Tips for using the Oracle COMPATIBLE parameter for

The number of digits is meaningful, and many shops use less digits to make distributed communications easy between instances on different sub releases using compatible=10.2.

Failure to standardize the compatible parameter can precipitate the following error:
ORA-23375: feature is incompatible with database version

You should set the compatible parameter to the version of Oracle that you are using in order to use all replication features of that version of the database.


Here is the mapping for the compatible parameter digits:


Oracle Database Release             Default Value       Minimum Value   Maximum Value
Oracle8i release 8.1.7                        8.0.0                    8.0.0.0.0           8.1.7.x.x
Oracle9i release 9.0.1                        8.1.0                    8.1.0.0.0           9.0.1.x.x
Oracle9i release 9.2                           8.1.0                    8.1.0.0.0           9.2.0.x.x    
Oracle Database 10g release 10.1    10.0.0                    9.2.0.0.0        10.1.0.x.x
Oracle Database 10g release 10.2    10.2.0                    9.2.0.0.0        10.2.0.x.x
Oracle 11g Release 11.1                  11.0.0                  10.0.0.0.0        11.1.0.x.x
Oracle 11g Release 11.2                  11.0.0                  10.0.0.0.0        11.2.0.x.x

AQ_TM_PROCESSES setting for Oracle 10.2.0.4

WARNING: AQ_TM_PROCESSES is set to 0. System operation might be adversely affected

Fix Method as below:
In 10.2, it is recommended to leave the parameter aq_tm_processes unset
             and let the database autotune the parameter.

Setting aq_tm_processes parameter explicitly to zero which disables the time monitor process (qmn),
can disrupt the operation of the database due to several system queue tables used when the standard database features are used.

You cannot determine if aq_tm_processes is set explicitly to zero just by querying v$parameter.
A check to see if the parameter is explicitly zero is:
connect / as sysdba
set serverouput on

declare
mycheck number;
begin
select 1 into mycheck from v$parameter where name = 'aq_tm_processes' and value = '0'
and (ismodified <> 'FALSE' OR isdefault='FALSE');
if mycheck = 1 then
dbms_output.put_line('The parameter ''aq_tm_processes'' is explicitly set to 0!');
end if;
exception when no_data_found then
dbms_output.put_line('The parameter ''aq_tm_processes'' is not explicitly set to 0.');
end;
/

If it is set to zero, it is recommended to unset the parameter.
alter system reset aq_tm_processes scope=spfile sid='*';

However, this requires bouncing the database if unable to do so
alter system set aq_tm_processes = 1;

How to use & get user login's exe file to implement new module(Gui)

 IF  test_api.get_user_program__ > 0 Then doing new module.....
------------------------------------------
FUNCTION Get_User_Program__
RETURN NUMBER
IS


program_ VARCHAR2(48);
-- machine_ VARCHAR2(64);


CURSOR p_cursor_ IS
SELECT program
FROM fnd_session_runtime
WHERE SID = (select sid from v$session
where audsid = sys_context('USERENV', 'SESSIONID') ) ;


BEGIN


OPEN p_cursor_;
FETCH p_cursor_ INTO program_;


IF (p_cursor_%FOUND) THEN
CLOSE p_cursor_;


  IF instr( upper(program_) ,'GUI')  > 0  then
     RETURN(1);
 Else
    RETURN(0);
 END if;


ELSE
CLOSE p_cursor_;
RETURN(0);


END IF;
END Get_User_Program__;
-------------------------------------------

以IFS ERP(SOA架構)提昇企業敏捷力(Agility)

http://cpc.tw/consultancy/article/171
管理之道，盡在「精實」(lean)二字，亦即「把員工變聰明，企業變得更有價值」。近年來許多研究報告皆顯示，智慧資本影響企業之經營績效與價值，而且智慧資本各要素對績效除了有直接影響外，並會透過要素間之因果關係而間接地影響經營績效。而間接之影響關係模型中，最根本的人力資本會正向影響創新資本及流程資本，而創新資本也會影響流程資本，流程資本則進一步影響顧客資本，再透過顧客資本正向地影響整體企業經營績效。可見「流程資本」為企業追求智慧資本與價值之核心關鍵，而「流程資本」與企業善用資訊科技以追求「敏捷」(agility)具有密不可分之深層關聯。二十一世紀顧客需求個性化、產品生命週期逐漸變短、市場需求不穩定的變化等客觀事實已成必然趨勢，單一之管理思維恐不足以因應顧客之複合式需求，而以降低成本為目標之精實核心思維與以提高顧客服務品質為目標之敏捷核心思維，其組合應用將大有發展。因此可大膽預言:一流企業生存之道，乃在實現「精實-敏捷」(lean-agility)。

