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Oracle Applications Cloud

Concurrent Maintenance
Service Entitlement Definition
Oracle Fusion Applications

November 2016
 Contents

Contents

Overview ...................................................................................................................... 3

About the Concurrent Maintenance Service as Nonproduction .................................... 3

Fulfillment Considerations ................................................................................. 4

About the Concurrent Maintenance Service as Production .......................................... 4

Fulfillment Considerations ................................................................................. 5

Requesting Concurrent Maintenance (Production and Nonproduction) ....................... 5

How to Validate Service Fulfillment .............................................................................. 5

Frequently Asked Questions ........................................................................................ 6

Related Information on My Oracle Support .................................................................. 7

Overview
The Concurrent Maintenance option allows you to keep your non-production and production
environments at the same code level, by ensuring that updates and release upgrades are applied to
both of your environments at the same time.
Two types of concurrent maintenance are available:
 Concurrent Maintenance as Nonproduction: This option applies only if you are not yet live in
production, and will ensure that the production environment is maintained at the same level as
the nonproduction environment(s).
 Concurrent Maintenance as Production: This option applies only if you are live in production
and have more than one nonproduction environment. It ensures that the additional
nonproduction environment is always maintained at the same level as the production
environment.

About the Concurrent Maintenance Service as Nonproduction

This option is available only if you are not yet live in production, and will ensure that your production
environment is maintained at the same level as your non-production environment(s). This means
updates will occur for your production environment on the first weekend of the scheduled updates.
Upgrades will occur on a Tuesday together with non-production environments.
Implementation partners and project teams who are seeking uniformity of the Oracle Application and
Infrastructure code during the implementation phase typically request this option. The Concurrent
Maintenance as Nonproduction option expires based on the end month provided when making the
request. Oracle’s general guidance is that your end month be the last month before the month in which
you are planning to go into production; other factors may influence that decision.
Note: You must log the Service Request (SR) 10 days prior to the first Friday of the month in which you
want to make a change.
The benefits of keeping your environments at the same update and release level during your initial
implementation using concurrent maintenance are:
 Updates are applied to all environments at the same time.
 Setup and extensibility can be easily migrated from a non-production environment to your
production environment.
 Fulfillment of environment refresh requests is easier to schedule and fulfill because the source
and target environments are at the same update level. (A prerequisite for environment refresh
requests is that source and target environments are at the same update level.)

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Cloud Service Type Concurrent Maintenance

You will request concurrent maintenance only once and it will remain
in effect through the month you request. If you choose to extend the
Typical Frequency
date for concurrent maintenance, you must submit a new Service
Request (SR) to do so.

You file an SR through My Oracle Support (MOS). Oracle Support

works with you to ensure that your concurrent maintenance request is
fulfilled.
Fulfillment Method
Prior to filing your request, you must review and understand all details
of Oracle Applications Cloud – Fusion Applications Update Policy
(Doc ID 1966109.1).

Submit your request at least 10 days before the first update weekend
When to Submit SR in the month you wish start. This ensures that your concurrent
maintenance selection is effective in time for the updates.

Fulfillment Considerations
Approval is not required.
You will receive notification confirming your request to start or modify the date through which concurrent
maintenance will remain in effect.
After the concurrent maintenance period expires, your environments will revert to receiving Quarterly
Updates, or Monthly Updates, if you have chosen that option. It is important to inform Oracle about
changes to your target go-live date, so that the end of the concurrent maintenance can be extended if
needed. Extension requests require that you submit a new Service request (SR).
Oracle’s Update Policy is to apply standard planned updates to your non-production environment(s)
before applying them to your production environment 2 weeks later. This is recommended if you are
live-in-production because it provides you 2 weeks to validate standard updates in non-production
environment(s) before updates are applied to a production environment. Implementing customers who
are not yet live-in-production typically do not have these same concerns and would rather benefit from
keeping all of their environments identically updated at all times. For that reason, Oracle offers
concurrent maintenance and encourages customers to request it as they begin their initial
implementations.

About the Concurrent Maintenance Service as Production

This option is available only if you are live in production and have more than one nonproduction
environment. It ensures that your additional nonproduction environment is always maintained at the
same level as your production environment. The impact of this type of concurrent maintenance is that a
nonproduction environment is always maintained at the same time as the production environment. This
option enables you to maintain a mirror image of your production environment (parallel production
environment) for production support purposes. A common business benefit resulting from this mode is
that you can research, replicate, and test issues and minor enhancements in a nonproduction
environment, knowing that it is identically maintained as your production environment.

