How to extract Oracle E-Business Suite OVM Templates to use on regular Linux

So if you're like me and can't wait to build your own E-Business Suite install fully from disks, why not use Oracle's ?

It's difficult because Oracle release them as large quantities of zip files, in an OVM-only format.

So I decided to try and extract them.

First thing to do is to download all the zip files from edelivery.oracle.com

( this is for 12.2.6 Vision )

rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4149895254 Jun 25 08:52 V861124-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4161834659 Jun 25 08:53 V861124-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4022878516 Jun 25 08:53 V861125-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4167947454 Jun 25 08:53 V861126-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4210862906 Jun 25 08:53 V861125-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4039052808 Jun 25 08:54 V861126-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3982516324 Jun 25 08:58 V861127-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4085427663 Jun 25 09:00 V861127-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4181580260 Jun 25 09:00 V861129-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4223529093 Jun 25 09:00 V861128-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4231089650 Jun 25 09:01 V861128-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4052472122 Jun 25 09:07 V861130-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4113458555 Jun 25 09:07 V861129-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3915350219 Jun 25 09:08 V861131-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3971929518 Jun 25 09:08 V861130-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4180779762 Jun 25 09:08 V861131-01_2of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  409489464 Jun 25 09:09 V861133-01.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4194429288 Jun 25 09:13 V861132-01_1of2.zip
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4225432547 Jun 25 09:16 V861132-01_2of2.zip

( whoa that's a lot ). 

Now download the assemble.sh file from Metalink  ( see Appendix A Note 2254565.1 ) 

This takes an hour or so and then 

This will give you a very large file 


-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 77706019328 Jun 25 10:20 Oracle-E-Business-Suite-12.2.6_VISION_INSTALL.ova

So what do you do with this ? 

well OVA is a tarfile really so 

tar -xvf and then we get 

-rw-------. 1 root root       11351 Apr 20 16:13 Oracle-E-Business-Suite-12.2.6_VISION_INSTALL.ovf

-rw-------. 1 root root 77706006528 Jun 26 12:18 Oracle-E-Business-Suite-12.2.6_VISION_INSTALL-disk001.vmdk

the VMDK is where everything is, in the portable disk image. 

So we need to get access to that. 

download the VMWARE VDDK Version 5 ( Google it ) as this allows Linux to mount these types of images 

Essentially we need to do the following now 

1.  Mount the vmdk as a flat image as Linux can't handle loopback multiparts properly 

2.  take the partition (2) via counting the 512 block offsets as the disk image we want and then mount that as a loopback 

3.  vgscan that mounted loopback 

4.  varyon the lv on the discovered PV 

5.  fsck the lv as the image was shutdown dirty, and the journal needs playback ( sigh ) 

6.  mount the LV to a mount point

et voila ! 

Most of the above is straightforward except amazingly point 5 which I just could not get to work, until some research seemed to indicate it might be a UEK issue, so switched to RHCK , tried again,  fsck went through first go, and the filesystem mounted ! 

So now we can access the files in the appliance 

( All thanks to THIS Link http://www.bokko.nl/vmware-linux-vmdk-file-mount-from-linux-host-with-lvm-filesystems/ ) which gave me most of the clues for points 1..4 

Thanks for reading, you've been great 

UKOUG and Oracle

So UKOUG Call for papers for the big conferences opened yesterday.

I am on the committee helping to put together Apps 17 looking at the tech components for that conference.

Also had some nice calls with Oracle in the US who are hoping we might be able to help them with some education

Its an interesting week.  Over in one of our big clients in the UK working on Oracle Cloud SAAS and PAAS

What have i been up to this quarter

Hi folks

Apologies for not blogging for a while

It's been a few months since I posted but its been very busy with client confidential work

I've been spoken at two or three conferences (  Oracle Partner in Malaga, Northern Tech Sig ) , I've put forward some talks for Openworld ( who knows ! )  and might be accepted for the Middleware SIG  in July

I'm also on the Apps Tech committee now for UKOUG so we're looking at the state of the art and seeing what kind of presentations might reflect our members orientation