什麼是敏捷企業

　　敏捷企業(Agile Enterprise)是資訊時代和全球化製造環境中伴隨著敏捷製造的出現而產生的一個新概念和新的企業模式。敏捷的核心思維是靈敏快速，敏捷意味著企業要有靈敏改變業務流程和快速回應顧客的能力。過去企業經常受制資訊科技之調整不易，造成營運模式無法改變及創新，越是大型的企業，其管理越規範化，資訊流所需要的時間自然就越長，回應也就越慢。「敏捷企業」就是以實施「服務導向架構(Service-Oriented Architecture，SOA) 」將企業營運模式靈活化，增強敏捷能力。因此可大膽預言:如果企業不導入服務導向架構(SOA)，企業在未來就會沒有競爭力。

務導向架構(SOA)是一種架構模型，將服務視為元件，服務全由標準化元件組成，目的是為企業建構一個具彈性、可重複使用的整合性介面，促進內外部如內部應用程式、用戶、與部門等相關單位完美的溝通協同，儘速達到服務品質提升與快速回應的目標。服務導向架構(SOA)不是一種技術，它是一種建構、組織的方法，用來建立應用程式的運行環境，以及讓企業的業務機能能以「功能化」方式發展並永續累積。
SOA具有四項特點：

　　(1)分散式架構 (distributed)－資訊系統的架構，由過去的主從式架構，到後來的分散式架構，到現在的分散式SOA架構。SOA的組成元件是由許多分散在網路上的系統元件組合而來。

　　(2)鬆耦合的界面 (loosely coupled)－SOA 的作法是以界面標準來組合系統，只要符合界面要求，零組件可以任意替換，大幅提高系統變更的彈性度，從而提高軟體元件的重複使用、靈活性與可靠性。

　　(3)依據開放的標準 (Open standard)－完全使用開放標準是 SOA 的核心特色，使得不同平台的元件可互通與相互整合。

　　(4)以流程角度出發 (process centric)－在建構系統時，將工作的流程要求切割成服務界面，再依據服務界面開發(或選擇)合適的元件來完成工作。因此業務流程管理(BPM)得以由上而下從經營管理層面著手、從商業流程的角度出發，以建立持續改善的企業價值流程，以因應多變的客戶需求與組織業務的調整。

以IFS ERP(SOA架構)提昇企業敏捷力(Agility)

SOA(服務導向架構)所開發之商業應用解決方案，使更新整套應用程式的部分(有時下至任務等級)都是可能的，IFS ERP(SOA架構)已經透過許多真實案例證明這一點。
(如下圖一)

IFS ERP(SOA架構)目前已發展到第八代元件化核心技術，並首推第二代服務導向架構(SOA)模型-分散式事件驅動，使得IFS所有應用程式(ERP/SCM/CRM/PLM等)均可達成企業「即時業務整合」與「無所不在的雲端運算」，如此可確保企業系統之靈活度、彈性及未來性，同時因易於維護亦可降低企業風險及總成本。

　　IFS ERP(SOA架構)目前於提供企業全方位解決方案上可分為下列三種模式:
(如下圖二)：

第一在垂直型解決方案方面，包含製造系列、配銷系列、財務會計系列、人力資源系列、設備維護系列、工程系列、電子企業系列、業務行銷與客服系列等提供產業刀鋒解決方案。

　　第二在水平型解決方案方面，包含企業績效管理(含企業預算管理)、企業商業模型、專案管理、文件管理、品質管理、案例管理等提供產業跨機能解決方案。

　　第三在整合型解決方案方面，包含庫存生產MTS、訂單生產MTO、訂單裝配ATO、設計接單ETO、訂單配置CTO、專案生產MTP等營運模式之組合，可隨時調整因應企業營運模式之調整及轉變，而精實-敏捷(Lean-Agility)企業之實施導入亦可無縫接軌實現。

結語

　　鑒於傳統ERP系統非採模組化、元件化、鬆耦合設計，不易調整修改及客製，多數企業對導入ERP的成效都不甚滿意，無法彈性修改及客製是主要原因之一，企業?有理由受限於ERP系統而無法靈活變化其經營方式，企業需要的是一個可以隨著管理策略改變而易於彈性調整的ERP系統。而具備「服務導向架構」(SOA)將帶來下一波的資訊革新，可以視「企業需求易於調整修改及客製化的服務導向架構(SOA)ERP系統」才是符合未來企業真正需要的企業資源規劃(ERP)系統。

IFS: Of Vertical Focus, and Customers’ Agility and Choice

My blog post earlier this year discussed IFS AB’s (OMX Stockholm: IFS) continued market success in spite of the tough economic milieu. The IFS Applications suite is positioned as the intelligent Tier 1 enterprise resource planning (ERP) alternative choice for customers seeking efficient return on investment (ROI). The company’s “agile ERP alternative” message is well received by the market and interest in its product remains high.

