Which is Better: Forms Servlet or Socket Mode?

Many products within the Oracle E-Business Suite have screens that are built with Oracle Forms.  Oracle Forms can be run in either servlet mode or socket mode.  Apps 11i is based on Forms 6i and is configured to run in socket mode by default.  Apps 12 is based on Forms 10g and is configured to run in servlet mode by default. What are these modes, and which is better?

What is Forms Servlet Mode?

The Forms Listener Servlet is a Java servlet that delivers the ability to run Oracle Forms applications over HTTP and HTTPS connections. It manages the creation of a Forms Server Runtime process for each client, as well as network communications between the client and its associated Forms Server Runtime process.

The desktop client sends HTTP requests and receives HTTP responses from the web server. The HTTP Listener on the web server acts as the network endpoint for the client, keeping other servers and ports from being exposed at the firewall.

What is Forms Socket Mode?

Initial releases of the Oracle Forms Server product used a simple method for connecting the client to the server. The connection from the desktop client to the Forms Listener process was accomplished using a direct socket connection.  The direct socket connection mode was suitable for companies providing thin client access to Forms applications within their corporate local area networks. For the direct socket connection mode, the client had to be able to see the server and had to have permission to establish a direct network connection.

Although the direct socket connection mode is perfectly suited for deployments within a company’s internal network, it's not the best choice for application deployment via unsecured network paths via the Internet. A company connected to the Internet typically employs a strict policy defining the types of network connections that can be made by Internet clients to secure corporate networks. Permitting a direct socket connection from an external client exposes the company to potential risk because the true identity of the client can be hard to determine.

Servlet Mode Advantages

1. HTTP and HTTPS traffic is easily recognizable by routers, while socket mode communications is generally considered suspect and treated on an exception basis. 
2. Existing networking hardware can be used to support basic functions such as load-balancing and packet encryption for network transit.
3. More resilient to network and firewall reconfigurations.
4. More robust: servlet connections can be reestablished if network connections drop unexpectedly for Forms, Framework, and JSP-based pages.
5. Is the only supported method for generic Oracle Forms customers, and therefore is more thoroughly tested by the Forms and E-Business Suite product groups.
6. Performance traffic can be monitored via tools like Oracle Real User Experience Insight (RUEI).
7. Socket mode is not supported on Windows-based server platforms.

Socket Mode Advantages

1. Uses up to 40% less bandwidth than Forms servlet mode.  This may be perceived by Wide Area Network (WAN) users as causing slower responsiveness, depending upon network latency.
2. Uses fewer application-tier JVM resources than servlet mode, due to fewer TCP turns and lack of overhead associated with HTTP POST handling.

Switching Apps Deployments Between Modes

Due to its numerous advantages, Forms servlet mode is the preferred and recommended deployment model for Forms on the web. 

There may be circumstances where you need to switch between the default Forms modes.  You might wish to switch your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 environment to socket mode to improve performance or reduce network load.  You might wish to switch your Apps 11i environment to servlet mode as part of your rollout to external web-based end-users outside of your organization.

If you're running Apps 11i and would like to switch to servlet mode, see:

• Using Forms Listener Servlet with Oracle Applications 11i (Note 201340.1)

If you're running Apps 12 and would like to switch to socket mode, see:

• Using Forms Socket Mode in Oracle Applications Release 12 (Note 384241.1)

Source: https://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/entry/which_is_better_forms_servlet_or_socket_mode

Installing a lower version rpm using YUM

You are trying to install a rpm and it got errored because of "missing dependency" where the dependency required is already installed but it's on a higher version.

# yum install ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU-1.2.7-1.el4
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Downloading header for ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU to pack into transaction set.
ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL 100% |=========================| 2.9 kB 00:00
---> Package ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU.i686 0:1.2.7-1.el4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: kernel-xenU = 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL for package: ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: kernel-xenU = 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL is needed by package ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU

Step 1:
Identify the "missing dependency" package you have.

# yum list kernel-xenU*
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Installed Packages
kernel-xenU.i686                         2.6.9-103.0.0.0.1.EL   installed
kernel-xenU-devel.i686                   2.6.9-103.0.0.0.1.EL   installed


Step 2:
If you have the higher version package remove it.

