Become Oracle Apps DBA: March 2007

1. Multi Master OID replication uses database advanced replication feature
2. It uses asynchronous data propagation between supplier and consumer.
** Supplier writes changes to its change log and then send batched jobs to consumers, consumers receive change logs and applies the changes locally and then purges local changes data.

Figure on left hand side shows activity at supplier end and on right is consumer end.

All replica member in multimaster replication act as supplier and consumer at same time.

Replication process at Supplier end (Left Fig.)
1. User modify an entry in OID (Oracle LDAP Server)
2. The Oracle directory server generates a change log object in the change log object store.
3. At a scheduled time, the Oracle directory replication server launches an outbound change log processing thread. This thread translates the change log object into a row—for example, Change entry—in the change log table.
4. When a change entry is committed to the change log table, Advanced Replication immediately copies the change into the deferred transaction queue.
5. After a scheduled interval, Advanced Replication pushes pending transactions from the deferred transaction queue across the network to the consumer change log table.

Replication process at Consumer end (Right Fig.)

1. Change arrives in consumer change log table from supplier
2. The Oracle directory replication server launches a change log processing thread for each supplier, based on a scheduled replication cycle. This thread first consults the change status table for the last change applied from the supplier to the consumer.
3. The Oracle directory replication server then fetches and applies all the new changes from the change log table to the Oracle directory server.
4. The Oracle directory replication server then updates the change status table to record the last change applied from the supplier before exiting.
5. Advanced Replication copies the change status update into the deferred transaction queue.
6. After the scheduled Advanced Replication interval, Oracle Database Advanced Replication pushes pending change status updates from the deferred transaction queue to the supplier change status table.

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Oracle Internet Directory Replication

Top three reasons for implementing OID Replication:

1. Local Accessibility and Performance requirement.
--- All major enterprise operate on geographically separated location with common directory and remote location are interconnected with low bandwidth its good idea to move to OID replication based on geographical locations for improved performance and local accessibility

2. High Availability & fault tolerance.
--- Implementing Directory Server on two or more replicated (multimaster) servers provide High Availability and better fault tolerance.

3. Better return on Investment.
---Deploying replicated OID in two or more small servers is always better in terms of Return of Investment (Scalable to increasing user load)

Type of replication (Single Master, Multi Master, Fan-Out)
Single Master: Only one supplier (Users can edit entry) and many consumers (Users can only read but not edit). Use LDAP or DB advanced replication protocol
Multi Master: Replica OID are Supplier as well consumer at same time from other Replica OID. Using DB Advanced replication only (can't be achieved by LDAP based replica)
Fan Out: A supplier replicating one consumer which in turn is updating other consumers.

Three command line tools which you can use to monitor and troubleshoot OID replication are

OID Replication Management Tools
remtool: Replication Environment Management Tool
oidreconcile: OID Reconciliation Tool
hiqretry: Human Intervention Queue Manipulation Tool

Apart from this you can use GUI tool i.e. oidadmin to administer Member of Directory Replication Group

Key Points you should know for OID Replication:
OID Replication Architecture is based on loose connectivity model (Two Replica Directory are not guaranteed to be consistent in real time)

In my coming posts I'll explain architecture of Multi Master Replication with processes at both Supplier and Consumer side (All Nodes in Multi Master replication act as both consumer and supplier)

For OID basics visit
http://becomeappsdba.blogspot.com/search/label/oid

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Installing Oracle Access Manager (Oblix COREid / Netpoint)

Thursday, March 22, 2007

I was working on Identity Management for quite some time & have seen lot of changes, From Netpoint to Oblix-COREid to Oracle-Oblix and now Oracle Identity Management , who knows what next. These changes in Identity Management are quite important and at same time required in rapidly changing Information era where management of Identity both from security and SoX compilance point of view is critical.

In today's post I am going to cover installation order of Oracle Access Manager (Formerly Oblix COREid)

The order of installation is important .

Installation of Access Manager
Access Manager consist of Identity System and Access System.