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The end date of 31-Dec-9999 is used for customers who want to remain on concurrent maintenance
indefinitely. If you decide you no longer need concurrent maintenance, you can log a new SR and
provide a new end date.

Cloud Service Type Concurrent Maintenance

You request concurrent maintenance only once, and it will remain in

effect until the month and year that you specify. If you choose to
Typical Frequency
modify your concurrent maintenance dates, you must submit a new
Service Request (SR).

You file an SR through My Oracle Support (MOS). Oracle Support

works with you to ensure that your concurrent maintenance request is
fulfilled.
Fulfillment Method
Prior to filing your request, you must review and understand all details
of Oracle Applications Cloud – Fusion Applications Update Policy
(Doc ID 1966109.1).

Submit your request at least 10 days before the first update weekend
When to Submit SR in the month you wish start. This ensures that your concurrent
maintenance selection is effective in time for the updates.

Fulfillment Considerations
Approval is not required.
You will receive notification confirming your request to start or modify the date through which concurrent
maintenance will remain in effect.

Requesting Concurrent Maintenance (Production and Nonproduction)

For detailed steps on how to file a service request (SR), see Instructions on Submitting a Cloud Service
Request (SR) in My Oracle Support Doc ID 2120276.1. When filing your request, you will be prompted
to answer questions that are specific to this Cloud service.

How to Validate Service Fulfillment

Planned outage notifications should reflect the concurrent maintenance option you have requested. We
also send confirmation notifications when your SR requesting Concurrent Maintenance is processed.

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Frequently Asked Questions
 How do I request, extend or stop Concurrent Maintenance option?
To request the Concurrent Maintenance option, make changes to your request, or to stop it, log a
Service Request (SR) using My Oracle Support.
Submit a separate SR for the initial request, and for each subsequent request related with changes
and cancelations.
You will need to submit your SR at least 10 days in advance before your next maintenance event,
for your concurrent maintenance selection to become effective in time for that event.
 How long will I stay on Concurrent Maintenance option once it starts?
Concurrent Maintenance as nonproduction will occur for a set period of time with start and end
months based on information you provide when you submit your initial Service Request (SR). If your
target go-live date changes after you submit your SR, you must inform Oracle about the change by
submitting a new SR, so that we can adjust the concurrent maintenance end date. Once the end
date is reached, the environments will return to the standard update and upgrade schedule.
If you want to remain on concurrent maintenance as production indefinitely, enter an end date in
your request of 31-Dec-9999. This option is only available if you have subscribed to an additional
nonproduction environment.
 What are the typical considerations before requesting Concurrent Maintenance for
implementing customers?
 Consider selecting an end month for concurrent maintenance as nonproduction type, so that
your concurrent maintenance ends the month prior to your planned go-live date.
 As you approach final testing phases or go-live, you may want to limit the updates applied to
your production environment. Select the appropriate end month based on your project plans
to ensure that it does not impact key milestones or go-live activities.
 The concurrent maintenance option should not be used for short periods of time like a single
week. You must remain on concurrent maintenance for at least one full month.
 It is your responsibility to track the start and end month requested in relationship with your
key milestones and other service entitlements scheduled (such as Environment Refresh),
and request any necessary changes at least 10 days in advance.
 Communicate the start and end month that you requested with everyone working on your
implementation project to ensure that these are taken into account for scheduling
configuration, training, and testing activities during possible planned outages.
 What if I don’t want to take advantage of the concurrent maintenance option?
There is no action required to keep your environments on the standard maintenance schedule.
This is the default option for all customers.
 What if my environment has multiple Oracle Application Cloud services?
If your environment contains two or more of the Oracle Applications Cloud services such as
Sales Cloud, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud, Human Capital Management (HCM)
Cloud, Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud, or Risk Management Cloud, then selecting
concurrent maintenance will be applied across all services. It is not possible to select only one
service to participate in this option.

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Related Information on My Oracle Support
 Oracle Applications Cloud – Fusion Applications Update Policy, Doc ID 1966109.1
 Cloud Service Requests and Fulfillment for Oracle HCM Cloud Service (Taleo Zone Refresh with
Fusion HCM Environment Refresh), Doc ID 2108681.1
 Oracle Applications Cloud Service Entitlements, Doc ID 2004494.1

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