In the meantime, the vendor has had one rather flat quarter in terms of revenues. Less impressive results were partially due to the fact that Q2 2010 was the best Q2 in IFS history, and partially due to the “lumpiness” in the investments of IFS’ target verticals (for example, the project cycles in the aerospace and defense [A&D] sector). The vendor has a fairly balanced sales pipeline globally, so naturally tragedies such as the Japanese earthquake or political crises in Africa and the Middle East also delay investments. One should not forget about the economic unrest in parts of Europe and the US either.

One Hiccup Doesn’t Change a Positive Outlook

The strength of the Swedish krona (the currency that the company reports its results in) also plays a role, given IFS’ sizeable revenues that come from markets with currently weaker currencies. On the other hand, a solid cash position in a strengthened krona might allow IFS to execute some more tuck-in acquisitions (similar to MultiPlus and 360 Scheduling).

Taking all of that into account, IFS’ slight decrease in overall revenue (but with increases in license revenue) and other areas for the quarter and positive numbers across the board in all key performance indicators (KPIs) for the first half of the year and on a 12-month basis keep the company on track for its annual targets. For the full 2011 year, the outlook remains unchanged, and IFS expects good organic growth in 2011, with stronger license sales and an improvement in earnings before income and tax (EBIT).

Recently I had an in-person briefing with IFS’ top management, which then prompted me to send them several prodding follow up questions. IFS is no stranger to TEC and has been a willing participant in our question and answer (Q&A) articles, never dodging even the “curve ball” questions (for more information, see TEC’s previous article entitled “Playing Devil’s Advocate with an Innovative Vendor’s Techies”). My questions to Dave Eager, director of strategic relations, and Dan Matthews, chief technology officer (CTO), and their answers follow:

PJ: Has your market and competitive landscape changed of late, and if so how?

DE: As you know, many of the markets we serve revolve around capital equipment, or capital projects, so they tend to have long lead times. This makes them less susceptible to fluctuations in the economy. This is one of the factors that enabled IFS to remain not only profitable, but to actually grow our revenue during the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009.

We still have a way to go on the recovery, but we have also seen that this recession has had another impact on the markets we serve, as they are no longer taking a “business as usual” approach of only looking at the “mega vendors” when selecting their business systems. This is because the implementation time is more critical for companies with international operations. Access to information must be seamless and instant across geographies and business units. Functionality must be specific to their industry requirements, but also provide ease of use to facilitate more rapid adoption from their end users. Because of this we are now seeing more activity in larger accounts where we might not have been invited a couple of years back.

PJ: What is your ideal customer profile now, given that you are admittedly staying away from generic widget manufacturing selections where price is the major winning factor?

DE: IFS focuses on industries where at least one of the following four core processes is critical to their business:

1. (Complex) Manufacturing,
2. Asset & service management,
3. (Capital) Projects, and
4. Complex supply chains (associated with these industries).

Examples of these industries include A&D, Energy & Utilities, Oil & Gas, Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC), industrial manufacturing, automotive, and process industries such as food & beverage (F&B) and mining. We become more competitive when two or more of these core processes are addressed in the same project. The more complexity companies in these industries have the better fit they are for IFS.

For example, companies that require support for the lifecycle of their products and/or assets from design, via build (or make) to operate and maintain/service, and even on to decommission are great candidates for IFS Applications. Another example would be companies with multiple “multi” requirements. By that I mean multi-mode production requirements (e.g., engineer to order [ETO], make-to-order [MTO], configure-to-order [CTO], batch, etc.), multi-country, multi-currency, multi-lingual, etc. Our ability to support multiple production modes across multiple regions, with multiple languages and currency requirements on one instance of IFS applications enables companies to not only get up and running more quickly providing faster time to benefit, but with a smaller IT footprint, thus providing a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

Retail, Mobility, and Other Topics

PJ: In light of the upcoming Retail’s BIG Show 2012 by National Retail federation (NRF), can you please elaborate more on the Centric retail solution in terms of what functionality is offered by Centric vs. IFS, joint customers, etc.?

