Managing Environment Families

Environment families associate deployments of your Fusion Applications to facilitate consistent maintenance and management across your environments.

This topic describes how to perform administration tasks for environment families.

Automated Subscription Updates

If you order changes to existing Fusion Applications subscriptions for an environment family, Oracle automatically applies these changes for you. You don't have to manually update the environment family's subscriptions.

What to Expect After You Change a Subscription

After Oracle receives the order for a subscription update, the order is processed for the environment family and pod. A banner message is displayed at the top of the environment family details page to let you know that the order update is being applied. You don't need to take any action during the update. Note the following:

  • The environment family remains available during the processing of subscription changes (no system downtime).
  • When the order is being applied to the environment family, the life cycle state of the environment family changes to Updating.
  • Subscription updates take about 30 minutes to complete.
  • After the update is complete, the lifecycle state is Active.
  • If environments aren't in the Active state when the order is processed, because of maintenance or other lifecycle operations, the subscription update is automatically applied after environments return to the Active state.

You can review the subscriptions available in the environment family at any time. See To view subscription details for instructions.

Environment Family Management Tasks

To create an environment family

Tip: Before you begin, switch to the region and compartment where you want to create this environment family.

  1. On the Applications tab of the Console, click Fusion Applications.
  2. On the Fusion Applications Overview page, click Environment families.
  3. On the Environment families page, click Create environment family.
  4. Enter a friendly name for the environment family that will make it easy to identify. Avoid entering any confidential information in this field.
  5. Depending on your organization's Fusion Applications purchase, you will see one of the following:

    • Fusion subscriptions: If your organization subscribes to Oracle Fusion suite, the Console displays the Fusion subscriptions section:


      The "Fusion subscriptions" section of the Create Environment Family work flow.

      Confirm that the displayed subscription is the subscription you want to use for the environment family, then go to the next step.

      Note

      If you also need to provision Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), see Configuring EPM Cloud Environments in the EPM documentation.

    • Select subscriptions: If your organization subscribes to individual applications, the page displays the Select subscriptions section. The subscription options displayed are Customer Experience (CX), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Human Capital Management (HCM).


      The "Select subscriptions" section of the Create Environment Family work flow.

      Review the products and subscriptions you're using for the environment family. Ensure that the checkbox is selected for all products that you're using in the environment family, and that the subscription showing in the drop-down selector are correct. For more information, see Selecting Applications to Include in an Environment Family. After the environment family is created, you can add applications subscriptions, but you can't remove them from the environment family.

  6. Under Select region, confirm or change the assigned region.

    The region is where the environments will be geographically located. The region can't be changed after you create the environment family. All environments that you create will be in the region you assign to the family. For more information, see Choosing a Region for an Environment Family.

  7. Click Show advanced options to:
    • Select a different compartment (this can be changed later).
    • Customize the maintenance schedule (the quarterly schedule selection can't be changed later).
    • Apply tags (these can be added later).
    If you don't want to configure these options now, click Create Environment Family. To configure these options now, continue with the optional steps.
  8. (Optional) Confirm the compartment or select the compartment where you want to create this environment family. For more information about compartments, see Choosing a Compartment.
  9. (Optional) Click the Maintenance tab to customize the maintenance schedule. The maintenance schedule you set up for the environment family is the default for all the environments in the family. You can't change the quarterly update schedule after you create the environment family. For environments that you create in this family, you can customize the monthly patching. For more information about these options, see Understanding Environment Maintenance.
    • Quarterly schedule – select the checkbox and then choose the maintenance month group that you want to use for the environments in the family. You can't update this choice later. If the environment family includes Oracle Payroll, the schedule is set as Feb/May/August/November, and can't be updated.
    • Monthly patching – enable the switch to activate monthly patching for the environments in this family. Monthly patching delivers bug fixes every month so you don't have to wait until the quarterly update for these fixes. Features and other updates are still delivered on the quarterly schedule, and aren't included in monthly patching.
  10. (Optional) Click the Tags tab to add tags to the environment family. If you have permissions to create a resource, then you also have permissions to apply free-form tags to that resource. To apply a defined tag, you must have permissions to use the tag namespace. For more information about tagging, see Resource Tags. If you're not sure whether to apply tags, skip this option or ask an administrator. You can apply tags later.
  11. Click Create environment family.
  12. You'll be asked to confirm the region where the environment family is to be created. Click Confirm.
To view subscription details
  1. Navigate to the environment family: On the Applications tab of the Console, click Fusion Applications. On the Overview page, click Environment families. On the environment families page, click the name of the environment family.
  2. On the environment family details page, under Resources, click Subscriptions to see the list of subscriptions included in the environment family.
  3. Click the expander next to the listing to see the product and quantity included in each subscription.
To add new application subscriptions

After you order new subscriptions for an environment family, add the new subscription in the OCI Console using the directions in this topic. Note that for changes to existing subscriptions (such as contract extensions), Oracle applies the updates automatically, as described in Automated Subscription Updates.

  1. Navigate to the environment family: On the Applications tab of the Console, click Fusion Applications. On the Overview page, click Environment families. On the environment families page, click the name of the environment family.
  2. On the environment family details page, under Resources, click Subscriptions.
  3. Click Edit subscription.
  4. On the Edit subscription page under Edit applications, information is displayed about subscription updates available to apply to the applications in this environment family.
  5. Click Save changes to apply the subscription updates.
To update the maintenance schedule

You can't edit the quarterly maintenance schedule. To change your quarterly maintenance months, you must Open a Support Request.

Note that the maintenance schedule you set up for the environment family is the default for all the environments in the family. The changes you make here will apply to all environments in the family that do not have a custom schedule set up.

  1. On the environment family details page, under Resources, click Maintenance.
  2. Click Edit schedule. You can edit the following:
    • Monthly patching – enable or disable the switch to activate or deactivate monthly patching for the environments in this family. Monthly patching delivers bug fixes every month so you don't have to wait until the quarterly update.
  3. Click Save Changes.
To move an environment family to a different compartment

You can move an environment family from one compartment  to another. After you move an environment family to a new compartment, the policies for the destination compartment apply immediately and affect access to the environment family. Moving an environment family doesn't move the environments in the family.

  1. On the environment family details page, click Move.
  2. Choose the destination compartment from the list.
  3. Click Move resource.
To change the maintenance start time for an environment family

You can request that Oracle change the maintenance start time for an environment family by opening a service request (SR) with Oracle Support. Changes are applied at the environment family level, and effect all environments in the environment family. After you open a service request, Oracle Support provides you with the available maintenance start times to choose from. After Oracle updates the maintenance start time, all maintenance runs happen at the new start time.

  1. Open a service request (SR) with My Oracle Support. For instructions, see Creating Support Requests. In the support request, include the OCID of the environment family for which you want to change the maintenance start time, and request a list of available start times for the environment family.
  2. After Oracle provides a list of available start times to you in My Oracle Support, indicate your preferred time in the service request. Oracle then changes the start time for the environment family.