1 What's New in the Installation

This chapter describes new features in Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services. This chapter is mostly of interest to users who have installed previous versions of Forms and Reports Services.

To see a list of new features in the product itself, visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) site (http://www.oracle.com/technology). For frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the installation of Forms and Reports Services, visit the Forms and Reports Services Installation FAQ page on the OTN site (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/reports/htdocs/faq/faq_fr_services.htm).

This chapter includes the following topics:

• New Screen for Specifying the staticports.ini File

• New Element for Specifying Port Numbers for CORBA Communication

• Configuring Forms and Reports Services to Use the Services of an Oracle Application Server Infrastructure

• Cloning Forms and Reports Services Instances

• Additional Tool for Deinstallation

• New Kernel Parameter Required By OracleAS Web Cache

• Recording Feature for Silent Installations

• Generating Installation Statistics

• Change in the Default Port Range

• What's New in Oracle Application Server Forms Services

• What's New in Oracle Application Server Reports Services

1.1 New Screen for Specifying the staticports.ini File

In earlier releases, for components to use custom ports, you created a staticports.ini file to map components and port numbers. When you started the installer, you used a command line option to specify the file.

In this release, you specify the staticports.ini file in the new "Select Port Configuration Options" dialog box in the installer. You do not use the command line option to specify the file.

1.2 New Element for Specifying Port Numbers for CORBA Communication

This release introduces the ORBPorts element in the server configuration file to enable you to explicitly specify the port numbers used by Reports Server and engines for communication through CORBA. You can specify either a range of ports or individual ports separated by commas. For example:

<ORBPorts value="15000-15010"/> (Range of values)

<ORBPorts value="15000,16000,17000,18000"/> (Comma-separated values)

By default, the ORBPorts element is not present in the Reports Server configuration file. If this element is missing, Reports Server chooses a random port for CORBA communication. For more information about the ORBPorts element, see the chapter "Configuring OracleAS Reports Services" in Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web.

Note: The ORBPorts element should be defined only if the TCP port filtering has been enabled on the server where Reports Server is running. If port filtering is enabled, and a few ports can be opened for Reports Server, then use ORBPorts to specify them in the server configuration file for Reports Server and engine communication. If any of the ports are not available, Reports Server or engines may fail to start and an error displays.

1.3 Configuring Forms and Reports Services to Use the Services of an Oracle Application Server Infrastructure

In this release, you can configure Forms and Reports Services to use the services of an Oracle Application Server Infrastructure. Forms and Reports Services can then use the services of an OracleAS Infrastructure in the same way as used by the Business Intelligence and Forms components. For more information on the configuration, see Chapter 6, "Configuring Forms and Reports Services to Use an Oracle Application Server Infrastructure".

1.4 Cloning Forms and Reports Services Instances

Cloning is the process of copying an existing installation to a different location while preserving its configuration. In this release, cloning an installation of Forms and Reports Services instance is possible. For more information on cloning, see Oracle Application Server Administrator's Guide.

1.5 Additional Tool for Deinstallation

In this release, there is a new tool called the Deconfig tool that removes entries from Oracle Internet Directory and the Oracle Application Server Metadata Repository. You run this tool before you deinstall an Oracle Application Server instance using the installer. For more information about the Deconfig tool, see Oracle Application Server Installation Guide.

1.6 New Kernel Parameter Required By OracleAS Web Cache

In earlier releases, you had to check the values of kernel parameters on computers where you plan to install the OracleAS Metadata Repository. In this release, there is an additional check for the rlim_fd_max parameter. This parameter is required by the OracleAS Web Cache component. For details, see Section 3.4, "Kernel Parameters Required by OracleAS Web Cache".

1.7 Recording Feature for Silent Installations

The installer has a record mode, in which it saves your inputs to a response file. You can then use the generated response file to install Forms and Reports Services on different computers using the same values.

For details, see Oracle Application Server Installation Guide.

1.8 Generating Installation Statistics

The installer provides command-line options for monitoring resources used for installation.

Table 1-1 lists the options that are supported.

Table 1-1 Installer Options for Generating Installation Statistics

Option	Description
-printtime	Retrieves information on the time taken for the installation. The installer writes the information in the following file: oraInventory/logs/timetimestamp.log oraInventory specifies the location of your oraInventory directory. You can look in the /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc file to find out the location of this directory on your computer.
-printmemory	Retrieves information on the memory used for the installation. The installer writes the information in the following file: oraInventory/logs/memorytimestamp.log oraInventory specifies the location of your oraInventory directory. You can look in the /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc file to find out the location of this directory on your computer.
-printdiskusage	Retrieves information on the disk space used for the installation. The installer writes the information in the following file: oraInventory/logs/diskusagetimestamp.log oraInventory specifies the location of your oraInventory directory. You can look in the /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc file to find out the location of this directory on your computer.

For example, the following command provides information for the time taken, memory used, and disk space used for the installation:

runInstaller -printtime -printmemory -printdiskusage

1.9 Change in the Default Port Range

The default port ranges for the following components have changed:

• Oracle Application Server Reports Services

• Oracle Internet Directory

• Oracle Application Server Certificate Authority

• Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g

• Oracle Application Server Web Cache

For details, see Appendix C, "Default Port Numbers".

1.10 What's New in Oracle Application Server Forms Services

Much of the functionality that was handled by the Web server in Oracle 6i Forms has been assumed by components that are delivered with Oracle Application Server. For example, load balancing, security, scalability, HTTP/S communication handling, and deployment of Java servlets are all performed by various components delivered with Oracle Application Server, such as the Oracle HTTP Server and Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J).

The Forms Services component of Oracle Application Server handles all processing specific to Forms Developer applications, such as running the business logic defined in the Forms Developer application and providing the connection to the Oracle Database. A Java applet provides the client user interface.

New features for OracleAS Forms Services include:

• Improved Integration with Enterprise Manager for easier administration and manageability such as End User Monitoring.

• Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Pooling.

• Upgrade Assistant. For more information on the Upgrade Assistant, see Chapter 8, "Upgrading 9.0.4 Forms and Reports Services to 10.1.2 Forms and Reports Services".

For more information about these features, see Oracle Application Server Forms Services Deployment Guide.

1.11 What's New in Oracle Application Server Reports Services

The new features of OracleAS Reports Services include:

• A new output format SPREADSHEET, using which you can generate spreadsheet output directly from existing paper layout reports, while preserving the paper layout information such as colors, fonts, and conditional formatting in the output.

• Formatting enhancements that allow you to use a defined set of inline HTML formatting tags to format text style attributes, and generate formatted text objects in all bitmap output formats.

• Support for specifying table attributes for paper-based reports generated to HTML output.

• Improvements to right-alignment of text in PDF output, as required by languages that read from right to left.

• Standards compliance for HTML/HTMLCSS output and XML output.

• The capability to apply external style sheets and user-defined styles to your report or report objects when you generate HTMLCSS output.

• Enhanced implementation of font subsetting and improved font support to generate PDF output that is clearer, smoother, searchable, and accessible.

• Several graphing enhancements like support for dashed and dotted line graph.

• WebDAV destination enhancement to enable you to send report output to a specific Virtual Private Portal (VPP).

• Migration from Borland's VisiBroker to Sun Microsystems' industry-standard Java Developer's Kit Object Request Broker (JDK ORB).

• Improved integration with Oracle Application Server Control.

• New documentation that provides information and step-by-step instructions for cross-platform report deployment. Refer to Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web.

For more information about these features, refer to the Oracle Reports online Help.