AD Utilities (Applications DBA Utilities) are set of Oracle supplied utilities that are used to administer Oracle Applications.

A brief listing of utilities and their usage is given below: 1) adadmin -Performs maintenance tasks for Oracle Applications. 2) adchkdig - Checks the integrity of Oracle Applications patches downloaded from OracleMetaLink. 3) adutconf.sql -Reports standard information about the installed configuration of Oracle Applications. 4) adctrl - Manages parallel workers in AD Administration and AutoPatch. 5) adident - Reports the version and translation level of an Oracle Applications file. 6) adncnv -Converts a file from one character set to another. 7) admrgpch - Merges multiple patches into a single merged patch. 8) adrelink.sh - Relinks OracleApplications executable programs with the Oracleserver product libraries. 9) adsplice - Adds off-cycle products. 10) adtimrpt.sql - Reports a summary of the timing for jobs run by parallel workers. 11) adpatch - Applies patches and other system updates. 12) admsi.pl - Generatescustomized installation instructions for a patch. 13) rapidwiz - Provides a wizard for entering parameters that are specific to a new installation or an upgrade of an Oracle Applications system ================================================ ================================================ =======

AD_TOP is product in Aplication which is under directory APPL_TOP/ad/11.5.0This top containin Utilities & program code which is very frequently used by DBA's . So where are these utilities or program in file system ? (I think you all know but for begineers its in AD_TOP/bin )

Lets see one line definition of each

AD Utility ? AD Utilities are a group of tools designed to install, upgrade, maintain, and patch applications.

ADPATCH ? is a utility that is used to apply individual patches, mini-packs, or maintenance packs to an Oracle Applications instance.

ADADMIN ? AD Administration (adadmin) is used performs maintenance/administration tasks on an Oracle Appls Instance. Task associated with adadmin are divided into two broad categories database and file system task.

ADCTRL ? Utility to determine status of worker (started by adpatch , adadmin or other ad utility) and to control ( restart/drop/skip) workers.

ADRELINK ? Used to relink apps executables with product libraries , if some library defination is changed or executable is corrupted.

ADMRGPCH ? To merge different patches & create single patch . This is helpful when you have too many patches , you can merge them & apply in one shot.

ADCLONE ? Utility to clone Insatnce from Test to Prod , Vice Versa

ADCONFIG ? To configure different components in Aplications like changing port number or domainname or incresing number of JVM's

ADIDENT ? utility to find version of a file in oracle applications (Identification )

ADLICMGR ? To license a product in applications , you might have license to use only 10 products initially then later decided to use 5 more so license them first by this utility

ADSPLICE ? You add a product in application, by default you might have 90-105 ( may be more ) products like AP, GL, AR and now oracle released one more product so add this product using this utility .

This is overview & usages of each application DBA Utility , now in next topic I will start with patching & how these utilities are used & options available with them . If you are amazed/confused whats this patching donot worry I will explain in deatil but if you are a DBA you might already be knowing patching & might have applied coupel of database patches using opatch now lets use ADPATCH to apply application or apps patches.