Today you will see the steps involved in installing Oracle8 software. You'll find numerous examples of installing Oracle8 on Windows NT 4.0, and other operating systems are not significantly different. Throughout this book I will be using Windows NT as the primary OS for examples and instruction, and where necessary, I will point out the differences for other operating systems.

Installing Oracle software is much less complicated than in the old days of Oracle6 and early Oracle7. Oracle has made tremendous progress in streamlining and improving the installation process. It is fairly straightforward to install Oracle8 server, client, and administrator systems. There is also an option to install individual components, which is a little bit more complex. Today you will see all four of these methods.

What You Need to Know Before You Begin

There is very little you need to know before you begin the installation process:

• What language do you want to use to run Oracle8? A large selection of different languages is available. You must decide which language you want to use before you begin the installation.

• Where do you want the Oracle8 binaries to reside? You will be asked to provide a path to where the binaries will be copied during the installation process.

• What Oracle8 products to you want to install? A number of different products can be installed based on the type of system that you are installing. There are four different types of installations.

The installation type that you choose will be based on the function of the system that you will be installing. Types of installations include the server, client, Programmer/2000, and custom installations. Each installs a different set of programs.

Server Installation

In the server installation, the components necessary for an Oracle8 server system will be installed. These components include

• Oracle8 server--The Oracle8 server is really the guts of the system. This is the Oracle8 RDBMS.

• Server networking components--These include the TNS listener program and the SQL*Net programs as well as the administrative tools necessary to manage them.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager--This component is the key to Oracle's new administrative system. The Enterprise Manager provides a graphical interface to administer the Oracle8 server.

• Oracle intelligent agents--These are the programs that allow the Oracle Enterprise Manager to communicate with the Oracle8 server and utilities. The Oracle intelligent agents use SMTP (Simple Management Transport Protocol) to allow this communication to occur.

• Oracle8 documentation (optional)--You can install the Oracle8 documentation locally or configure it so that you can access the documentation via CD-ROM.

• Miscellaneous utilities--Other utilities include SQL*Plus, the Oracle installer, SQL*Loader, ODBC, and so on.

Client Installation

The client installation gives you a choice of the DBA client or the application user clients. The DBA installation gives you the components needed to remotely administer an Oracle system. These products include

• Oracle Enterprise Manager--As mentioned previously, this component is the key to Oracle's new administrative system. The Enterprise Manager provides a graphical interface to administer the Oracle8 server.

• SQL*Plus--This is the primary interface into Oracle for ad-hoc access. SQL*Plus can be used for administrative purposes if desired.

• The Oracle8 toolbar--The toolbar provides a quick way to access the Oracle Enterprise Manager applications.

• SQL*Net--The SQL*Net components include the client-side networking components and administrative tools.

• Oracle8 documentation (optional).

• Miscellaneous tools and utilities--Items such as OCI, Oracle Installer, and so on are installed.

The application user client installation gives you the components needed to connect to Oracle as an end user. These products include

• SQL*Plus

• SQL*Net

• Oracle8 documentation (optional)

Programmer/2000 Installation

The Programmer/2000 installation provides the necessary client components to connect to the Oracle8 RDBMS, as well as a choice of the following development packages:

• Oracle Pro*C/C++--This is the method whereby database object types can be used within C/C++ programs. Pro*C/C++ is essentially a preprocessor that converts these objects into C/C++ objects.

• Pro*COBOL--This is Oracle's COBOL interface.

• ODBC--The Open Database Connectivity software and development libraries needed by the application developer.

• OCI--The Oracle Object Call Interface provides a method whereby Oracle can be accessed from a C program.

Custom Installation

The custom installation allows any or all products on the Oracle8 installation CD-ROM to be installed. Using the custom installation option, you simply choose which options you want to install.

The Installation Process

Now that you've decided where you want the Oracle8 installer to put the Oracle binaries and you've determined which language to install and which installation method to use, it's a simple matter of installing the Oracle products. In this part of the day you will see step-by-step how this installation process works.

This section is divided into four parts, each looking at a different installation type. First, the initial installation process is covered, then the Oracle8 Server, followed by the two types of client installations. Finally, the Developer/2000 and custom installation types are shown. Each is covered in detail, and each of the options is explained.

Basic Installation

The initial installation process begins when you place the Oracle8 CD into your CD-ROM drive. If your system has autorun configured, you will be prompted by the Oracle8 installation procedure; from here, decide whether you want to begin installing Oracle8, to browse information about Oracle8, or explore the CD-ROM (see Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1.

The Oracle8 installation autorun message.