DE: IFS Retail is a joint venture between IFS and Centric primarily targeting the European market (see here for more info). Since it is a separate entity from IFS I don’t have a lot of details to share with you, but in general, IFS offers all of the back-end ERP functionality, such as financials, purchasing, budgeting, forecasting, inventory, etc. For its part, Centric provides more of the logistics and in-store applications such as assortment planning, warehouse management, transportation management, store operations, and point of sale (POS). Together, the integrated solutions provide a single platform that covers the entire scope of a retail operation’s business processes. If you would like more accurate information that you can write about I can gladly arrange a briefing for you with the IFS Retail team.

PJ: What social and mobile applications are generally available (GA) now and under what exact names, and what is coming out soon? (For more information on the IFS Labs development in 2010, see the related blog post):

DE: IFS has since long offered mobile support as part of our service management solution. What is new now is a much broader general focus on mobile individuals. Some of our smart phone applications, or what we are calling IFS Touch Apps, are currently in the early adopter phase, with a planned GA starting in Q1 2012. The first Touch Apps, which are developed specifically for smart phone deployment, are:

• IFS Trip Tracker - The preferred app for anyone who wants to log travel expenses as they are happening and not when they have returned to the office,
• IFS Notify Me - Which enables approvals and authorizations of, for example, purchase orders/requisitions and travel expenses directly from the user’s smartphone.

These first two will be followed by apps for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Time Reporting. In addition to the early adopter program with our TouchApps there are our collaborative learning and unified communications projects, such as IFS Talk (code named Board). These are now finished projects for IFS Labs and we plan to begin rolling them out with the release of IFS Applications 8 next year, or in subsequent service packs.

PJ: How are your major system integrator (SI), independent software vendor (ISV), resellers, and other partnerships going?

DE: One of the things that differentiates IFS from most other vendors in our space, especially those of our size, is that we made a major investment in the late 1990s and early 2000s to develop a strong global direct sales and delivery infrastructure, which today encompasses over 50 countries around the world. As you know, this move not only had an impact on our profitability during that time, but also today it enables IFS to support large global rollouts of IFS applications directly and has contributed to our continued profitability and revenue growth, even during the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009.

That said, we also understand the value of partners, but having an excessive amount of partners can actually have a negative impact in that it can dilute the quality of services these partners provide. Instead, our strategy is to work more closely with a select number of global and regional systems integrators and distributors to ensure we can provide the best possible service to our global customer base. Some examples of recent collaborations with our global SI partners and distributors include the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with Lockheed Martin in the US, China Yangtze Power Corporation (CYPC) with UFIDA in China, a global electronics manufacturer in Japan with NEC, France Telecom with Capgemini, and Technip with Infosys.

Getting a Bit “Technobabbly”

PJ: What is your software as a service (SaaS)/on-demand strategy? Is that a factor in your market yet?

DM: IFS recognizes that with relation to business applications there are both drivers and inhibitors to cloud computing in its various forms. The key drivers are the same as in other parts of IT industry, namely the lower capital expenditure achieved through resource sharing with other users, reducing internal competence needs, and faster implementation by shortcutting the process of hardware and software procurement and installation. Inhibitors include the needs for application customization and integration with on-premise legacy systems, trust issues related to placing confidential and secret information in an environment outside the control of the company, legislation which may limit where data is located, and availability of the application.

The term “cloud computing” is these days used to describe several different concepts. IFS can see the following three aspects of cloud computing as relevant for large business applications such as IFS Applications:

1. Pricing models
2. Deployment model
3. Software + Service

For pricing models, although pricing really is a separate issue from cloud computing, the two are linked by expectations that a cloud computing or software as a service offering are priced as a subscription (e.g., monthly, or annually), or for the actual resources used (e.g., CPU hours, network traffic, storage). IFS is observing an emerging interest for subscription pricing in our customer base, and some IFS partners such as NEC have subscription priced offerings for IFS Applications in certain markets. As a contrast IFS has not observed any interest for resource usage pricing and thus does not see that as a viable model for the foreseeable future.

As for deployment models, this is really where the term cloud computing has originated. As you know, a cloud computing deployment model implies that the software is installed in a large scale virtualized data center, where resources such as computing power, storage, and network are shared between different applications. In a private cloud this data center is in house, whereas in community and public clouds it is provided and managed by an external party.

IFS sees its customers initially benefiting from cloud computing deployments through hosting of IFS Applications, and the underlying technology platform, in private and community clouds (Infrastructure as a Service [IaaS]). Understanding our customer’s needs and requirements IFS believe that single-tenant cloud deployments will be preferred over multi-tenant for the next few years at least. Over the next couple of years IFS expects interest in public cloud hosting to emerge as organizations become acquainted with these public clouds through use of other cloud based applications such as mail servers and office applications.

