Oracle Apps PATCH Basics II
As Oracle Apps DBA patching is quite basic thing you do regularly so lets continue with basics . If you have not gone through my previous posts please do so now as its quite important to through basics .
Apps patches are buldled somthing like p123456_11i_Unix.zip where p menas patch next few digit are patch number Unix is platform or OS on which this patch can be applied.
When you unzip a patch you will see some files types which I am explaining here
readme.txt – This file contain steps to spply patches, List of Prerequisite patch should be there on apps Instance (If not apply that patch )
cXXXXXXX.drv c stand for copy driver file , this copies patch content to respective patch location , driver is like bus driver which provides instruction on work adpatch need to perform.
dXXXXXXX.drv d stand for Database driver & contain content related to database like creating packages, tables, adding column….
gXXXXXXX.drv This contain files related to forms , reports, graphis or messages
uXXXXXXX.drv Sometime these three types of files are bundled together into single driver file called Unified driver file
So now you know which type of driver file to apply where ? its common sense if this is d driver you just need to apply once on concurrent manager tier and c & g on all tiers as database is single & if you run it once its enough . If you applied it again by mistake its no harm & will not cause any issues . Similary c & g you need to apply from all tiers , because c will copy your content & g will generate message files.
If you are not sure where to apply what just apply it on all tiers & depending on your context file in APPL_TOP/admin/SID_hostname.xml it will apply where to install what by checking xml tag TIER_ADFORMS , TIER_ADWEB , TIER_ADADMIN open your xml file & see these parameters are there or not ( For xml file your system should be Autoconfig enabled ) all system after 11.5.8 by default are autoconfig enabled . For more info on Autoconfig check
http://atul-oracle.blogspot.com/2006/07/autoconfig-in-nutshellwhich-is-most.html
Happy Learning
Oracle Apps DBA