If you are ready to install Oracle8 at this time, simply click Begin Installation and the Oracle8 installation process will commence. If you are not ready to install, is possible to return at a later time and restart the installation process. Simply use NT Explorer and, from the CD-ROM drive, double-click the program setup.exe. This will also invoke the installation program.

After the installation process has begun, you will see the initial install screen (shown in Figure 3.2). This screen asks you which language you want to use to run the Oracle products. Choose OK to select the default language as English, or select a different language.

Figure 3.2.

The initial installation screen.

Next, you will be asked for some installation settings, as shown in Figure 3.3. These questions relate to your particular installation. The first screen simply asks for the name of your company and for the OS directory where the Oracle8 binaries will be installed. Before you choose a directory, be sure the selected disk volume has adequate disk space; a full installation can require more than 100MB.

Figure 3.3.

Installation settings.

After you decide on the installation language and location, you might be informed that certain path variables have been adjusted for the Oracle installation process and the Oracle programs to work properly. This is shown in Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4.

The Oracle path changes.

If you click the OK button, the path of the Oracle binary files will be added to your environment. Unlike earlier versions of the Oracle installation process, a reboot the system is not required at this time to continue the installation. After you have completed these steps, you will be presented with a screen asking you which type of installation you want to perform, as shown in Figure 3.5.

Figure 3.5.

Select the type of installation you want to perform.

At this point, the installation will be different based on your answer. These installations are covered separately in the following sections.

Installing the Oracle8 Server

The following is split into two sections. The first section describes the actual process of installing the software. The second section describes the system after the installation has occurred. Specifically, this section provides information about what products and services have been installed, and how the Registry has been modified.

The Installation Process

If you've chosen to install the Oracle8 server by clicking OK on the menu shown in Figure 3.5, the server installation process will begin. At this point, a few dependencies will be determined and you will be queried as to the Oracle data cartridges that you are licensed to install (see Figure 3.6). Oracle data cartridges are described on Day 21, "Exploring the Web Publishing Assistant and Network Computing Architecture."

Figure 3.6.

Installing additional cartridges.

A short time into the installation process, you will be queried as to whether you want a typical database installation or whether you want to customize your database with the Database Assistant (see Figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7.

The Starter Database Installation Options dialog box.

The three selections are

• Typical--The typical starter database is 30MB in size and includes a small set of tables and tablespaces as a starter set. In most situations, this is probably the correct selection.

• Custom--Checking this option invokes the Oracle Database Assistant, which helps you create a custom Oracle database. Choose this option if you will be using this database as a replication system, if you want to install other options, or if you want to choose the name of your database. This option provides the most flexibility. Creating a custom database with the Database Assistant is described in detail on Day 6, "Administering Databases and Datafiles."

• None--If you are planning to immediately build a new database on this system, consider not building a starter database. This will save on space and time.

The final question that you will be asked is the location of the online documentation. You can either access the documentation via CD-ROM or install it on your local hard drive, as shown in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8.

Installing the documentation.

Installing the documentation on the hard disk requires approximately 66MB of disk space, but it's well worth the space (if available). There is nothing worse than not having the documentation immediately available when you need it. The Oracle8 documentation set is available in HTML format with hyperlinks, which makes it very convenient.

As the installation proceeds, you can watch its progress on the status bar. As the installation gets further along, the bar on the bottom increases in length. When the installation is complete, you will be so notified.

What Has Been Installed?

The installation of the Oracle8 server has instated the following components:

• The Oracle8 RDBMS

• Oracle Enterprise Manager

• Oracle intelligent agents

• The Oracle Administrators toolbar

• Online documentation

• Networking components

• Oracle utilities, including SQL*Plus

A few specifics should be mentioned here. The Oracle8 installation processes has registered Oracle as a service. Specifically, seven services have been registered (see Figure 3.9):

• OracleAgent--This service is the Oracle intelligent agent for the Oracle Enterprise Manager. This agent can communicate with multiple Oracle instances on the same system; therefore, only one agent service exists.

• OracleClientCache80--This service is manual. Once started, it stores in cache all information received from an Oracle names server.

• OracleNamesService80--Use this service, which is also manual, if you configure this system as a names server.

• OracleServiceORCL--This service is associated with the instance for Oracle SID=ORCL (default). This is not the actual Oracle instance, but a bootstrap instance. The service starting up does not start up the Oracle instance at boot time.

• If new databases are created with a different SID, a new service must be created with the new SID in the name. This is described in detail on Day 5, "Managing the Oracle RDBMS."

• OracleStartORCL--The OracleStartORCL service starts the Oracle service named ORCL (default) each time the system is rebooted.