Finally, Software plus Services (S+S) refers to an existing software product being augmented or enriched by integration of cloud based services or functionalities. IFS sees many benefits of leveraging S+S, in particular using cloud based services for functions that require highly varying compute capacity, that need to access or process large amounts of cloud based data, or that serves peripheral or mobile users. IFS is already using S+S for individual functions such as the map functionality in IFS Virtual Map, which can be used to enable service technicians to view inventory locations, or service orders, with real-time traffic information, right from within IFS Applications.

Other examples include modules such as 360 Scheduling, a dynamic scheduling engine for workforce optimization that can be deployed as an integrated component of IFS Applications, or as a best of breed stand alone solution. IFS expects to move additional functions and modules with similar requirements to the cloud in the coming years. The recently announced IFS Cloud initiative so support IFS Touch Apps range of Smartphone apps is an example of using an S+S model for mobile access — an architectural approach to Smartphone apps unique to IFS.

PJ: Can you please elaborate on your recently espoused business intelligence (BI) strategy – with the “Built-in” and “By choice” options (see IFS’ press release for details) ?

DE: When it comes to a company’s BI strategy we find that there are the following two scenarios:

1. Those that want to keep their BI decision separate from their ERP selection, and
2. Those that prefer to have a robust BI solution built into their ERP system.

The Built-in and By choice options mean that whether a company is looking for a front-to-back BI solution built in to their ERP system, or a new ERP platform that will readily integrate with an existing chosen BI solution (star schemas, etc.), IFS Applications is a cost-effective answer. We are able to support these differing approaches because at the foundation of this solution is prepackaged metadata, so that data within IFS Applications readily plug-and-play not only with our own Microsoft-based BI solution, but also with other popular BI tools.

PJ: Why isn’t IFS working on implementing Microsoft SQL Server as another database option, given that SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) are your preferred BI tools, and they come free of charge with SQL Server?

DM: IFS’ very long-term product strategy does include the goal to offer IFS Applications on additional databases besides Oracle. The pace at which we execute towards this goal is decided by the investment needed, the benefits that would be achieved, and alternative uses of the investment. At present time this balance calls for a long-term evolutionary approach where dependencies and reliance on Oracle database are gradually removed over several years. IFS does not currently see a business case to accelerate this process, but we are monitoring the market development and re-evaluating the situation continuously.

One of the factors causing us to move slowly on this issue is that over recent years the focus of IT environments has migrated from the database to the middle tier. Where in the past the database was the center towards which all integrations, reports, and clients connected, that role is today taken over by the middle tier. This means that it is increasingly important for customers to choose middle tier platform (to reuse competence, for example) and decreasingly important to choose database. IFS is the only major ERP vendor that offer customers a choice of middle tier platform: RedHat JBoss, Oracle WebLogic, and IBM WebSphere. Finally the databases are slowly moving in the direction of becoming “black boxes” that manage and maintain themselves.

A second factor is the gradual and also long-term evolution towards cloud and SaaS. It could very well turn out that choice of database becomes a no-issue due to cloud usage before it becomes an issue for the other aforementioned factors.

A Peek into the Future

PJ: Is there anything that you are at liberty to volunteer on the company’s future moves, i.e., new functional scope, verticals, etc.? You did mention something about augmented reality and gesturing (Microsoft Kinect-like) tools during our last meeting, which caught my attention.

DE: From a product development perspective we will continue to focus on our target industries and the four core processes that are critical to their business. In addition to our functional scope, will continue to focus on development themes which include usability, mobility, sustainability and the effective utilization of cloud computing. IFS Labs, our development testing ground, will continue to explore ways to incorporate emerging technologies into IFS Applications to ensure we deliver a solution that is “future proof”.

Some of the areas we are exploring in the lab today include augmented reality, motion based user interfaces (UIs), additional ways to leverage the smart phone and social media in an attempt to combine consumer technologies with business applications to create user-friendly enterprise tools that make everyday work more productive, efficient and fun. I think it would be a good idea to schedule a briefing with you on IFS Labs and some of the activities we are working on.

Dear readers, what are your views, comments, opinions, etc. about the outlined market trends, and about IFS per se? How do you think the innovative vendor will fare against their formidable competitors in light of their espoused strategies and recent concrete moves? If you are IFS Applications users, I would appreciate hearing about your experiences with the product and the company.

come from:http://blog.technologyevaluation.com/blog/2011/10/27/ifs-of-vertical-focus-and-customers%E2%80%99-agility-and-choice/