As hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast, BizTech took every possible measure to protect our data center and network infrastructure for extreme conditions. We prepared our Managed Services team in advance, and continued to provide round the clock services to our clients.

BizTech has over 500 customers throughout the East Coast.  We offer Managed Services, hosting and cloud options which provide comprehensive administration and support of the most critical Oracle Applications and Database systems. Our clients choose from day to day ad hoc services or complete system management in our state of the art hosting facility which is SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type 2 Compliant. Our solutions are scalable to fit organizations of any size.

• Backup the database (Always a good practice before any changes are made).
• Start the database in mount state (do not open it).
• Invoke the dbnewid utility

nid TARGET=sys/password@<CURRENT_ORACLE_SID> DBNAME=<NEW_ORACLE_SID>

• If the input parameters to the nid command are correct, the utility would ask for a confirmation to change the database name.

Change database ID and database name <CURRENT_ORACLE_SID> to <NEW_ORACLE_SID>? (Y/[N]) =>

• Once you confirm the operation it will modify the database name in all the control files, change the dbid in the datafiles and control files and show you the new DBID.
• After this operation is successful, shutdown the database.

Shutdown Immediate

• Startup the database in mount state to rename the DB_NAME parameter in the parameter file.

Startup mount
Alter System Set DB_NAM=<NEW_ORACLE_SID> Scope=SPFILE;
Shutdown Immediate

• Create a new password file using orapwd command

orapwd file=/u32/oracle/product/DB/1120/dbs/pwd<NEW_ORACLE_SID>.ora password=password entries=10

• Rename the spfile to match the new DB NAME
• Export the new ORACLE_SID (or modify it in the .bash_profile)
• Modify the tnsnames.ora and listener.ora to reflect the new ORACLE_SID and reload the listener.
• Open the database with resetlogs options( Note: all prior backups are rendered useless at this point as the database is opened in resetlog mode)

Startup mount
Alter database open resetlogs;

• Shutdown and take a good backup of the database.

Note: If you are using RMAN to perform backups, unregister the old database before performing this step and re-register it once the process is complete.

1. Shutdown Weblogic Server and all associated applications.
2. Set the Weblogic Server environment variables –
   $DOAMIN_HOME/bin/setDomainEnv.sh
3. Navigate to $DOMAIN_HOME/security and rename the DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift file.
4. Create an initialization file in the same directory  using the below command –
   java weblogic.security.utils.AdminAccount <weblogic_user_name> <weblogic_password> .
5. This will create a new DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift file.
6. Navigate to $DOMAIN_HOME/servers/AdminServer and rename the data directory.
7. Repeat step 6 for all the managed servers which are part of the domain.
8. If boot.properties is used, recreate them with the username and password that was provided in Step 4.
9. Start Admin Server and make sure you can login using the new credentials.
10. Start the rest of the services

Note: This process will remove all the user accounts in the weblogic domain and only the new user that is created will be present and act as a super user.

Oracle announces the availability of a new tool that provides comparison reports of E-Business Suite seed data between EBS 11.5.10.2, 12.0.4, 12.0.6, 12.1.1, and 12.1.3.  This new tool complements the information in the data model comparison tool.

The EBS ATG Seed Data Comparison Report shows EBS ATG Seed data Entity changes between two EBS Releases. This report can assist advanced users with reviewing changes prior to an upgrade.

This comparison report is available for the following combinations of EBS releases:

11.5.10.2( with 11i.AD.I.4 & 11i.ATG_PF.H.Delta.4) vs. 12.1.3

12.0.4 vs. 12.1.3

12.0.6 vs. 12.1.3

12.1.1 vs. 12.1.3

Installing EBS ATG Seed Data Comparison Report

Download “EBS_ATG_Seed_Data_Comparison_Report.zip”

Unzip and extract the EBS_ATG_Seed_Data_Comparison_Report.zip
The folder “EBS_ATG_Seed_Data_Comparison_Report” will be created after unzipping the file
Open/Navigate to the folder ‘EBS_ATG_Seed_Data_Comparison_Report’
Open file ‘EBS_ATG_Seed_Data_Comparison_Report.html’ in browser.
Do not rename the sub-folder ‘Data’ and its content (else it will break the report)

How to View this Report

The Report is divided into multiple re-sizable frames:

Top Horizontal frame – Allows Selection of a Product Family.

Left Vertical frame – Is for ‘Summary Statistics of Differences‘ for the selected Product Family Shortnames

Right Vertical frame – Shows the ‘Detail Statistics of Differences‘ based on the Product Shortname selected.

Top Right Horizontal frame – Shows the navigation path (breadcrumbs) based upon your selections in a special frame, which can also be used to navigate back to previous selections (instead of using the Browser back button).
Sample Report

Disaster Recovery Plans are generally part of a larger, more extensive practice known as Business Continuity Planning. DR plans should be well practiced so that the Business owners are familiar with the specific actions they will need to take should a disaster occur. DR plans must also be adaptable and routinely updated. Apart from the business critical applications availability, The most important component is human capital which is often overlooked by most corporations. Companies tend to assume that their staff will always be available. When a disaster occurs, sickness, disability of a key employee, or even a death, can have a devastating effect on a business. Business needs and the threats to business are constantly changing. New Customers, and software applications as well as changes to Infrastructure components affect Disaster Recovery plan. It is a good practice to update Disaster Recover Plans anytime a significant change is made to critical business process or the IT infrastructure that supports them. At a minimum, its recommended to test and update disaster Recovery plans on an annual basis.

Disaster Recovery Plan – 101

• Establish Recovery Time Objectives (RTO’s) and the necessary Infrastructure to achieve them.
• Define Disaster Recover Roles and Responsibilities
• Have a Disaster Recovery Communication Plan that details procedure for the activation of the Recovery team.
• Have Detailed Disaster Recover Procedures
• Validation of technical and personnel readiness
• Define Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives
• Testing and verification of technical recovery capabilities at least twice a year, and a team preparedness exercises at least annually.
• A comprehensive plan for providing end users access to systems, irrespective of how  networks and hardware may be impacted by Disaster.