• OracleTNSListener30--This is the TNS listener service. There is a TNS listener service for each network listener that you define. Typically, there is one listener per defined protocol.

• OracleWebAssistant. This service enables queries from the Oracle database to be published to a Web page.

Figure 3.9.

These are the installed Oracle services.

If you decide you don't want a particular service to automatically start each time the system is booted, you can change this by modifying the Oracle service properties (see Figure 3.10). By changing the service startup from automatic to manual, the service will only start manually (you must modify the service through NT).

Figure 3.10.

Use this dialog to modify the Oracle service properties.

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TIP: This can be useful on a development machine where you do not always need the ability to start up Oracle and want to save on system resources.

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Also as part of the installation process, new program groups have been created and appear as part of the taskbar. The first of these groups is the Enterprise Manager group. This group contains icons for the following Oracle products:

• Enterprise Manager

• Backup Manager

• Instance Manager

• Network Topology Generator

• Schema Manager

• Security Manager

• Storage Manager

The second of these program groups is the Oracle for NT group. This group contains icons for the following Oracle products:

• Oracle ODBC Administrator

• Oracle Instance Manager

• Oracle Installer

• Oracle Network Configuration wizard

• SQL*Plus

The third program group created is the Oracle Replication Manager program group. One other feature of the Oracle Server installation is the Oracle Administrators toolbar. This toolbar is installed as part of the server installation as well as the administrators installation, and is shown in Figure 3.11.

Figure 3.11.

The Oracle Administrators toolbar.

This toolbar allows instant access to many of the applications that are part of the Oracle Enterprise Manager system.

Installing the Oracle8 Client Products

The following is split into two sections. The first section describes the actual process of installing the software. The second section provides a description of the system after the installation has occurred. Specifically, this section provides information on what products have been installed, what services have been installed, and how the Registry has been modified.

The Installation Process

You can choose to install the Oracle8 client products by clicking the Oracle8 Client Products button and then clicking the OK button. The client installation process immediately asks whether you want to proceed with the database administrator or application user installation. To install the database administrator client, click OK (see Figure 3.12).

Figure 3.12.

Installing the database administrator client.

Oracle immediately begins installing the database administrator client components. As with the server installation, you will be asked whether you want to install the Oracle documentation on hard disk or whether you want to access the documentation via CD-ROM.

If your installation is for an end-user system, you will choose the application user installation. To install the application user client, click the Application User button, then click OK.

Oracle immediately begins installing the application user client components. As with the server installation, you will be asked whether you want to install the Oracle documentation on hard disk or whether you want to access the documentation via CD-ROM.

What Has Been Installed?

The database administrator client installation instates the following components:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager

• The Oracle Administrators toolbar

• Online documentation

• Networking components

• Oracle utilities, including SQL*Plus

• OCI

The application user client installation instates the following components:

• Networking components

• SQL*Plus

• Online documentation

At the end of today's lesson is an in-depth description of each of the products installed and how they are used.

Installing the Programmer/2000 System

The following is split into two sections. The first section describes the actual process of installing the software. The second section provides a description of the system after the installation has occurred. Specifically, this section provides information on what products and services have been installed, and how the Registry has been modified.

Installing the Oracle8 Custom Configuration

The following is split into two sections. The first section describes the actual process of installing the software. The second section provides a description of the system after the installation has occurred. Specifically, this section provides information on what products and services have been installed, and how the Registry has been modified.

The Installation Process

You can choose to install the custom installation path by clicking the Custom button and then clicking OK. This begins the custom installation procedure. The custom system is for those users who do not fit into the other catagories. You will be presented with the Software Asset Manager screen, where you select any components available on the Oracle8 CD-ROM (see Figure 3.13).

Figure 3.13.

The Software Asset Manager screen.

Simply choose any components you want by either selecting an entire group (Shift+click) or clicking a number of individual components (Ctrl+click) and then clicking the Install button. These components will be installed as requested.

If you choose the Oracle Documentation option, you will be asked whether you want to install the Oracle documentation on hard disk or whether you want to access the documentation via CD-ROM.

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WARNING: The custom installation procedure should only be used after you've used the installation procedure several times, and only if you need specific components. It is much better to run both server and Programmer/2000 if you need components of both.

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What Has Been Installed?

With the custom installation procedure, you will have installed whatever components you requested. The installation procedure will check for dependencies and some additional components might have been installed.

I do not recommend using the custom installation procedure in most cases. The other installation methods are usually perfectly adequate. In the next section, you will see how to remove unneeded components.