Phase I - Installing Identity System (Identity Server, Web Pass)

1. First component to be installed is Identity Server
--1.1 Start the installation from /software_location/ Oracle_Access_Manager10_1_4_0_1_XXXX_Identity_Server
--1.2Specify transport security Mode (open, simple, secure)
--1.3 Identify Identity Server
--1.4 Define communication detail (between Identity Server & Directory Server)
--1.5 define directory server details

Webpass can't be installed on same directory as of Identity Server

2. Then Install Web Pass (Each webpass should have its own webserver)
--2.1 choose install method GUI or command line and start installation from Oracle_Access_Manager_10_1_4_0_1_XXXXX_WebPass
--2.2 Specify transport security mode for webpass
--2.3 Identify web pass configuration details
--2.4 Perform automatic Web Server configuration updates

3. Next Setup Identity system
--3.1 Start setup process from browser, http://server:port/identity/oblix
--3.2 From Idm System console, Specify directory server and data location ----3.3 Specify Object Class details
--3.4 Confirm Object class changes
--3.5 Configure Master administrator
--3.6 Complete identity system setup

4. Add additional identity server instance (Optional Step, This can be done later as well)

Phase II Installing Access System (Policy Manager, Access System, Web Gate)

5. Install Policy Manager Note: Policy manager should be installed on same webserver and same directory level as WebPass
--5.1 Choose install method from GUI or command line /Oracle_Access_Manager_10_1_4_0_1XXXXX_Policy_Manager
--5.2 Identify directory server and Policy data location
--5.3 Specify transport security mode
--5.4 Update web server configuration
--5.5 Finish your Policy manager configuration

6. Next Step is Set up Policy Manager
--6.1 Start policy manager setup using http://servername:port/access/oblix --6.2 Specify directory server details to store policy data
--6.3 Configuring Authentication Schemes
--6.4 Completing policy manager setup

7. Install Access Server (Access server receives request from webgate or access gate(custom) and queries LDAP server for authentication,
authorization and auditing. Before installing access server you need to create instance for it from access console)
-- 7.1 Adding an instance in access console (http://servername:port/access/oblix )
--7.2 Install access server
----7.2.1 Start Installation in GUI or command line mode
----7.2.2 Specify transport security mode
----7.2.3 Define Directory server communication details
----7.2.4 Finish Access Server Installation
----7.2.5 Add additional access server (optional)

8. Install WebGate
Webgate is web server plug-in that communicates with Access Server for Authentication & Authorisation.
--8.1 Create WebGate Instance from Access Console
--8.2 Associate WebGate Instance with Access Server
--8.3 Install WebGate
--8.4 Update Webgate Web Server Configuration
--8.5 complete finishing task (Updating IIS Server Config, httpd.conf updates)

You can install additional optional components like

- Setting Up Access Manager with Virtual Directory
- Installing SNMP Agent- Installing Additional language
- Installing Audit-to-Database component

Oblix-COREid or Oracle Access Manager Architecture and key component's (Installed above) inter communication coming soon...

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Oracle Identity & Access Management II

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Oracle Identity and Access Management can logically be divided into three main categories

- Directory Service (OID, Virtual Directory, DIP)
- Access Management (Access Manager, Identity Federation, AS SSO, OeSSO)
- Identity Management (Identity Manager & DAS)

1) Directory Services - overview including OID, I have already covered in past at OID overview.

2) Access Management:
A) Access Manager - Controlling User Access to Enterprise resources. It also provides web based Identity Administration & access control to applications & resources. Provides User, password and group management. User access policies can be defined and enforced with high granularity.

B) Identity Federation - Allows companies to operate independently and enable cross domain user provisioning.

C) Single Sign-on - It provides built in integration with customer's IM
and addressing key challenges (for cross domain access) like automatic mapping, identity mapping access control navigation.

D) eSSO - Enterprise SSO is upcoming product which provide true SSO for all application and resource in an enterprise, without modifying existing
applications.

3) Identity Management:

A) Identity Manager - Allows automated user identity provisioning and deprovisioning. Key features of Identity Manager are password management, workflow & policy management, Identity reconciliation, reporting and Auditing. Identity manager also supports attestation (confirming access rights by user or system manager periodically). This is requirement from SoX compliance.

B) DAS - Delegating Administrative Services provides trusted proxy based
administration at User or Administrator level.

What is available to download & Install ?
There are two packages available which you can download & install based on requirement
- Oracle Identity Management and Access Management Suite (OID, Virtual Directory, Access Manager, Federation and Identity Manager)
- Oracle Application Server Infrastructure Component (OID, DIP, SSO, DAS)

More on Oracle Access Manager (Formerly Oblix) including Webgate, Webpass, Access & Identity System and Policy Manager coming soon ..

