Anybody who has tried this multi-node to single-node cloning in 11i knows that it’s difficult and very error-prone. If we outline the Apps Tier cloning process, it looks like this (supposing we have a two-node instance with the DB and CM on one node, and Web and Forms on the other):

# CM Node
# copy all files to the target
$ perl adpreclone.pl appsTier merge

# Web Node
# copy $COMMON_TOP/clone/appl directory only to the target
$ perl adpreclone.pl appltop merge

# Target Node
$ perl adcfgclone.pl appsTier

This process is called merging appltops. It’s not as easy as it looks. Many times, the production environment might not have proper values in the fnd_nodes table, which makes adcfgclone.pl fail to properly recognize the appltops for merging.

But in R12, life is made easy. (more…)