# yum remove kernel-xenU.i686
Setting up Remove Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package kernel-xenU.i686 0:2.6.9-103.0.0.0.1.EL set to be erased
--> Running transaction check

Dependencies Resolved
=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Removing:
kernel-xenU i686 2.6.9-103.0.0.0.1.EL installed 8.4 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 0 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 1 Package(s)
Total download size: 0
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Removing : kernel-xenU ######################### [1/1]

Removed: kernel-xenU.i686 0:2.6.9-103.0.0.0.1.EL
Complete!


Step 3:
Install the package with the required version

# yum install kernel-xenU-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
el4_latest 100% |=========================| 1.4 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Downloading header for kernel-xenU to pack into transaction set.
kernel-xenU-2.6.9-67.0.0. 100% |=========================| 198 kB 00:02
---> Package kernel-xenU.i686 0:2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL set to be installed
--> Running transaction check

Dependencies Resolved=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
kernel-xenU i686 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL el4_latest 3.6 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 1 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 3.6 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): kernel-xenU-2.6.9- 100% |=========================| 3.6 MB 00:37
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: kernel-xenU ######################### [1/1]
WARNING: No module mptbase found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway
WARNING: No module mptscsi found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway
WARNING: No module mptspi found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway
WARNING: No module mptsas found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway
WARNING: No module mptscsih found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway
WARNING: No module ata_piix found for kernel 2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU, continuing anyway

Installed: kernel-xenU.i686 0:2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.EL
Complete!
[root@shared Desktop]#


Step 4:
Try install your main package.

# yum install ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU-1.2.7-1.el4
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU.i686 0:1.2.7-1.el4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
Dependencies Resolved
=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU i686 1.2.7-1.el4 el4_latest 296 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 1 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 296 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0 100% |=========================| 296 kB 00:02
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxen ######################### [1/1]

Installed: ocfs2-2.6.9-67.0.0.0.1.ELxenU.i686 0:1.2.7-1.el4
Complete!

Change/Remove node entries from OCFS2 config file

Step 1: Stop the cluster service 
#/etc/init.d/o2cb offline
#/etc/init.d/o2cb unload

Step 2: Edit the config file 

/etc/ocfs2/cluster.conf

Step 3: Start the cluster service
#/etc/init.d/o2cb load
#/etc/init.d/o2cb online

Source: https://oss.oracle.com/projects/ocfs2/dist/documentation/v1.2/ocfs2_faq.html#O2CB

Changing the IP Address in 11i & R12

Symptoms

Users are not able to Log into the E-Business Suite Instance.  Trying to access the E-Biz Instance, statis page redirection to /OA_HTML/ApssLogin is resulting in "page can't find"

Cause

The IP address of the Instance is changed but DBA followed incorrect method.
Hence new IP address wasn't propogated to FND_NODES resulting in error.

Solution

E-Business Suite Instance recognise host name of the node not IP address, but it does store the IP address in FND_NODES under SERVER_ADDRESS column. Follow the correct method of IP Address Change in E-Business Suite Instance.

Middle Tier
1. Change the IP address on the servers. Remember to check changes at all places depending on the Operating System e.g. /etcc/hosts in Linux.

2. Ensure to change the entry for the hostname in the DNS lookup table i.e. specify the new IP address at the DNS server. Check it with 'nslookup'.

3. Stop the Middle Tier Services.

4. Run the following command to remove the old IP address from the Oracle Applications tables:

> perl $AD_TOP/bin/adgentns.pl appspass=apps contextfile=$CONTEXT_FILE -removeserver

5. Connect to SQL*Plus as apps user and run:

begin
FND_NET_SERVICES.remove_server('<SID>', '<hostname>');
end;
/
commit;
/

Note: Replace <SID> by the SID of the environment and <hostname> by the hostname in the environment. Both must be entered in upper case. 

6. Run AutoConfig on the Middle Tier to populate the FND_NODES.

7. Use following script to check if the change is reflected in FND_NODES table:

spool fnd_nodes
set pagesize 50
col node_name format a15
col server_id format a8
col server_address format a15
col platform_code format a4
col webhost format a12
col domain format a20
col virtual_ip format a12
set linesize 132
select node_id, platform_code, support_db D, support_cp C, support_admin A, support_forms F,
support_web W, node_name, server_id, server_address, domain, webhost, virtual_ip
from fnd_nodes
order by node_id;

Now the FND_NODES should have correct IP Address value.