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Oblix COREid and Oracle Identity Management

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

COREid was Identity Management solution from Oblix formerly known as Oblix Netpoint. Oblix was taken over by Oracle two years ago in march 2005

Oblix COREid used to include
--Web Single Sign-On ,
--User Self Service and Self Registration,
--User provisioning,
--Reporting & Auditing,
--Policy Management,
--Dynamic groups and
--Delegated administration.

Oblix COREid products were re-branded as Oracle-COREid and consist
of
a) Oracle-COREid Access & Identity
b) Oracle-COREid Federation
c) Oracle-COREid Provisioning
d) Oracle Web Service Manager

What is Oracle's latest Identity Management offering ?
Oracle has released Oracle Identity Management version 10.1.4 and key components of Oracle IdM offerings are
- Oracle Access Manager
- Oracle Identity Manager
- Oracle Identity Federation
- Oracle Internet Directory
- Oracle Virtual Directory
- Oracle Web Service Manager and
- Oracle Single Sign-On Suite

(OID, SSO, Virtual Directory were part of earlier version of Oracle's Identity Management solutions and few new components which I am going to cover in my coming posts)

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Oracle Calendar Server Overview

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Oracle Calendar is Calendaring software from Oracle which is one of the component from Oracle Collaboration Suite which is product of Oracle Fusion Middleware Family.

Few features of Oracle Calendar software are
-Multiple Time Zone support
-International deployment
-email and wireless alerts
-ACE Authentication Compression and Encryption framework
-Easy configuration with mobile phones & easy sync

Installation Type for Oracle Calendar : Oracle Calendar software can be installed as part of Oracle Collaboration Suite Installation or as Standalone Calendar Server from Collaboration CD's.

Calendar Architecture:
Various processes/components in Oracle Calendar software are

UNIENGD: Calendar Engine Daemon- uniengd listener is listening for client request and for each client it either forks uniengd session process or creates uniengd session thread. All subsequent connections from that client are processed by this dedicated uniengd process (on Persistent TCP/IP) . For web client's, Web Server keeps a pool of persistent connections on startup.

UNILCKD: Calendar Lock Manager Daemon - This process grants read/write access on local node to client's UNIENGD process.

UNISNCD: Calendar Synchronous Network Connection Daemon- To read from remote node uniengd process dedicated to that client requests UNISNCD process for connection to remote node. (Note that this is just of read from remote node & not for write)

UNICWSD: Calendar Corporate Wide Services Daemon- manages request queue of each node on local host. Request can be like alerts, email notification or replication of data across various node (In Multi Node Calendar Installation)

UNIDASD: Calendar Directory Access Server Daemon- Used for LDAP directory server requests (Like OID and if you have installed Standalone Calendar any third party LDAP server your selected during installation)

UNICSMD: Oracle Calendar Server Manager Daemon- Used for remote administration of calendar server in multi node calendar Installation.

(More on Calendar Nodes coming soon)

More on Oracle Calendar Application System and few of its components like
-Calendar Web Client
-Mobile data sync
-Calendar Web Services

and

To access calendar over web or how to synchronize oracle calendar directly with your mobile phone or PDA coming soon .......

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Install Oracle Apps R12 on Linux VMWare

Monday, March 05, 2007

As promised here comes Oracle Applications R12 Installation on Linux Virtual Machine installed on my Windows Vista (You can try on XP or 2000 as well)

.

I purchased 500 GB USB hard disk from Amazon Western Digital 500GB "My Book" Premium 1C External Hard Drive USB2.0/Firewire - Retail kit and attached with my laptop for staging and installing Oracle Apps R12 .

Create an Staging Area

This step is not required but if you wish to install

Oracle Apps R12 for more than once its better to stage R12 software disk. This will also be helpful as you won't have to insert CD's manually during installation. Follow Page 29 or 1-13 of Oracle R12 Installation Guide to Create Staging Area.

Here is steps for creating staging on Linux
1. Verify you have perl version 5.0053 and higher (perl -v)
2. Run adautostg.pl from $StartHereCD/Disk1/rapidwiz/ (perl /../../.../adautostg.pl)
If you have downloaded Disks from edelivery this script is under zip file B42091-01_3of5.zip on Start Here Disk

For New Oracle Apps R12 Installation there are two options - Express Install & Standard Install (Express - Not much options available & it will do single user single node Install). Choose Standard Install for your customized configuration.
If you have selected Express Install you can't install it from root account , you have to use any other operating system account like oracle

Start Oracle Apps R12 Installation
To start Installation execute rapidwiz from startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz/ either from disk or from staging area if you have created one.

