Running OEBS 11i on 64-bit Linux

[Artyom Kuznetsov]

Hi Arslan!

I'm in process of EBS 11i migration from AIX to Linux + Exadata, and found your excellent article http://ermanarslan.blogspot.com/2015/02/exadata-ebs-11i-exadata-migration-from.html. So thank you very much for sharing your experience!
As Oracle support certification matrix suggests, EBS 11i is certified with Linux 32-bit only. But in the article, you mentioned that you migrated to 64-bit Linux. Could you please share your experience in that - are there some issues and pitfalls to consider? Since Oracle Linux 5 and Redhat Linux 5 32-bit have the limitation of 16 GB RAM, it would be really helpful to use 64-bit Linux instead.

Best regards,
Artyom.

[ErmanArslansOracleBlog]

Hi Artyom.

Thanks.
Unfortuneatly, there is a typo there.. Thanks for pointing it out :)
I just modified that blog post..
The apps tier was 32 bit..
This is a must.
Yeah there is 16GB RAM limitation there..You may want to add more application servers if you need more processes and more memory in the apps tier.

Lets take a detailed look at this 32bit-64bit subject  ;

When we talk about an 64 bit EBS, we actually talk about an 64 bit Oracle Database + an Application tier which have both 32 bit and 64 bit components.

So yes! Even if our EBS environments are R12 and even if they are 64 bit, we still have 32 bit components deployed and 32 bit code running our  EBS environments.


Except some of the 64 bit executables such as executables in the Advanced Planning product line, the EBS apps Tier is 32 bit. That's why we apply 32 bit version of patches in to the R12 10.1.2 and R12 10.1.3 Oracle Homes.

Even for R12 application patches which we apply using adpatch, the situation is the same. We apply 64 bit version of these patches if they are available ..(these patches may deliver 64 bit files or may deliver 32 bit files, it may according to the situation, but we dont care), we just apply 64 bit adpatches if they are available, if tthere are not 64 bit patches, we apply the 32 bit patches.

What about 11i then? Why 11i apps tier is not certified and not supported in 64 bit Linux systems?
The answer is it is just not certified :) It is not optimized to run on 64 bit Linux Systems.

On the other hand; the difference between R12 apps tier and 11i apps tier is; EBS R12 apps tier, which also has 32 bit executables and components, is optimized to run on 64 bit Linux systems.

So keep that in mind, and 64 bit EBS R12 apps tier is not fully 64 bit, but it runs on 64 bit Linux servers stabily, because Oracle have made optimizations which let EBS R12 apps tier 32 bit code run on 64 bit servers.

[Artyom Kuznetsov]

Thank you very much for the clarification! My doubts has vanished, 32-bit is a must, so I have to use it