Oracle EBS DBA Services

We started exclusively as Oracle EBS DBA experts and continue to handle the toughest EBS DBA assignments.

Arc DBA Consulting was founded by Michael New who has specialized as an Oracle EBS DBA for the past 19 years. As a former Technical Manager for the Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS) group at Oracle Consulting Services, and senior EBS DBA for an Oracle Platinum partner dedicated to EBS implementations, Michael has been a key Apps DBA resource on some of the largest and most complex EBS implementations in the world. His principal charter for the company was to offer its clients expert Oracle EBS DBA services, and toward that end he assembled a team of other senior EBS DBAs such as Matt Burke, with whom he has worked for 16 years.

With such a team of EBS DBA veterans, Arc DBA Consulting has extensive experience assisting clients with EBS Releases 11i, 12.1 and 12.2 on some of the largest implementations in the world. We have supported a wide range of large and small implementation, upgrade, and migration projects throughout our careers, allowing us to apply their experience across our entire client base. Our industry expertise and continual exposure to varied EBS environments ensures that we implement the latest EBS best practices and technologies for our customers.

We can handle any and all technical aspects of an EBS installation, upgrade, or migration to meet your requirements. We provide DBA services to implement the EBS DBA steps over the entire project lifecycle, and work in concert with your IT team. For the EBS functional steps, we either work in concert with our EBS functional partner, OnPlan Consulting, or another functional contractor of your choice.

Our expertise with core Oracle database technologies and other Oracle applications, such as OBI and Hyperion, has enabled us to implement some of the most complex EBS architectural topologies and integrate them seamlessly with other Oracle and third-party applications. We offer best-of-breed consulting services for EBS customers and have implemented many advanced EBS configuration and integrations options. Below are highlights of notable EBS solutions we’ve offered our customers.

 

EBS Installation and Upgrade

  • Develop a technical upgrade strategy with the customer and upgrade an EBS development environment to the latest release.
  • Assist with subsequent test upgrades and the upgrade cutover to production.
  • Evaluate your company’s customizations and identify ways to reduce them before or during the upgrade process by implementing standard functionality instead.
  • Assess the existing application architecture, configuration, localizations, interfaces and customizations and conduct an in-depth review of all upgrade options.
  • Assess whether the existing technical configuration and interfaces will function properly with the new EBS release, prepare to incorporate any desired new features, then assist in configuring them.

 

EBS Architectural Design

  • Install or convert to a RAC EBS database architecture, or upgrade an existing RAC installation.
  • Install or migrate EBS to an Exadata database platform to optimize database performance by leveraging Exadata’s features such as Smart Flash Cache, Smart Scan, InfiniBand, Scale-Out Storage and I/O Resource Manager (IORM).
  • Add additional EBS Applications servers behind server load balancer (SLB), implement a Shared File System, and split web/concurrent tiers across multiple machines.

 

EBS Performance Tuning

  • Review EBS architectural implementation top-down with drilldown to key techstack modules.
  • Gather comprehensive performance diagnostics, including database performance metrics, bad SQL and PL/SQL, and slow forms and reports.
  • End-to-end performance tune the entire EBS system, isolate performance problems to particular tiers/components, and determine their root cause. System tiers/components tuned include EBS Applications, applications tier, concurrent manager, database tier, client and network, and operating system, storage and virtualization tiers:
    • Tune EBS products: apply Release Update Pack (RUP) and performance-related product patches, tune Workflow, implement a regular purge/archive process, and use automated, scripted tools such as EBS Test Starter Kits and Oracle Applications Testing Suite Accelerator to test runtime performance for frequent or critical jobs.
    • Applications tier:  Tune Forms, OC4J/JVM, CPU and response time issues and garbage collection, and resolve OutOfMemoryErrors, memory leaks and client process CPU drains.
    • Concurrent Manager: cache size, dedicated concurrent managers, FND table purging, workload management, and transaction managers for synchronous online processing.
    • Database: set mandatory and recommended initialization parameter settings, apply required performance patches, implement key database features such Auto Memory Management or HugePages, convert to the Oracle Applications Tablespace Model (OATM), optimize I/O and scheduled statistics gathering, establish baselines for different workloads, implement SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) and SQL Plan Management (SPM) features, link AWR with ASH data, address bottlenecks found when analyzing TKPROF trace files, and implement Advanced Compression for read performance boost and reduced storage footprint.
    • Client and Network: minimize browser footprints and maximize browser performance, and address network routing issues and packet loss.
    • Operating System, Storage and Virtualization: Tune parameters in Oracle OS configuration files, install OS Watcher and address hardware resource bottlenecks, tune NFS mount parameters, I/O, and VMware best practices for Oracle database and Java applications, such as setting VM minimum memory reservations.
  • EBS Integration with other Oracle Technologies and Applications
    • Implement Active Data Guard for the EBS Database for DR purposes, or to offload read-only activities such as real-time reporting and backups from a production to standby database.
    • Integrate EBS with a Single Sign-On (SSO) environment using Oracle Access Manager (OAM) and Oracle Internet Directory (OID).
      • Integrate Oracle SSO with third-party authentication systems such as Microsoft Windows (Kerberos).
      • Integrate OID with third-party LDAP directories such as Microsoft Active Directory.
      • Implement Oracle GoldenGate for data integration between EBS and other applications, including OBI and Hyperion.

 

EBS with OEM Cloud Control

  • Tune OEM metric alerts for EBS and customize them using Metric Extensions as a substitute for the Application Management Suite for Oracle EBS, which must be licensed.
  • Install and configure the following OEM management packs for EBS:
    • Oracle Application Management Suite (AMS) for Oracle E-Business Suite.
    • Data Masking Pack for E-Business Suite or Data Masking and Subsetting Pack for the EBS database.
    • Oracle Real User Experience Insight (RUEI).
    • Oracle Application Testing Suite and its components, including:
      • Oracle Load Testing Accelerator for Oracle Database.
      • Oracle Load Testing Accelerator for Oracle Applications.
      • Oracle Real Application Testing (RAT).

 

EBS security

  • As mentioned above, implement the OEM Cloud Control Data Masking and Subsetting Pack for the EBS database.
  • Perform a security assessment of the entire EBS deployment and the infrastructure in which it operates, comprised of the Application, Database, TNS Listener, EBS, Desktop, and operating environment layers (including operating system, storage, network, and virtualization components). Security recommendations for each layer span the five categories of hardening, network, authentication, authorization, and audit.
  • Harden the entire EBS system based on our security assessment findings, which are in turn based on Oracle best practices, to encrypt all Oracle EBS data-in-motion (including client browser traffic over the Internet or Intranet, and Discoverer and Endeca if used), and data-at-rest stored in the database data files. Some of the security protocols and Oracle licensed options/products involved in such EBS hardening are as follows:
    • Enable Transport Layer Security (TLS) and HTTPS (HTTP over TLS).
    • Enable the Oracle Advanced Security Option (ASO).
    • Implement Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) tablespace and column encryption.
    • Integrate EBS with Single Sign-On (SSO) and Oracle Internet Directory (OID).
    • Integrate Oracle Database Vault with EBS.