Preface

Intended Audience

Welcome to Release 12.1 of the Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Utilities.

This guide assumes you have a working knowledge of the following:

If you have never used Oracle E-Business Suite, we suggest you attend one or more of the Oracle E-Business Suite training classes available through Oracle University.

See Related Information Sources for more Oracle E-Business Suite product information.

Deaf/Hard of Hearing Access to Oracle Support Services

To reach Oracle Support Services, use a telecommunications relay service (TRS) to call Oracle Support at 1.800.223.1711. An Oracle Support Services engineer will handle technical issues and provide customer support according to the Oracle service request process. Information about TRS is available at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/trs.html, and a list of phone numbers is available at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/trsphonebk.html.

Documentation Accessibility

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Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Structure

1  Getting Started

This chapter contains basic information about Oracle E-Business Suite maintenance utilities, both command line and Web-based.


2  Installation and Upgrade

This chapter describes the utilities you use to install a new Oracle E-Business Suite system and to upgrade an existing system to a new release version.


3  System Configuration

During an installation or upgrade, your system is set up and configured based on the values you specify as a part of those processes. At various times after an installation or upgrade, you may need to reconfigure your system. Oracle E-Business Suite employs several utilities to aid you with this task. This chapter contains the following information about configuration utilities:


4  Maintenance

This chapter discusses the AD utilities designed to help you perform the routine maintenance tasks that will help ensure that your Oracle E-Business Suite system continues to run smoothly.


5  Reporting

This chapter describes various reports and views of your system, including information about patches you have applied to your system, statistics for maintenance sessions and the time it takes to run them, and other important system information.


Related Information Sources

This book is included on the Oracle E-Business Suite Documentation Library, which is supplied in the Release 12.1 Media Pack. You can download soft-copy documentation as PDF files from the Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/. The Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 Documentation Library contains the latest information, including any documents that have changed significantly between releases. If substantial changes to this book are necessary, a revised version will be made available on the "virtual" documentation library on My Oracle Support (formerly OracleMetaLink).

If this guide refers you to other Oracle E-Business Suite documentation, use only the latest Release 12.1 versions of those guides.

Online Documentation

All Oracle E-Business Suite documentation is available online (HTML or PDF).

Related Guides

You should have the following related books on hand. Depending on the requirements of your particular installation, you may also need additional manuals or guides.

Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts

This book is intended for all those planning to deploy Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, or contemplating significant changes to a configuration. After describing the Oracle E-Business Suite architecture and technology stack, it focuses on strategic topics, giving a broad outline of the actions needed to achieve a particular goal, plus the installation and configuration choices that may be available.

Oracle E-Business Suite Installation Guide: Using Rapid Install

This book is intended for use by anyone who is responsible for installing or upgrading Oracle E-Business Suite. It provides instructions for running Rapid Install either to carry out a fresh installation of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, or as part of an upgrade from Release 11i to Release 12. The book also describes the steps needed to install the technology stack components only, for the special situations where this is applicable.

Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide Documentation Set

This documentation set provides planning and reference information for the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration contains information on system configuration steps, including defining concurrent programs and managers, enabling Oracle Applications Manager features, and setting up printers and online help. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance provides information for frequent tasks such as monitoring your system with Oracle Applications Manager, administering Oracle E-Business Suite Secure Enterprise Search, managing concurrent managers and reports, using diagnostic utilities including logging, managing profile options, and using alerts. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security describes User Management, data security, function security, auditing, and security configurations.

Maintaining Oracle E-Business Suite Documentation Set

This documentation set provides maintenance and patching information for the Oracle E-Business Suite DBA. Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Procedures provides a description of the strategies, related tasks, and troubleshooting activities that will help ensure the continued smooth running of an Oracle E-Business Suite system. Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Utilities describes the Oracle E-Business Suite utilities that are supplied with Oracle E-Business Suite and used to maintain the application file system and database. It also provides a detailed description of the numerous options available to meet specific operational requirements. Oracle E-Business Suite Patching Procedures explains how to patch an Oracle E-Business Suite system, covering the key concepts and strategies. Also included are recommendations for optimizing typical patching operations and reducing downtime.

Integration Repository

The Oracle Integration Repository is a compilation of information about the service endpoints exposed by the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications. It provides a complete catalog of Oracle E-Business Suite's business service interfaces. The tool lets users easily discover and deploy the appropriate business service interface for integration with any system, application, or business partner.

The Oracle Integration Repository is shipped as part of the E-Business Suite. As your instance is patched, the repository is automatically updated with content appropriate for the precise revisions of interfaces in your environment.

Do Not Use Database Tools to Modify Oracle E-Business Suite Data

Oracle STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that you never use SQL*Plus, Oracle Data Browser, database triggers, or any other tool to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data unless otherwise instructed.

Oracle provides powerful tools you can use to create, store, change, retrieve, and maintain information in an Oracle database. But if you use Oracle tools such as SQL*Plus to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data, you risk destroying the integrity of your data and you lose the ability to audit changes to your data.

Because Oracle E-Business Suite tables are interrelated, any change you make using an Oracle E-Business Suite form can update many tables at once. But when you modify Oracle E-Business Suite data using anything other than Oracle E-Business Suite, you may change a row in one table without making corresponding changes in related tables. If your tables get out of synchronization with each other, you risk retrieving erroneous information and you risk unpredictable results throughout Oracle E-Business Suite.

When you use Oracle E-Business Suite to modify your data, Oracle E-Business Suite automatically checks that your changes are valid. Oracle E-Business Suite also keeps track of who changes information. If you enter information into database tables using database tools, you may store invalid information. You also lose the ability to track who has changed your information because SQL*Plus and other database tools do not keep a record of changes.