Oracle EBS 12.2 Planned Certification with Oracle Database 23ai – All you need to know

Oracle Database 23ai

Oracle recently announced the general availability of their latest long-term support database, Oracle Database 23ai.

Premier Support for 23ai is offered until April 2029, with Extended Support until April 2032.

This database is available for Oracle Cloud customers, Oracle Database Appliance, Oracle Exadata and Exadata Cloud@Customer.

Oracle Database 23ai is expected to be released to general on-premises in the second half of 2024.

Oracle Database 23ai includes many new features, bug fixes and enhancements.

Oracle Database 19c and earlier

Oracle has also announced that Premier Support for the previous long-term support database – 19c – has been moved from April 2024 to April 2026, with Extended Support until April 2027.

For earlier database versions (11.2, 12.1, 12.2), restricted upgrade support has been added through Customer Success Services for 2025.

Database Releases and Support Timelines

Based on the expected general release of Oracle Database 23ai in 2H CY2024 and the end of Premier Support for 19c in April 2026, all Oracle Database customers should be planning for 23ai database upgrades in 2025.

Database 23ai and E-Business Suite 12.2

At present, E-Business Suite 12.2 is certified only up to database 19c

However, the ongoing certification of E-Business Suite 12.2 and database 23ai has been in progress for some time, and Oracle expects that this will be announced at the same time as database 23ai is made available on-premises - within the next few weeks or months!

Preparing for Database 23ai

When Oracle announces the formal certification of E-Business Suite 12.2 with Oracle Database 23ai, they will publish notes and documentation on the technical steps to follow to upgrade to 23ai.

Several things need to be done before that to get system 23ai ready and to make that upgrade quicker and easier.

1. Upgrade database to 19c. If the existing database is on a version older than 19c, then an interim upgrade to 19c is recommended, as there may not be a direct upgrade path to 23ai from earlier versions. See Interoperability Notes: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 with Oracle Database 19c (Doc ID 2552181.1).
2. Migrate to Multi-Tenant architecture. The database model of a Container Database (CDB) with one or more Pluggable Databases is expected to be mandatory in 23ai. The current database should be migrated to 19c multi-tenant before the upgrade to 23ai.
3. Apply the latest AD and TXK minipacks. The interoperability patches for 23ai for E-Business Suite will almost certainly require the latest AD/TXK minipacks as prerequisites. As of Aug 2024, these are R12.AD.C.Delta.16 and R12.TXK.C.Delta.16. The current system should be upgraded to these versions ahead of any future 23ai database upgrade, following Applying the Latest AD and TXK Release Update Packs to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 (Doc ID 1617461.1).
4. Upgrade to the latest version of E-Business Suite 12.2. All versions of E-Business Suite before 12.2.7 are now out of Oracle Error Correction Support. Here is a link written by Nadia Bendjedou about Oracle EBS Release Support. Therefore, versions 12.2.6 and below may not be certified with Oracle Database 23ai. For this reason, an update to the latest version of 12.2 is recommended anyway, but it is likely to be mandatory for upgrading to database 23ai. As of Aug 2024, the latest version of E-Business Suite is 2.13, with 12.2.14 expected in November. See Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.13 Readme (Doc ID 2958077.1). Customers still on E-Business Suite 11i or 12.1 must upgrade to 12.2 as database 23ai will never be certified on those application versions.
5. Apply all recommended technology stack patches from ETCC. Download the latest version of patch 17537119 (‘EBS Technology Codelevel Checker’) and run it against both the database and application nodes. Review and apply the list of patches from the outputs. Oracle Critical Patch Update.
6. EBS System Schema Migration. As of code stack level R12.AD.C.Delta.13 a new EBS_SYSTEM schema was introduced. An optional step when implementing that was to move objects out of the standard SYS and SYSTEM schemas into this new area. It is anticipated that this will be a requirement before upgrading to database 23ai, so completing this step ahead of time is recommended. This is following Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 System Schema Migration.

DSP is a leading Oracle partner whose Oracle EBS Upgrade Services offer expertise at every stage of the upgrade process to ensure your transition is successful. Don't hesitate to contact us if you require assistance upgrading your Oracle EBS.