What’s New in This Guide

In this user guide, the nomenclature “11.12.x.0.0”, where “x” is a number, is used to indicate the release and patch releases for which the guide is applicable. When using this document be sure to replace ”x” with the number of the release that is being used.

Oracle Fusion Applications Release 12 (11.12.x.0.0) includes the following new and changed upgrade features:

• Direct Upgrade allows the upgrade from Releases 8 (and up) to Release 12. Direct upgrade is available for the supported platforms.

• A post upgrade step was added for upgrading the database to 12c.

  The following table shows other changes and new features introduced in Release 11.12.x.0.0:

  Table -1 New Features in Release 11.12.x.0.0

  Feature/Topic	Location in this Document / Brief Description	Feature Summary
  IDM Decoupling	NA	IDM decoupling includes the following changes: Upgrade of IDM from R1PS2 to R2PS3 Removal of OIM, SOA, and OIF server with fed migration at OAM
  PSR server consolidation	NA	Reduces FA footprint by co-deploying application to eliminate 17 managed servers from CRM, HCM, FIN, SCM and IC domains.Consolidation is done automatically for existing and scaled out managed servers during upgrade. There is no impact to upgrade tasks. For OVM environments only, if SCM Financial Orchestration server or SCM Pricing Application (now in the Configurator server in Release 12) is already scaled out before upgrade, then Internal Scale Out utility can be used to redo scale out accordingly.
  New Memory Requirements	Verify Memory Requirements	Includes changes in memory requirements for the hosts upgrading to Release 11.12.x.0.0.
  Installation of Fusion Middleware (FMW) PS7 / JDK 7	Uptake of FMW PS7 and JDK 7	After upgrade, the Fusion Middleware in the Fusion Applications environment is upgraded to 11g Patch Set 7 (PS7). Additionally, the version of JDK is upgraded from JDK6 to JDK7. These upgrades are done automatically in the upgrade flow. No manual task is required.
  RDBMS 12c	Upgrade Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Identity Management Databases to 12c RDBMS	Newer tech stack. After upgrading to Release 12, the databases for FA environments can be upgraded to RDBMS 12c. Release 12 upgrade is only supported with the databases still at 11gR2 (11.2.0.4). Newly provisioned Release 12 FA environments will be on RDBMS 12c.
  Apply Fusion Application Patch Bundles (FA PB) during upgrade	Stage Fusion Applications High-Water Mark Patch Bundles Download and Unzip Mandatory Post-Release 12 Patches	Reduces downtime by eliminating the need for applying FA PB patching after upgrade. The patch content for FA PBs will be applied in parallel during upgrade. In addition, if there are post-release patches (post repo) associated with FA PBs, the post repo will be applied during upgrade. FA PBs and post repo (if needed) must be staged before upgrade begins.
  Apply Language Packs (LP) during upgrade	Download and Unzip Release 12 Language Packs	Reduces downtime by eliminating the extra time needed for applying each LP after upgrade. LPs will be applied in parallel during upgrade.LPs must be staged before upgrade begins.
  Removal of the Patch Conflict Manager Utility (PCM)	Downloading and unzipping PCM is no longer required. The instruction has been removed from this guide.	Invoking PCM during upgrade flow is no longer needed.
  Stage Patch Rollback Automation Script	Download and Unzip the Patch Rollback Automation Script	This script is downloaded and unzipped to roll back conflicting FMW components that cause PS6 to PS7 upgrade issues.
  Policy Store Customization Lockdown	Direct Upgrade JAZN	No longer allows modifications to any Oracle shipped policies that will be reset to factory default and lock down starting Release 12 (some exceptions may exist). The policy store will be moved into FA DB.Enterprise roles will be deprecated. There is an associated pre-upgrade tasks to review policy, fixing before upgrade if an environment is upgraded from Release 9. No pre-upgrade task is required for this feature if the upgrade is from Release 11.
  Health Check Override	Override Health Checks	The Health Checker (HC) Override includes the following changes: Changes to location of HC override files Staging of Health Check override ARUs
  Check repository integrity after staging repository	Validate Repository	Run repository integrity check after the repository is staged. This check needs to be run only once per data center when the repository is staged. This is different from previous releases when the check had to be run in each invocation of upgrade.
  Patching Performance and Resiliency Improvements	NA	Reduces patching time by pre-installing binaries in pre-downtime, performing patch validation in pre-downtime, deferring ODI and BI RPD imports to post downtime, etc. Improves resiliency with auto retry and auto correct for FA Patch Manager and Auto Patch. There is no impact to upgrade tasks.
  Increase Tablespace for OTBI Schema	Ensure Free Tablespace for OTBI Schema	Recommended tuning before upgrade to avoid upgrade issues.
  Update the Database and Middle Tier Credential Stores	Update the Database and Middle Tier Credential Stores	This task is required for retrofitting and securing the common user credential between the mid tier and database hosts.
  Clean Up the Middle Tier Credential Store	Clean Up the Middle Tier Credential Store	This task is required for retrofitting and securing the common user credential between the mid tier and database hosts.
  Enable / Disable Oracle Java Virtual Machine (OJVM) in the Database	Enable Oracle Java Virtual Machine in the Database  Disable Oracle Java Virtual Machine Support	With database OJVM mitigation patch installed, you must enable OJVM before the upgrade. Then, disable OJVM after upgrade to allow the upgrade process to perform tasks that uses Java in the database hosts.