1. Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide
  2. Understanding the EPM Cloud Troubleshooting Process
  3. Best Practices for Production and Test Environments

Best Practices for Production and Test Environments

This section explores some best practices for managing Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud. Topics include the change management process and the use of maintenance mode.

Always Test Applications in Test Environments

Oracle recommends that all activities related to building, fine-tuning, and testing applications be performed in the test environment before migrating fully tested applications from the test to the production environment.

After a monthly update is applied to test environments on the first Friday of the month, run a regression test on them to ensure that there are no issues. Immediately report any issues you find to Oracle by creating a service request.

It is important to perform testing on test environments with Service Administrator and other predefined roles to ensure that your business users do not face issues when they start using production environments that are updated on the third Friday of the month.

Use Maintenance Mode while Performing Administrative Tasks

The maintenance mode is a state in which only Service Administrators can perform tasks within the application; all other users are locked out. The application remains in maintenance mode until a Service Administrator returns it to regular use by turning off the maintenance mode.

When you set the application in maintenance mode, active users are signed out, which may result in losing unsaved data. To avoid data loss when an environment goes into maintenance mode, Oracle recommends that Service Administrators communicate the planned invocation of maintenance mode to users, advising them how to avoid losing unsaved data.

The following administration tasks, which consume a sizable amount of available computing resources, must be performed in maintenance mode.

  • Adding a cube
  • Refreshing cubes
  • Restructuring an application
  • Loading metadata
  • Loading data

Limit the Number of Users Who are Assigned to the Service Administrator Role

Assign the Service Administrator role, the most powerful role in EPM Cloud, to only a few users. If required, assign application roles to augment the privileges of users to allow them to perform tasks that are not permitted by their role assignment in identity domain.

For more information, see Managing Role Assignments at the Application Level in Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.