EBS 12.2.6 is now available.

 EBS 12.2.6(9/2016)>>>>>12.2.7>>>>>>12.3

  

Oracle recently announced the new version of EBS which is release 12.2.6.

For the upgrade customers: This is a online patch(Patch 21900901) and customers who are in ebs 12.2.x can move to 12.2.6 using online patching cycle.
Those users who are upgrading from 11i ,12.0 or 12.1 or doing a new install of 12.2 can apply this patch using apply_mode=downtime to take their ebs to 12.2.6. Also the minimum version of DB should be atleast 11.2.0.4

11i customers should first upgrade to 12.2 before applying 12.2.6.
12.0 and 12.1 customers should first upgrade to 12.2 before applying 12.2.6.
12.2 customers can directly apply 12.2.6.


In this, they have concentrated mainly upon three key areas.
Functional innovation
Modern user Experience and mobility

Operational Efficiency

Approvals, sign ordering documents becomes easy and can be done anytime, anywhere and at any time. Intelligent interleaving of inbound and outbound tasks were introduced to reduce deadheading. There are many others functional changes which have been done in this new release. More information can be found:

Oracle E-Business Suite System Administration Release Notes for Release 12.2.6 (Doc ID 2174164.1)

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.6 Readme (Doc ID 2114016.1)

Steven Chan blogs: https://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/entry/ebs_1226_now_available

From the system administration point of view, there are many interesting changes done in EBS 12.2.6

Feature Name

3.1 Secure Configuration Console

3.2 Allowed JSPs Restricted Access Enabled by Default

3.3 Allowed Redirects Restricted Access Enabled by Default

3.4 Changes to the Applications SSO Type (APPS_SSO) Profile

3.5 Proxy Auditing

3.6 Audit Trail Search HTML UI

3.7 Oracle E-Business Suite Forms in Read-Only Mode on the Responsibility or User Level

3.8 New Schemes for Storing Concurrent Processing Log and Output Files

3.9 Standard Request Submission Enhancements

3.10 Flexfields Value Set Security Setup Wizard

3.11 Flexfields Registration HTML UI

3.12 Improved Language Determination

3.13 Oracle Applications Manager Licensing for Lightweight MLS

3.14 Translation Synchronization Patches Manifest File for Full Mode Languages Only

Being an APPS DBA, 3.8 and 3.9 was more of a hit to me.

3.8- New Schemes for Storing Concurrent Processing Log and Output Files

This enhancement introduces additional choices of storage schemes for management of large numbers of concurrent processing log and output files. For example, these files can be organized by user name or by date. Customers can specify the scheme that best suits their particular needs.

The schemes are:

•SCHEME = single

 This is the default scheme. Request log files will go into $APPLCSF/log and log files will go into $APPLCSF/out.

•SCHEME = product

 Request log and out files will go to $APPLCSF/<product short name>/log and $APPLCSF/<product short name>/out, respectively.

•SCHEME = user

 Requests log and out files will go to $APPLCSF/<user name>/log and $APPLCSF/<user name>/out, respectively.

•SCHEME = date

 This scheme takes a string as a required parameter, and files will be organized in directories by date.

•SCHEME = reqidexp

 This scheme takes an integer value for a parameter. Directories will be created based on that integer and the request ID number place. For example, using this formula: result = int(request_id / 10^(parameter)) * 10^(parameter)

 If the argument is 1, request 12345 will be put in 12340

 If the argument is 2, request 12345 will be put in 12300

 If the argument is 3, request 12345 will be put in 12000

•SCHEME = reqidmod where reqidmod:<integer> (required)

 This scheme takes an integer value for a parameter. Valid values are all positive integers except for zero. Managers will create specified n number of directories starting with 0 (zero) and continue with other numbers in sequential order. Then, each manager process will perform the following function to determine log and output location: result = request_id mod <parameter>

 Requests log and out files will go to $APPLCSF/<resulting string>/log and $APPLCSF/<resulting string>/out, respectively.

•SCHEME = mgrproc

 Requests log and out files will go into $APPLCSF/<manager's process ID>/log and $APPLECSF/<manager's process ID>/out, respectively. Therefore, each manager's process will have its own directory.

3.9  Standard Request Submission Enhancements

The standard request submission (SRS) View Requests window has the enhancements listed below. These changes simplify the navigation required to perform these steps and/or reduce the number of mouse-clicks needed.

•Auto Refresh check box - When this box is selected, the form will refresh the list of requests after a specified interval measured in seconds. Use the profile option "Concurrent: Auto-refresh View Request Timer (secs)" to set this interval.

•Rerun Request button - This new button will resubmit the selected request with exactly the same parameters, after confirmation. Note that you cannot use this button to rerun non-SRS requests.

•Copy Single Request and Copy Request Set buttons - these buttons allow you to copy a single request or request set, respectively. A list of values is provided to select the request or request set.

•Submit a New Request and Submit New Request Set - These buttons allow you to submit a new request or submit a new request set, respectively. These buttons are also added to the Find Requests window.

Category

Name

Technical Name

Description

Changed Form Standard Request Submission (Forms) FNDRSRUN Updated Find Requests and View Requests windows.

Category

Profile Option Name

Feature Area

Description

New Profile Option Concurrent: Auto-refresh View Request Timer (secs) Concurrent Processing  This profile option sets the interval, in seconds, for refreshing the View Request window based on a timer, if the Auto Refresh box is checked. The default value is 300, if no value is given. The value 0 disables Auto Refresh

Beware of crontab - l

You have cron jobs running in Prod server and everyone is happy about it. Also you don't have the backups of cron entries. Now, by mistake, one of the junior dba executed the command crontab - l instead of running crontab -l. The cron did hang at this moment of time. To come out of this, he entered ctrl-d and exited out of the session as well as from putty. The next shift started and the other dba thought of checking the crontab entries and thus executed the command crontab -l...Eureka. He could not see any cron entires. Unix team forwarded the log file /var/log/cron and the term "REPLACE" was logged in when the dba executed ctrl-d. So be careful next time.