Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts

Oracle E-Business Suite (also known as Oracle Applications) is a complete Suite of modules having functionlity to support many business functions like Manufacring, Financials, HR, etc.

We will try to cover some technical concepts related to Oracle E-Business Suite.

• Oracle Applications 11i
• This is the current latest release (as of Sept-06) family of Oracle E-Business Suite. The latest release is 11.5.10.2. The previous major release before this was 10.7. The Release number 11.5.x denotes the Major 11i release & 11.5.10.x , the “x” denotes the CU (Consolidated Update) version for the release.

• Oracle Applications Architecture
• For in-depth understanding of Oracle Applications Architecture, please visit the website(http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25516_08/current/acrobat/11iconcepts.pdf).
• Multi-Tier Architecture
• Desktop Tier
• This is the Client Interface for Oracle Applications. There are two types of interfaces : HTML Based & Forms Based(uses Java Applet)
• Application Tier
• Application Tier or Middle Tier performs the function of hosting of various servers which process the business logic & managing the communication between the Client Tier & Database Tier. There several logical components in this Tier :
• Web server
• Forms server
• Reports server
• Discoverer server
• Concurrent Processing server
• Admin server

• Database Tier

• Database Tier is the Oracle Database Server, which contains all the Oracle Applications Data. Also maintains the Online Help Information. There could be various type of Database Tiers :
• Single Instance
• Real Applications Cluster(RAC)

• Oracle Applications Technology Layer

• This Layer provides function for all the common modules for Oracle Applications. Following are some of the products in this Layer:
• Oracle Applications DBA (AD)
• Oracle Applications Object Library (FND)
• Oracle Applications Utilities (AU)
• Oracle Common Modules (AK)
• Oracle Workflow (WF)
• Oracle Alert (ALR)
• Oracle Applications Framework (FWK)
• Oracle XML Publisher (XDO)

All these Tiers can either be in a Single Node(Machine) or seperated in several nodes depending upon the business requirements.

This is just a start for this Topic, I am thinking of making these learning topics small & quick to grasp kind of things. Also would include some practical tips & quesitons/answers in order to understand topics easily. For more reading one can always go for the Oracle Applications Documentation available on OTN.

Please share your comments for me to know what people think about it !!