Stat 6.3 - User Guide

Downloading Patches

You can download any Oracle Applications patch that has been uploaded to the Stat Repository. By downloading patches from the Stat Repository instead of Metalink, you can save network bandwidth and also avoid problems where the password to download a patch from Metalink is set to expire soon.

To download a patch from the Stat Repository:

Click Edit.

Stat opens the Edit Oracle App Patch window.

Click the File tab. Then click Download.

This opens the Select File dialog box where you specify the location where you want to save the patch file

Browse to the location where you want to save the file and click Save.

Defining Patches

After you upload a patch and save it to the Stat Repository, Stat populates the New Oracle App Patch window with the values it has read in the patch zip file, including prerequisites and drivers. However, you can specify additional information as needed. This is done on the General tab.

The General tab allows you to edit many of the same values you can view from the Patch Inventory tab on the Oracle Management Console. On the General tab you can also specify AutoPatch options which are additional default parameters passed to the AutoPatch command line during the patch apply process (users can override these parameters at runtime). The syntax for Autopatch options is name=value pairs separated by spaces. Also, an adop Options field is displayed for R12.2 patches. Here you can specify adop options which are additional default parameters passed to the adop utility during the Patch Apply process (users can override these parameters at runtime). The syntax for adop options is name=value pairs separated by spaces.Refer to your Oracle documentation for a list of valid AutoPatch command line options and valid adop parameters.


	NOTE: At any time you can edit the definition of a patch saved in the Stat Repository. This is done in the Edit Oracle App Patch window, which features the same interface as the New Oracle Patch window. To open this window, select the patch you want to edit in either the Patches tab of the Change Management/Version Control window or the Patch Inventory tab of the Oracle Applications Management Console and click Edit.

Prerequisites Tabs

If system administrators have designated an Oracle Applications environment as the default environment, whenever you upload and save a patch file, a process request is automatically sent out to determine if any other patches should be applied before you apply the patch that was just uploaded. The results are displayed in the Prerequisites tab.


	NOTE: Stat’s prerequisite analysis for Oracle Applications patches utilizes meta-data loaded with Oracle’s Patch Information Bundle File. Customers should establish a process to routinely apply the latest file for accurate prerequisite analysis.

The Oracle version the default environment is running on determines the number of tab-pages displayed for patch prerequisites. If the default environment is an 11i instance, only the Prerequisites (UMS) tab is displayed. If the default environment is a 12R instance, a second tab is displayed, Prerequisites. The Prerequisites (UMS) is for backward compatibility only and will be removed in a future release.

If a default environment has not been designated, or if you want to run the request for an environment other than the default, select it in the list of active Oracle Apps environments and click Get Prerequisite. The request is sent to the Stat Oracle Agent. After the request has been processed, you can view the results by clicking Refresh. Any prerequisites found by the agent are appended to the list.


	CAUTION: If the Oracle Agent is not running, Stat is unable to process the request and displays a warning message. When this is the case, re-start the agent and submit the request again. Also, when you click Refresh, any unsaved changes you made to the prerequisite list are undone, including manually defined or deleted prerequisites.

You can also manually add and delete patch records from the prerequisites list. To add a prerequisite patch, click New. Then in the Dependent Patch field, enter the ID of the Prerequisite patch. Optionally, specify additional information such as Platform and Language. To delete a patch prerequisite record, select it and click Delete.

If you try to apply a patch to an environment before any patches listed in the Prerequisites tab have been applied, you will receive a warning message. Autopatch may fail the patch application process if you continue with the request.

Drivers Tab

When you upload a patch, Stat reads the contents of the patch zip file and determines what driver files it must process and in what order. In the Drivers tab you can override the default processing order of driver files. This includes configuring Stat to skip a specified driver file.

The Drivers tab displays driver files for each platform and language targeted by the patch, which is determined by the patch zip files you have uploaded for this patch. The Order column displays the position of the file in the processing order. To change the processing order of a driver file, enter a different number in Order column for that file. To skip a driver file, enter “-1” in the Order column. When finished, click OK or Apply.

