I found a very useful service to help keep up with information that is released on the various Oracle blogs. Blogtrottr.com allows you to subscribe to feeds and have them sent to your e-mail. This can be set up realtime on in digest mode (at 2 hour, 4 hour, 6 hour, 8 hour, 12 hour, or daily intervals).

I stumbled upon blogtrottr.com when I realized that I had missed a blog announcement that Oracle Linux patches were now available on Oracle’s public yum site. This is a major announcement for companies considering what flavor of Linux to use. Many companies debate which flavor or Linux to use between Oracle and Redhat (and others, but those seem to be the big two for companies that are using Oracle products). The fact that you can now set up development systems without any cost for getting the linux patches and still run the same version of linux that you are paying for support on in production is another big plus for Oracle Enterprise Linux. There are a couple of downsides to using the public yum vs. paying the $119/year for network support that companies still need to consider. For more information, check out the blog entry on the Oracle Linux Blog.

For an excellent overview of the value proposition is using Oracle Linux, check out this entry on Wim Coekaerts Blog.

My presentations, 11.5.10.2 to 12.1.3: A Technical Perspective and Secrets of Successful 11gR2 Upgrades in an E-Business Suite Environment, have been uploaded.  The links are on the Downloads page.

If you are not aware, My Oracle Support enforces the limits to patch access during extended support of a product. If you try to download a patch that is in extended support, you get an error message telling you to contact Support Sales. I have no problem with this in general. However, I do have a problem when I cannot get patches that are required for a product still under premier support.

A major example of this occurs when trying to upgrade R12 to 11.2.0.2 because Oracle 11.2.0.2 uses time zone version 14 which means I need to upgrade the R12 tech stack to use time zone version 14 files. According to note 563019.1, this means applying the 10.1.0.5 time zone patch (9742718) to the 10.1.2 Oracle Home in the apps tier. Unfortunately, in spite the fact that R12 is still under premier support, it is not possible to download the required patch since 10.1 is in extended support.

This has not always been the case, If you were upgrading to 11.2.0.1, you would require the version 11 time zone patch (8524113). You can download this patch with a valid EBS CSI. You can also download patch 7695050, the required DST pre-req patch for time zone versions greater than 10. You cannot download version 13, 14 or 15 (the most current) patches at this time.

Hopefully, Oracle will get this resolved soon. Until then, all you can do is open an SR and have the analyst send you the required patch. Expect several iterations of them telling you to contact sales while you patiently explain this is to patch R12 which is still in premier support.

I will update this blog as soon as I can find a better solution (or Oracle fixes the access to the patch).

Update 8 March 2011: The patches still appear to be blocked, but I have been assured that Oracle is working to resolve the issue internally. They expect the patches to be available for download soon.

Update 31 March 2011: Still not available.  Hopefully this will be resolved before Collaborate.

Update 14 April 2011: Still not available.

My presentations from Openworld are now available on the downloads page.

Secrets of Successful 11gR2 Upgrades in an E-Business Suite Environment

What Does the End of Premier Support Mean for You (from the Database SIG meeting)