On Next two screen you have to accept license agreement & enter CSI number(type anything) and accept agreement.

In this screen you have option to select new configuration or an existing configuration (If this is a reinstall or from another instance or second node)

You have to select port pool , if this is first install on this machine then select any port pool else make sure ports are not conflicting with any other software. For me 3 is lucky number so I just picked it ;-) and Installation was successful for me)

In this screen enter database related configuration. I had to create base directory manually as it was erroring out for me.

Make sure users & groups you mention in this screen are already created on linux machine which you install (on VMWare).

Enter Application Tier Configuration on this screen . Notice Instance Directory which is new in Oracle Applications R12 which I am going to cover in future.

This screen will show you node information (Database Tier & Application Tier)

On clicking next , all prereq checks are made related to port availability, Host & domain name checks, file space .....

Fix related issues if any check fails .

This completes your setup task for installation & installer will prompt you to confirm Oracle Applications R12 Installation.

If you hit any issues during installation please raise them in forum at http://teachMeOracle.com/forum and Apps DBA Guru's will be there to assist you.

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Install Oracle Enterprise Linux on VMWare

Sunday, March 04, 2007

In last post at http://becomeappsdba.blogspot.com/2007/03/installing-vmware-linux-for-oracle-apps.html I discussed about Installing VMware on your windows machine which we will use to install virtual Linux machine on your Windows PC or Laptop. On this Virtual Linux machine, We will finally Install Oracle Applications R12 (Note that Oracle Applications R12 is not supported/certified on VMWare but you can install for testing purporse) .

In today's post I will install Oracle Enterprise Linux downloaded from eDelivery . Download first four CD's (32 bit) & unzip them on your windows harddisk. I unzipped them under "c:\Atul\Downloads\Linux" directiry & extracted iso files. Start VMWAre from Start/Programs Menu & select Machine which we installed yesterday. On Menu bar click on
VM -> Settings (Ctrl + D) Select CD-ROM & under Connection select Use ISO Image as mentioned in Picture.

Once you select first iso image & click on "Start This Virtual Machine" , it will start Oracle Enterprise Linux Install on your Virtual Machine.

Select Installation type as Server

You can select Automatic Disk Partitioning but if you want to partition as per your needs you can choose Manual Partition.

Enter Hostname for your machine, I selected my site name i.e. teachMeOracle.com

When it prompts for second CD , From VM -> Settings , click on CD-ROM and change location to second iso file and then for third CD. Make sure installation completes successfully. In next post I am going to cover step by step Oracle Applications R12 Installation on Linux Virtual machine which you installed just now on your windows PC/Laptop. Make sure you have downloaded R12 Disks .

Follow link Prepare for Oracle Apps R12 Installation

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Installing VMware Linux for Oracle Apps R12 Preparation

Saturday, March 03, 2007

In today's post I'll cover on Installing VMware on windows machine after that we will install Linux on windows Virtual Machine. Download VMware from http://www.vmware.com/download/ws and after downloading install it on your windows machine.

Download linux trail version from edelivery http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux

Select product as enterprise linux & Platform as x86 32 bit (almost all PC or laptops are 32 bit) ob 64 bit processor you can install both 32 or 64 bit linux but on 32 bit processor you can install only 32 bit software so select 32 bit . You have to download 4 CD's only.

Installing VMware on windows

Enter location of VMware Installation

This step completes your VMWare Installation on machine. Next lets configure Virtual Machine & later we will install Linux on this Configured Virtual Machine.

Configuring Virtual Machine

Type any name here , Initially I gave machine name as Machine1 which I later changed to TeachMeOracle.com . You can give any sensible name to your Virtual Machine.

I defined 100 GB for Oracle Apps R12 Installation as I am planning to install fresh database (without Vision data)
You can choose 200 if you wish to install Vision Instance of Oracle Applications R12. (Make sure you have that much space available on your hard disk)

This finishes your VMWare Linux configuration , Next step is to Install Linux on this VMware machine which I will cover in next post . In mean time down load 4 CD's Oracle-Linux from location mentioned on top & unzip this 4 disks to create iso files . We will use these iso files to install Linux on this virtual machine.

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posted by Atul Kumar @ 10:31 PM 30 Comments

About Me

Name: Atul Kumar
Home: London, United Kingdom

About Me: I am Independent Oracle consultant. If you wish to hire me on Contract or to Quote on project basis contact me at
atul @ onlineappsdba.com

See my complete profile

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