8. For R12, follow Note 555214.1 OACORE Processes Won't Start After Increasing Their Number In Oracle Applications Release 12 In Context.xml to purge the lock files.

9. Start the Middle Tier Services.

Database Layer
1. Look for the hardcoded old IP Address in the following files:
a) listener.ora
b) tnsnames.ora (Local Naming) or check if any other naming method is used to resolve address.
Check if any of the parameter using the old IP Address.

2) Check if the parameter LOCAL_LISTENER and REMOTE_LISTENER parameter been set in Database Initialization file.
3) If its a Production Instance then its recommended to take the backup of the Database.
4) Please refer the Note 274476.1 and Note 363609.1 to have a detailed view to change the IP Address of the Database Server.
5) As the change is made at the OS (Operating System) level.Please ensure that the IP address gets reflected in the DNS server and also in the local host file.

Source: Correct Method of Changing the IP Address in 11i & R12 (Doc ID 751328.1)

Create Multiple IP Addresses to One Single Network Interface

Source: http://www.tecmint.com/create-multiple-ip-addresses-to-one-single-network-interface/

Install & Configure YUM on Linux

source: http://public-yum.oracle.com/#a6

Step 1:
cd /etc/yum.repos.d wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ovm2.repo

Step 2:
Open the yum configuration file in a text editor
Locate the section in the file for the repository you plan to update from, e.g. [el4_u6_base]
Change enabled=0 to enabled=1

Step3:
yum list
yum install firefox --- To install firefox software.

Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Webcasts

https://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/entry/e_business_suite_technology_learning

R11i / R12 : EBS Technology area - Webcasts delivered by Support and Development (Doc ID 1186338.1)
 

Migration Of Non-ASM 11g Database To ASM

http://orasteps.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/migration-of-non-asm-11g-database-to-asm/

Adding & Configuring a new disk to a VMWare Virtual Machine in Linux

Source: http://www.matttopper.com/2006/05/adding-a-new-disk-to-a-vmware-virtual-machine-in-linux/comment-page-5/
 
http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v9/ga/docs/en_US/Parallels%20Desktop%20User%27s%20Guide/27773.htm



Step 1: Open virtual machine settings
Select your virtual machine, as you can see from the photo I selected the Infrastructure virtual machine. Next press the “Edit virtual machine settings’ to open the Virtual Machine Settings dialog. 