We are working closely with Oracle on the various cloud initiatives - you may not know it but Oracle have 119 cloud services ( as of writing there are 116 on cloud.oracle.com, and 3 not listed yet ( Werker, Moat and Netsuite )

So what kind of work has been going on :

Well We are recommending Engineered Systems and ODAs on the hardware side, and building solution architectures around those

we are building IAAS cloud solutions for those taking steps into the cloud

We are developing PAAS integration solutions ( ICS and MCS ) with Oracle internally, and with partners like Auraplayer

And lastly we are driving SAAS implementations with Oracle's Fusion Cloud

Out at the far end we are working with customers on IoT, Robotics/Automation, and Bots which is really cool technology

Really interesting year and we're talking to Oracle - they might want our presentations used to help other partners ( was also filmed by Oracle for some partner connect stuff last week )

so a really exciting quarter - promise to get back blogging soon.  I've submitted an article for Oracle Scene so maybe it will get picked up

See you soon
Chris

some insights into new features into ICS December 2016 release.

Hi folks after a quiet (!) december I've decided to go back to Blogging  !

http://docs.oracle.com/cloud/latest/intcs_gs/ICSGS/toc.htm#GUID-51023E08-955A-4990-A071-767E3AD16A04__DECEMBER2016-739140CB

outlines some of the new features for ICS's new release ( Integration cloud service ) .

quote :
This release of Oracle Integration Cloud Service includes two new adapters (DB2 Adapter and Oracle Logistics Adapter) and enhancements to the REST Adapter, SOAP Adapter, FTP Adapter, and Salesforce Adapter. 
Enhancements are also provided for orchestrated integrations, scheduled integrations, orchestrated integration creation options, custom adapter uploads, Expression Builder functions, XPath extension functions, exported/imported integrations, diagnostic logs, and REST APIs. 

Some of the more important ones to me : 

Orchestrated orchestrations

Application event or business object: uses an event or a business object to trigger the integration. Schedule: uses a schedule to trigger the integration instead of an adapter.

These are really important. 


Here's some more detail about these : 

• Application event or business object: This integration uses an event or a business object to trigger the integration. For example, you create an integration with an Oracle RightNow Adapter as a trigger and an Oracle Sales Cloud Adapter as an invoke. The Oracle RightNow Adapter subscribes to an event from the Oracle RightNow application to trigger the integration.
• Schedule: This integration uses a schedule to trigger the integration instead of an adapter. For example, you add an initial invoke adapter to read a trigger file and a second FTP adapter to download the file for further processing. After designing this integration, you schedule when to run it. For more information, see Scheduling Integration Runs

Check back in soon for more information. 

new features in MCS 16.4.5

Hi folks

After a frenetic couple of weeks at UKOUG I can get back to blogging .  As some of you know I have been doing a lot of work with E-Business and Mobile enablement recently.
The new features list of Mobile Cloud service came out just recently and I want to share it with you. Let's explore it over the next few weeks !


Want to write an API in less than five minutes without writing a single line of code? Start with your sample data, then auto-create APIs with all the methods and endpoints you need. With the Express API path, you can create mock APIs and get your client developers started on building apps right away, without having to wait for the APIs to actually be implemented. Service developers can then use the mock API as a blueprint for implementation in JavaScript with Node.JS. The API Builder provides a fully integrated API design, authoring, mock, and implementation service, all in once place.

I think this will provide a really quick way to get up and running with MCS 

Does your company use a third party identity provider? No need to sync that provider with MCS’s SIM, thanks to our new virtual user feature. Simply obtain a SAML token, then exchange it for an MCS token to access MCS APIs.

This will continue the work in enabling integration with Enterprise single sign on suites. 

Mobile Cloud Service is now integrated with Syniverse, which allows you to send SMS messages to your mobile app users irrespective of platform.

