Upgrade Apps to 11.5.10.2

This post is coming bit late & I know lot of you might be wondering when Oracle Apps R12 is in market why I am still writing on 11.5.10 Upgrade . Looking at quesries/doubts/document request by many of my readers in mail and in forum at http://reddba.blogspot.com/I thought of covering entire 11.5.10 upgrade and its related docs in this post.
This post will focus on 11.5.10.2 which is oracle apps version 11.5.10 with CU 2 and patch number is 3480000 and related metalink note is 316365.1 . Minimum prereq AD patch for 11.5.10.2 is AD.I.2 (4337683)

Please Note:
1. Patch 348000 (11.5.10.2) is for 11.5.9 or lower version , If you are already on 11.5.10 and which to apply CU2 then this is not right patch for you.

2. Steps mentioned here are for upgarding your apps version 11.5.X , This post doesn't cover upgrade procedure from 10.7 or 11.0.3

3. If you have language other than US then you have to apply translated version of patch as well
4. To reduce Upgrade downtime you can use staged APPL_TOP methodology mentioned in metalink note # 242480.1 Using a Staged Applications 11i System to Reduce Patching Downtime
5. MRC schema is no more used from 11.5.10 onwards so you can drop MRC schema after upgrade so there is no need to maintain/synchronize MRC before or after 11.5.10 (CU2) upgrade

6. 11.5.10.2 requires database version 9.2.X and higher so you can upgarde to 9.2.X or 10.1.X before Upgarde . If you wish to upgrade to database 10.2.X then its better you do it after 11.5.10.2 Update.

7. Since I upgraded Financial & HRMS system so I will focus on steps related to these module but check optional steps mentioned in metalink note # 316365.1 , There are some additional steps for Windows which are not covered in this post

8. To reduce patch downtime online help patches can be applied at later stage

A) Pre Update task
Compulsory Steps
-----------------
A.1 As mentioned above apply AD.I.2

A.2 Update Autoconfig Tech Stack template files - Autoconfig uses Template files to build files specific to your applications

A.3 Run Technology Validation Utility - This will test minimum tech stack components required to run 11.5.10.2 (Tech Stack components are database, forms & reports, discoverer, Jinitiator, JDK, OJSP, JDBC, libraries for web & form server )

A.4 Check OATM step mentioned in optional steps below. If you are not migrating to OATM mentioned above then prepare your table space to include new space requirement and new products . Read me of patch 3180164 will help you in creating additional tablespaces.

Optional Steps
----------------
A.5 Manual Update script - Run this script to find optional & compulsory manual steps you should do before upgarding (This script is specific to an Instance and vary instance to instance)

A.6 Convert database to OATM (Earlier tablespace were based on OFA/Optimal Flexible Architecture where each product used to have one data & one index tablespaces so there were around 200+ tablespace which was difficult to manage which is now moved to ATM/Application Tablespace Model which is simple to manage & there are around 15 table spaces)

A.7 This steps is only required if you are using audit trails & shadow tables name > 26 characters. For auditing purpose you may have auiting enabled for Instance which you want to upgrade then you must change shadow table names (I will cover more on auditing in oracle applications in coming post) before any new columns can be added . HRMS & Payroll customers with Auditing enabled focus on this. If you are not sure if any of your shadow table name is > 26 then use script FNDATCTBL.sql provided with patch 3872242

A.8 If you are using any of product which require ilog planner libraries then apply related patches

A.9 Unmerge of Contacts from TCA Process is long running process during 11.5.10.2 upgrade process so if you wish to reduce downtime during upgrade
then run this program before upgrade else it will be executed during upgrade
process

Apply Maintenance Pack
===================
1. Shutdown application tier services

2. If your database is not 9i upgrade it now

3. Apply maintenance patch . This is unified driver

4. Apply any additional languages patches (If your installation is multi language)

Post Update task
==============
1. Apply Interoperability patch (If you upgraded database to 10g)

2. Register new product , If you want to use any product installed as part of 11.5.10.2 you have to manually license it via OAM

3. Drop MRC schema (As mentioned above MRC schema is no longer required from
11.5.10)

4. If you are not using HRMS Pack I before upgrading to 11.5.10.2 then you have to apply HR legislative updates

5. There are product specific updates which you should carry out with your
functional consultant.

For complete list and extensive steps to upgrade follow metalink note # 316365.1