EPM patch 11.1.2.3.500 has landed

Finally after a long wait EPM 11.1.2.3.500 has arrived and the patch comes in a bundled 1.8GB download or as Oracle likes to call it a superpatch.

There are a few exceptions as the .500 Essbase related products were released last week and are separate downloads, I believe this also applies to DRM.

Patch 17529887: Patch Set Update: 11.1.2.3.500 for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

The clients for EPMA, HSF, Crystal Ball, Predictive Planning and the Smart View Planning extension can be found under:

Patch 18383790: PATCH BUG FOR 11.1.2.3.500 CLIENT INSTALLERS PSE ON WINDOWS

It is amusing that the patch is under what is now known as Hyperion HUB in Oracle Support, if anybody can remember HUB it was the original name many moons ago before changing to Shared Services, everything seems to go in a full circle.

From my perspective these are the key updates:

New Database Certification:

• Oracle Database 12c release 12.1.0.1+

New Client Certifications:

• Windows 8
• Internet Explorer 10
• Firefox 24 ESR

Note: Support for Firefox 17 ESR is deprecated with this release.

• Microsoft Office 2013

New Server Virtualization Certifications:

• Microsoft Hyper-V (Virtualization Windows Server 2008 and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for Windows)

Mobile Certifications:

EPM Mobile App:

• iOS7, phone and tablet
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 phone and tablet

Tablet-Friendly Planning User Interface:

• iOS7, tablet only, Safari and Chrome browsers
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, tablet only, Chrome browser
• Windows 8 Standard, Pro and Enterprise Editions, tablet, Chrome and Internet Explorer 10 browsers

Financial Reporting:

• iOS7, phone and tablet, Safari browser
• Android 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, phone and tablet, Firefox 26+ browser

I know some will look at that list and ask where IE11 support is or windows 2012 server, well they are not there and considering how long it has taken for .500 to be released and how far 11.1.2.4 looks off you may be in for a long wait.

Also if you are using planning in non ADF mode then IE10 is not supported.

Besides some new additional functionality to various products I think the main talking point will be the EPM mobile app.

• Provides users with easy access to key business information, for faster decision making and improved process flow
• Enables on-the-go review and approval by managers and executives
• Allows approvals and workflow across Planning, Financial Management, and Tax Provision
• Offers a consistent user experience across EPM products by leveraging Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) mobile technology
• Is available for Apple and Android phones from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store

EPM Mobile is available for these EPM products:

• Planning
• Financial Management
• Tax Provision

A very interesting update for planning besides the new mobile functionality is the performance enhancement claims which seem to be suggesting a massive improvement in response times and memory and CPU usage.

• Response times were reduced by up to 98% comparing to earlier PS3 releases.  The improvements are greater with larger loads and with actions involving large forms, but even single user response times for actions such as scrolling through forms were 10-20% faster. 
  Memory and CPU usage were reduced resulting in more than a 50% increase in Planning server capacity. 
  
  These results are based on testing of an actual customer application with Hyperion Planning running on a Windows 2008 server with 12 physical cores.  The server had 144 GB RAM but the Planning heap size was limited to 4 GB.  Actual performance may vary based on application design and hardware specifications.

Unfortunately I don’t see the same sort of improvements mentioned for Financial Management.

Another noticeable configuration option is for Calculation manager which allows change from ADF to Bindows if performance issues are being experienced, is this Oracle agreeing there are performance related issues around ADF.

The readme for the patch is huge so it will take a while to digest as there are not only a large number fixes but at the same time a raft of known issues.

The patch in the main looks to be applied with just Opatch but depending on the product set being applied to there are quite a few additional steps to follow so make sure to read through thoroughly.

One thing is nice is that applying the patch looks to automatically install the required ADF patches in to oracle_common home.

Enjoy!