 Another really obvious offering and well done for providing it. 

see below for more 

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/mobile-cloud/mcswn/index.html#GUID-8D9A7267-C6D4-43F8-9B05-DB1ADC568505__RELEASE16.4.5V3.1DECEMBER2016-7314B690

Creating an Application in Oracle Max - Part 5 - Adding Navigation and Testing

Continuing our series of Oracle Mobile Application Accelerator blog posts we will now set some navigation up

The QuickStarts added the screen navigation for the Opportunities and Accounts screen flows for you. You can traverse back and forth within them, but at this point, you can't access one from the other. Further, the dashboard isn't connected to the Opportunities flow, meaning that if you ran the app right now, it would open to the dashboard, but you couldn't drill down to the list of opportunities. In this step, you'll tie the app together by creating navigation actions from the dashboard to the Opportunities screen and from the Account screen to the Opportunity screen.
In this step, you're going enable your users to drill down from the dashboard into the list of opportunities.

1. Navigate to the Dashboard using either the Screen Flow or Application Screens tools in the navbar.

1.  the Preview, select the 30d metric component.
2. In the Properties Inspector, click Actions.
   
   1. Click Add Action. 
   2. Click Tap.
   3. In the Configure Action page, choose Navigate to Screen as the action that's triggered when a user taps a list item.
   4. Move the Navigate to Screen action into the field that says DRAG AN ACTION HERE.
      
   5. Choose Opportunities from the Screen menu and then click Save.
                                 
   

1. By setting the Opportunities list as the target screen, you enable users to open the list of all of the opportunities when they click the 30d metric. You need to refine this mapping so that users see only the opportunities that are projected to close within 30 days when they click this metric. You'll narrow the items that display in the Opportunities page using the Navigation Data Mapper:

1. The Current Screen category is open, displaying the field values that belong to the Statistics business object which back the Dashboard's LED Gauge components with data. Because these fields are used to return integers, you can't use them to control the display in the Opportunities screen. You're going to add a value instead, so click the Fixed Value category. 
2. Drag Fixed Value into the Closein field and then enter 30.

1. 1. Click Finish and then click Save after you return to the Configure Action page.
2. Repeat these steps for the 60d and 90d metrics by adding 30 and 60 in the Closein field.

That's done, so now let's look at mapping in the status meters

1. In the Preview, select the NA Region tile.
2. Click the Action tab in the Properties Inspector
3. Click Add Action.
4. Click Tap. 
5. Choose Navigate to Screen and then pick Opportunities from the Screen menu.
6. Like the counters, you want to filter the items that display in the Opportunities list. This time, you'll use the region codes to filter the data. To start off, click Navigation Data Mapper.
7. Open the Fixed Value category and then add a fixed value of NA to the Region field. 
8. Click Finish and then Save.
9. Repeat these steps for the rest of the status meter tiles. Enter SA, EU, and AP in the Region field. 
10. Click Screen Flow in the left navbar to take a look at the navigation from the Dashboard to the Opportunities screen.

In this step, you'll enable users to drill down from the Account detail screen to the Opportunity detail screen.

1. In the Screen Flow window, open the Account screen by double-clicking the Account screen shot.
2. Click the Actions tab. 
3. 
4. Because you created this screen using the QuickStarts, MAX has already added the Load Screen action for the List component. Because you're going to add one more, click Component Action. 
5. Choose Tap. 
6. Choose Navigate to Screen and then pick Opportunity from the Screen list
7. Click Navigation Data Mapper.
8. If it's not already selected, click the Current Screen category.
9. OID should be already mapped. 
1. Click Finish and then click Save after you return to the Configure Action page.
   With the navigation complete, the screen flow should look like this:
11. 
    
12. 

WELL DONE, we are finished.. Now to test 

You can install the test version of the CRM using the MAX App. You install the CRM app by scanning a QR code with the MAX App.
To generate this QR code.

1. Click Test.
   
2. Click Test on Phone.
3. Click Build Test Application
4. MAX generates the test QR code.
5. Click the Show QR Code icon.
6. The QR code for testing appears. When you're ready to share your app, you'll generate a second QR for the final version of the app.
7. On your phone, click the MAX app icon to open the MAX App.
8. In the MAX landing page, click Scan.( the big Plus sign)
   
9. 1. Aim the scanner at the test QR code.
   2. 1. Log in with your test user name and password and have a run through the application. 
      2. 
         
