Peopletools 8.52 : get your infrastructure ready

It has been discussed several times during the last Oracle Open World 2-6 oct. 2011, Peopletools 8.52 is just next to the door. It seems this version will change a lot of things, see the pre-release notes #1335812.1 and the value proposition #1327656.1.
But in order to be able to run this Peopletools 8.52 version, the infrastructure needs to be up to dated. There’re indeed a couples of changes and decommissioned platforms on server as well as client side which may imply some work in front.
Starting  by the client :
Up to Peopletools 8.51, Windows XP Pro (32bit) was certified and worked fine as a client for AppDesigner for developers. It is now ended. Not sure if it will work, but it is not planned to be certified. I know, Windows XP is quite an old OS, but still widely used. Client must be now on Windows 7, Vista (who really wants it by now ?), or Windows 2008 (honestly, I don’t know many workstation on that version). Keep in mind to verify the edition.
Speaking on client side, browsing is also changing a lot, a very new nice one, Apple iPad (browser Safari) will be certified ! And finally, Peoplesoft is introducing certification of Google Chrome.
On server side :
OS: HP-UX PA-RISC certification is now definitely ended, AIX 5.3 is also ended (7.1 added).
Surprisingly, Oracle Linux 6.x is not planned to be certified (right, Oracle database is not certified yet on this Linux version), but I tend to think it will be certified soon too.
Database : Oracle 11.2.0.2, 11.1.0.7 and 10.2.0.5 (10.2.0.4 and earlier is ended), probably the newly released 11.2.0.3 patchset will also be certified soon (not planned yet).
Applications : they must be 8.9 or above, whereas Peopletools 8.51 was certified from within applications 8.8.
WebSphere : keep in mind, that within Peopletools 8.52, WebSphere won’t be provide anymore, support must be obtained from IBM to get the software.
COBOL compiler : similarly to the above, Peopletools 8.52 won’t come anymore with a compiler, support must be obtained from the vendor (not only Microfocus, but also IBM).
Regarding these last two points, please read this roadmap.

Except that Peopletools 8.50 was certified on x64 architecture only, I don’t think there were so many changes on the previous 8.5x versions.
So, if you want the coming soon Peopletools 8.52 and are in one of the ended certifications as describe above, prepare your infrastructure for a change. Or if that’s for demo, proof of concept and/or training purpose, you can always wait for the associated Oracle VM Peoplesoft templates (well, that supposes you have a spare server in a corner for hosting Oracle VM… that’s an other story), but not sure how long it will take to be available.
All these changes could be quite problematic if you have to deal with much older Peopletools release and Application version… which require different OS on server but also on client side (Peopletools 8.48 and earlier are not certified on Windows 7).

Administration tasks :
Few administration tasks may also change.
New variable : this could have an impact on your architecture as well, in Peopletools 8.50 has been introduced a new environment variable, PS_CFG_HOME to decouple the application/batch domain from the PS_HOME. A new one is coming within Peopletools 8.52 to separate the application installation home from the Peopletools installation home, PS_APP_HOME. It often confused new-comers in Peoplesoft world, why the application must be installed in the same folder as the Peopletools, now it is finished, we could install application where ever we want using that variable, and have multiple applications pointing to a unique Peopletools home directory.
PSADMIN menu : new options to manage the PIA such as create, clone, delete, check status…
Active DataGuard : I hope also Peoplesoft be more integrated within Active Data Guard, as I showed in an earlier blog entry there’s no Crystal, COBOL and SQR on a standby database supported. But I’m quite disappointed, it does not appear to be in the pre-release notes linked above.

This Peopletools 8.52 will change a lot of things, here was a non-exhaustive list on admin side, but there’s much more.
I’m really looking forward that new version.

Enjoy,

Nicolas.

PS: please note that this blog entry is based on “pre-release” notes and current certification matrix as of today – 13-OCT-2011, so it may change…