Step 2: Add new hardware
From the “Virtual Machine Settings” dialog select the “Add…” button at the bottom of the screen. From this dialog you can also modify how much memory you dedicate to the machine when it boots.
Step 3: Select new hard disk
From this screen we can see the many types of hardware we can add to a virtual machine. You can emulate just about any piece of hardware that one can expect in a modern operating system. It definitely makes testing with different configurations and devices much easier. For our example we want to select “Hard Disk” and then select the “Next >” button.
Step 4: Create the virtual disk
In the next screen we see the three options for adding a new disk. We can “Create a new virtual disk”, this will create a brand new disk on the guest operating system. The second option, “Use an existing virtual disk”, allows you to mount a disk from another virtual machine. I like to do this with my “source” drive. I have one virtual disk that I’ve made that has all the Oracle and Linux CDs on it, that way I can just mount it to the machine I need when I have to do a new install instead of copying the binaries I need across disks, its definitely a big time saver. The last option is to “Use a physical disk”, this allows you to mount a local physical disk to the operating system. This option is akin to NFS mounting a drive to a virtual machine. To add a new disk we select the “Create a new virtual disk” option and select the “Next >” button.
Step 5: Select type of disk
Next we want to select the type of disk. I’ve been using VMWare for a long time and agree that the recommended Virtual Disk Type should be SCSI. I don’t know why, but I’ve had much better success with the SCSI virtual disks than the IDE ones. So in this step we want to select “SCSI (Recommended)” and the “Next >” button.
Step 6: Set disk size and options
Now we want to set the size of the disk we are creating. One of the nice features of VMWare is that you don’t have to allocate all of the disk when you create it. So if you create a 40 GB disk it doesn’t have to take it all right away, the disk will grow as your virtual machine needs it. I will say this is a big performance hit you take when the disk has to extend, but for most applications its OK. Also, I will warn that if the virtual disk grows and there is no physical disk left on the host operating system you will see a catastrophic failure and in most cases both the host and guest operating systems lock up and become unusable. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you) Lastly, you can split the files into 2GB sizes, while this isn’t necessary, it just makes all the disks much easier to manage and move around. For this step we want to set our disk size (12 GB in this case), I chose not to allocate the disk space right now (the machine has a 300 GB drive and has only 20 GB on it) and Split disk into 2 GB files.
Step 7: Name the disk file
This is actually pretty simple in that you decide what you want to physically call the disk and where to put it. .vmdk is the extension for VMWare virtual disks. After we name the disk we can select the “Finish” button which adds the disk to the virtual machine.
Step 8: Ensure new disk exists
So now we can see that the new disk has been added to the “Virtual Machine Settings” within the selected virtual machine. From here the disk acts just like it would if you added a new disk to a standalone server. So we select the “OK” button to continue.
Step 9: Boot the virtual machine
From here we just start the virtual machine like we would normally, either by selecting the button on the toolbar or selecting the “Start this virtual machine” link.
Step 10: Virtual machine start up
The machine boots normally as it would any other time.
Step 11: Create the Partition
After we’ve logged in and accessed a terminal window as root (or another user with root/sudo privs) we first want to run fdisk on the newly created drive. In Linux the first SCSI drive is sda, the second sdb, the third sdc, etc. since this was the second SCSI drive we added to the system, the device is known as /dev/sdb
The first command we want to run is fdisk /dev/sdb (NOTE: Thanks to everyone that caught my typo here) this utility works very much like the DOS utility of the old days and allows you to create and manage partitions. To create a new partition we enter the command n to create a new partition. This is going to be a primary partition p, and the first partition number 1. Because I want this disk to consume the full 12 GB I specified earlier we start at the first cylinder and end it at the last cylinder. We then want to write the partition table with the new partition we have just created so we enter the command w which writes the new table and exits fdisk.
Step 12: Format the partition
Now that we’ve create the partition, we now want to format the first with the new file system. I’ve decided to use ext3 filesystem for this disk, ext3 provides all the features of the classic ext2 file system plus journaling which helps to prevent disk corruption in the event of an improper shutdown and speeds up the recovery process. For a good overview of Linux standard file systems check out this article: http://linux.org.mt/article/filesystems So, to format the new partition we enter the command mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1. This command makes a new files system with the type t ext3 on the /dev/sdb1 partition, this is the first partition on the sdb disk.
Step 13: Create the mount point
Determine where you want to add the new virtual disk you’ve created. I like to create a partition specifically for all the software I install after the basic Linux install called /software to do that we run mkdir /software, just a simple make directory command. Once that is complete we then want to mount the newly created partition. Because we haven’t added the partition to the /etc/fstab yet we have to mount it manually. To do that we run mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /software. To break down this command we run mount with the ext3 filesystem type, the partition /dev/sdb1 to the directory /software. Pretty simple and straight forward. To check that the partition is properly mounted we run df -k which shows us the mounted partitions and the amount of available space.
Step 14: Open the fstab file
The fstab file holds all of the used disks and partitions, and determines how they are supposed to be used by the operating system. So we edit the file to add the newly created partition
http://www.matttopper.com/images/blog/adding_disk_to_vmware/15.jpg
Step 15: Modify the fstab for the new partition
After we open the fstab file in the previous step we add the following line:/dev/sdb1 /software ext3 defaults 1 1
The first column is the partition name, the second is the default mount point, the third is the filesystem type. The fourth is the mount options, in this case I used default which mounts the drive rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser and asynchronous. The 5th and 6th options are for the dump and fsck options. If dump is set to 1 the filesystem is marked to be backed up, if you are going to have sensitive material on the drive its a good idea to set it to 1. If fsck is set to greater than 1, then the operating system uses the number to determine in what order fsck should be run during start up. If it is set to 0 it will be ignored such as in the case of a cdrom drive since its a solid state disk. For more information on the fstab file check out this article: http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html
Lastly, we write and quit the file with the :wq command.
So now that the fstab has been written the drive will be mounted and unmounted when the machine is either started or shutdown. So there you have it, the quick and dirty process for adding a brand new disk to a virtual machine. Until next time…