   3. 
      

Creating an Application in Oracle Max - Part 4 Adding the Accounts Flow

Welcome to Part 4 where we give access to Accounts information

In this step, you create a second screen flow that gives your users access to account information. The first screen lists your company's accounts. When users click a list item in this screen, they'll open a detail screen that shows them some basic information about the account itself and list of the opportunities that belong to it. As you did previously, you'll use the QuickStarts to build this screen flow
The Designer provides you with different ways to add screens to an app. Previously, you used Application Screens in the navbar to add the Opportunities screen. Here, you'll add a screen using the Properties Inspector for the Application Menu component.

1. Open the Dashboard by double-clicking the Dashboard snapshot in the screen flow.
   

1. In the Properties Inspector for the Application Menu component, click Menu Item.
1. Complete the Create Screen wizard as follows:
1. In the Landing Screen page, choose Simple Screen and then click Next.
1. Enter Accounts in the Screen Title screen and then click Next.
2. In the Content screen, choose List and then click Next, Finish
3. Click Accounts in the Preview. Then click Go to Screen in the Properties Inspector.

Now lets put some data in the list 

Previously, you enabled the dashboard components to display data using the Data Mapper tool. In this (and subsequent) steps, you'll use the QuickStarts. These wizards not only allow you to add data to your UI, but enable you to build entire screen flows.
To add data to the accounts list:

1. In the Properties Inspector for the List component, click the QuickStart icon.
1. Click the Add Data Quickstart.
2. In the Layout page, choose Title, Subtitle.
3. Choose Account as the business object.
4. Map the Account business object fields to the List Component as follows and then click Next.
• Drag name to the Title field.
• Drag city, state, country and region into the Subtitle field.
• We're not going to filter this data, so click Finish in the Query page.
5. Back in the Designer, the Accounts list displays in the Preview showing mock data.

Now In this step, you add a screen that lets your users see the opportunities that belong to a selected account along with some high-level information about the account itself.

1. Click Add a Detail Screen.
2. Choose Simple Screen with Summary. 
3. Enter Account in the Screen Title field and then click Next.
4. Choose List and then click Next.
   
5. Click Finish.
   
6. Click Go to Detail Screen.
   

1. Open the Components Palette and then select the Card Component.
2. Drag the Card component into the Summary Panel in the Preview
3. In the Properties Inspector, click the Properties tab
4. In the Properties Inspector for the Card component, clear the Graphic and Detail Section options. Select the Subtitle 1, and Subtitle 2 options.
5. 

1. Open the QuickStart menu, choose Add Data and then choose Account. Click Next.
   
1. In the Data tab, map the fields as follows and then click Next.
2. name->Title
3. city,state,country,region->St1
4. Website->St2  
3. You need to filter the data by the Account ID (aid) so that users can see the opportunity details that belong to an account. MAX has volunteered the aid from the parent screen (Accounts), so click Finish.
   

1. Resize the summary pane:
1. Double-click the Account screen header in the Preview.
2. In the Properties Inspector, click Custom and then decrement the size to 100.
3. Next, add data to the List component:
1. Select the List component in the Preview or in the breadcrumbs trail
2. If the QuickStarts panel doesn't appear, click QuickStarts and then click Add Data.
3. You need all of the list fields for the account details, so choose the default layout and then click Next.
   
4. In the Data Source page, click Opportunity.
   
4. 
2. You'll see the mapped data when you change the Icon field type from a graphic to a status meter. You'll do that after you filter the data in the next step.
3. You need to filter the data by the Account ID (aid) to allow users to see the opportunity details that belong to an account. Because the aid parameter belongs to the Accounts screen, click the Parent Screen category. Next, drag aid into the Aid field in the Query Parameters section of the screen. Click Finish.

1. In the Preview, select the Icon field
2. Change the icon field from an image to a status meter. The list data displays.

OK we are done adding screens and this blog post. 

In the next post we will cover off Navigation and Testing ! 

1.