Application Server instances already running.

Like OracleAS Recovery Manager, Loss of Host Automation (LOHA) is a functionality that must be utilized by OracleAS deployments.

How LOHA recovers the OracleAS instance to new host?

It make use of node/image backup performed at former host to build the environment at target host.

In order to implement LOHA, one can refer to standard OracleAS 10g R2 documentation.

References:

• Oracle Application Server Administrator Guide 10g Release 2 (10.1.2)
• Oracle® Application Server Administrator’s Guide 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.2.0)

I have seen customers who have implemented Oracle Application Server instances and are relying on daily cold backup strategy for Infrastructure and Middle-Tier instances. Very few are using Oracle Database Recovery Manager (RMAN) to backup Metadata Repository Database.

OracleAS Recovery Manager is a tool that supports online backup for configuration files (including the J2EE applications deployed) and Metadata Repository Databases. It supports two types of backups for Oracle Application Server:

1. Image Backup: It includes the Oracle home directory for that instance, the OraInventory directory, the oratab file, and Windows registries on that node and finally a cold instance backup of that Oracle Application Server instance. Following images shows the files that are backed up during Image Backup:

2. Instance Backup: It includes the configuration information of Oracle Application Server components and deployed applications.  Instance backup is further divided into three types:

i) OracleAS Infrastructure Backup: It backs up the entire Oracle Metadata Repository database. Next, the tool requests Distributed Configuration Management (DCM) to create and export a consistent archive (jar file) of the configuration schemas from the DCM repository for DCM-managed components like Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and OracleAS Containers for J2EE (OC4J). Then, the tool adds the archive file to the backup.

ii) OracleAS Middle-Tier Backup: It backups the configuration information of all its Oracle Application Server components and deployed applications. Some of these components, like Portal, Wireless, Integration B2B, and Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer are not managed by DCM. They have their product metadata in the Oracle Application Server Metadata Repository database which is backed up by the Backup and Recovery Tool in the Oracle Application Server Infrastructure instance.

However, it can also be used to perform backup and recovery operations for Metadata Repository Databases created using Metadata Repository Configuration Assistant (MRCA).

As a best practice, Image Backup should be performed after installation or whenever any major configuration change (e.g. patch application) is performed. It serves as a baseline backup for all subsequent Instance Backups. Instance backup should be performed on regular basis.

OracleAS Recovery Manager provides another powerful feature known as Loss of Host Automation (LOHA). LOHA automates the tasks necessary for the Oracle Application Server user to migrate Oracle Application Server instances from one host to another. E.g. if you lost the operating environment due to hardware failure and you need to setup the complete environment at new machine, with fresh operating system; LOHA provides the functionality to restore the OracleAS instance to new machine by setting Oracle installation environment i.e. registry entries (for Windows), oratab entries (for UNIX/Linux), oraInventory entries, and system files. LOHA utilizes Image Backup to restore the OracleAS instance to its backed up state. I will explain more about this feature in future posts.

This tool is pretty simple to configure. Administrators can configure it via command line or using OracleAS Control Console. After configuration it populates backup template scripts located at ORACLE_HOME/backup_restore directory as per environment and components installed.

OracleAS Recovery Manager uses RMAN for database backups and recovery. It supports full and incremental backups for configuration files and databases. Administrators can use the pre-defined incremental backup scripts with various levels (Level 0, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4) and can customize them as per backup strategy requirements. Incremental backup levels are applicable to database backups only, and are not applicable for configuration files. So if administrator is using incremental scripts specifying Level 1, it will perform Level 1 incremental backup for Metadata Repository database and standard incremental backup for configuration files.

Moreover, this is the tool which provides underlying functionality in OracleAS Disaster Recovery configuration to restore node configuration i.e. OracleAS Guard make use of OracleAS Recovery Manager to read configuration changes at active node and apply at standby node.