Merging Patches

Stat’s patch merging feature serves as an interface with Oracle’s Merge Patch utility, which lets you to merge several Oracle Applications patches into a single patch. After creating a merged patch, you can then perform an impact analysis against it or apply it to an environment. This saves you time especially when upgrading an environment to a certain patch level, for example, when the Test environment has been certified for several patches and the Production environment needs be upgraded with all of those patches at the same time.

Stat reporting also properly reports patch history for merged patches. When applying a merged patch, Stat recognizes each of the member patches as being applied. This information is then added to Oracle’s patch history table, which records the Stat name of the merged patch instead of default value, “merged.”

To merge two or more patches:

In the Patch Inventory tab, select the two or more patches you want to merge. Then click Merge.

Stat opens the Merge Patch Request window.

In the Patch Number field, enter an ID number for the merged patch.

(Optional) De-select the Merge non-US drivers in one option if you do not want to merge each non-US language driver into one.

The option is selected by default. Oracle recommends merging all US drivers into one and all non-US drivers into one, which means you will end up with one driver for US and one for non-US languages. If de-selected, you will end up with multiple drivers for each NLS language.

In the Merge Options field, enter any additional options for merging patches.

In the Environment field select the environment where you want the merge to take place.

In the Environment Server field select the server of the environment.

In the Working Directory field, enter the directory where you want the merged files to be copied.

This field defaults to the working directory defined for the selected environment server, but you can specify a different directory if the merged patch will be too large to be stored in the default directory.

In the Description field enter a description of the merged patch.

Click Send Request.


	CAUTION: If the Oracle Agent is not running, Stat is unable to process the request and displays a warning message. When this is the case, re-start the agent and submit the request again.

After the Oracle Agent processes the merge patch request, you can view the log files generated by Oracle’s Merge Patch utility in the Process Request tab.

Comparing Patches

The Environment Patch Level Compare Report generates a state-based report that identifies differences in patch levels across multiple environments. This helps you keep environments in sync and identify why an issue is occurring one environment and not another.


	IMPORTANT: If you want to compare a patch that was applied outside of Stat, first document the patch in Stat using the Undocumented Patch tool. For more information, see Object Tools and Wizards .

To select patches for comparison:

In the Environment History tab, click Compare.

Stat opens the Environment Patch Level Compare Report window.

Select each environment for which you want to compare patch applications. Hold down the <Shift> and <Ctrl> keys to make multiple selections, or click Select All to select all the environments.

If you want to compare patches from a particular date, select Show patches as of. Then browse for the date you want. Patch activity before the selected date will not be considered in the comparison.

If you only want to see only the differences that exist between patches applied to the selected environments, select Show only patch differences.

The default is to compare all the patches that have been applied.

(Optional) select Grid Compare if you want the results of the comparison displayed in a grid format.

Click Next.

The Results window displays the results of the comparison differently depending on whether or not you selected the Grid Compare option. In either case, the Results window is state-based, meaning it includes patches that were applied to environments due to environment refresh events. In addition, any patch applications that were deleted because of refresh events are excluded. For more information on state-based reporting, see Change/Service Requests .

In normal mode, the Results window shows only the last request for each patch, along with the last backout request (if applicable). Member patches are displayed when a merged patch is applied. A patch that failed or was backed out will always be displayed, even if only differences are shown.

In grid mode, the Results window displays environments across the top of the grid and patches down the side. The following visual indicators allow you to quickly identify the status of each patch for each environment:

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If a patch was successfully applied to an environment, the cell contents are displayed in black

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If a patch was applied with errors but not backed out, or if a patch was applied (either successfully or with errors) and but then backed out unsuccessfully, the cell contents are displayed in red.

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If a patch was applied (either successfully or with errors) and then backed out successfully, the cell contents are displayed in orange.

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An empty cell indicates a patch has not yet been applied to an environment.

Click Export List... if you want to export the compare results to a file.