R12 Tech Stack Tit Bits

1) Why do we have 2 homes in R12[10.1.2 and 10.1.3] ?


10.1.2 is also called C Home. Where Forms and Reports are run but it doesn’t have latest OC4J. Latest OC4J is obtained from 10.1.3 Home (a.k.a Java Home). Forms and Reports are not included in each Application Server releases (say 10.1.2, 10.1.3)  because they have become a matured product and they don’t need as many release cycles as others. So with both 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 we are using latest Java and C Code Stacks.

• By default Forms 10.1.2 is the Forms Servlet. Although, socket mode is still supported, and may be useful in high-latency, bandwidth-constrained WAN environments


• The 8.0.6 and iAS Oracle Homes(8.1.7) of 11i have been replaced with AS 10.1.2 and  AS 10.1.3 Homes respectively.


• 10.1.3 does not include Forms and Reports. These are delivered through the 10.1.2 Oracle Home.


• The AS 10.1.3 http server and OC4J container are used to run the Forms servlet, although the Forms runtime process is forked into an AS 10.1.2  environment. This avoids having to run both 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 instances of the http server. AS Development are supporting the use of  10.1.2 forms java code with the 10.1.3 Application servers.


• The Oracle E-Business Suite modules (packaged in the file formsapp.ear) are deployed into the OC4J-Forms instance running out of the Oracle AS 10.1.3 ORACLE_HOME, while the frmweb executable is invoked out of the Oracle AS 10.1.2 ORACLE_HOME.


• All major services are started out of the Oracle AS 10.1.3 ORACLE_HOME.


• Web services include HTTP + OC4J + OPMN Components.


• Self-Service applications are purely designed in HTML and JAVA Scripts.


• AOL/J supplies the Oracle Application Framework with underlying security and applications Java services.


• Communication continues between the Forms applet (Running in the user's Web browser) and the Forms runtime process, via the Listener servlet  until the Forms session ends.


• The Forms Listener servlet acts as a broker between the Java client and the Forms runtime process. It takes connection requests from Java client processes and initiates a Forms runtime process on their behalf.


• The Forms runtime process(frmweb) manages application logic and processing. It maintains a connection to the database on behalf of the Java client. It uses the same forms, menus, and library files that were used for running in client/server mode. The Forms runtime process plays two roles: then it communicates with the client browser, it acts as a server by managing requests from client browsers and it sends metadata to the client to describe the user interface; when it is communicating with the database server, it acts as a client by querying the database server for requested data.