Removing Components

To remove any unnecessary or unwanted components, simply invoke the Oracle Installer through the Oracle for Windows NT group. Select any components you want to remove, as shown in Figure 3.14, and then click the Remove button. These components will be removed from the system.

Figure 3.14.

The Software Asset Manager screen with components selected for removal.

When you finish removing components, simply click the Exit button to exit the Oracle Installer.

Product Descriptions

The various products and components installed based on your selections were shown pre-viously. Following is a brief description of what these products and components actually are.

Oracle8 Server

The Oracle8 server is the RDBMS itself. Within the RDBMS package are all the standard Oracle features, including the following options:

• Distributed--This allows the database to be distributed across different systems.

• Replication--This allows for the replication or copying of data to multiple different systems. This can be used for the performance increase provided by having local copies, or for protection in the event of a system failure.

• Parallel Query--This option is my favorite, and allows for several different types of operations to be split into many individual operations, thus improving performance of long-running tasks.

• PL/SQL--The Oracle procedural language option allows for procedural SQL commands to be written.

Enterprise Manager

Oracle Enterprise Manager is the graphical administration tool recently introduced by Oracle. The Enterprise Manager helps the DBA by simplifying some of the necessary tasks. The Enterprise Manager comes with a suite of tools, including

• Backup Manager--This option assists the administrator in backup and recovery operations.

• Instance Manager--This handles startup, shutdown, configuration, and so on.

• Schema Manager--This is used to view and modify tables, views, clusters, and so on.

• Security Manager--This is used to manage the user community. It allows you to add users, assign roles, and so on.

• Storage Manager--This is used to view and modify tablespaces, datafiles, and so on.

Intelligent Agents

Oracle intelligent agents are the programs that allow the Oracle Enterprise Manager to communicate with the Oracle8 server and utilities. The Oracle intelligent agents use SMTP (Simple Management Transport Protocol) to allow this communication to occur. The Oracle intelligent agents are implemented as a service under Windows NT and are started and stopped by the NT Service Manager.

Oracle Installer

The Oracle Installer is the application that is used to install and remove Oracle software. The Installer itself is installed on the system and can be used to install and remove additional components even after the initial installation.

Networking Components

The Oracle8 networking components consist of the programs and utilities necessary to connect to the Oracle8 server via a network. The networking components consist of the network server and network protocol adapters. These protocol adapters support various network protocols, such as

• TCP/IP

• SPX/IPX

• Named pipes

• DECNet

• Various other networking protocols, depending on your operating system

The networking components also include the administrative tools necessary to administer the Oracle networking components.

SQL*Plus

SQL*Plus is the ad-hoc user interface tool for the Oracle RDBMS. With SQL*Plus, you can connect into the RDBMS and run SQL commands and PL/SQL programs. This is the primary nonapplication interface into the Oracle RDBMS.

Utilities

These are miscellaneous utilities that are used to administer and modify the Oracle RDBMS. These Oracle utilities include

• SQL*Loader--This is used to load the database from input files. There are various methods of using the SQL*Loader, which are covered on Day 9, "Managing Data."

• Export--This program stores Oracle data and table definitions externally in an Oracle-specific binary format. Export is covered in depth on Day 9.

• Import--This program loads data into the database from an Oracle export file.

Server Manager

Server Manager is a character-based utility that can be used to perform administrative tasks on the Oracle RDBMS. Server Manager provides an interface for performing ad-hoc or scripted administrative tasks.

Instance Manager

The Oracle Instance Manager is part of the Enterprise Manager toolset and is used to graphically perform tasks such as starting and stopping the Oracle instance.

Recovery Manager

Recovery Manager is used to back up and restore the Oracle database. Recovery Manager not only performs the backup but also maintains backup and recovery information.

Summary

Today you learned how to install Oracle8 software. The various types of installations include

• Server installation

• Administrative client installation

• Application user client installation

• Programmer/2000 installation

• Custom installation

You were also presented with an overview of what was installed. As you can see, the new Oracle installation procedure is quite straightforward in most cases. This is quite an improvement from the Oracle6 and early Oracle7 installation procedures.

What's Next?

Tomorrow you will see how to properly size an Oracle system and how to plan for future growth. This is a very exciting area of Oracle administration and can be extremely important to the operation of the system. By anticipating growth and determining when your system will run out of resources, you can plan ahead, thus avoiding costly downtime and quick hardware purchases.

Q&A

Q What is the Oracle Enterprise Manager?

A The Oracle Enterprise Manager is the new graphical administration tool designed to help the DBA manage one or more Oracle systems.

Q What is SQL*Net?

A SQL*Net is Oracle's communication protocol. SQL*Net uses various network communication protocols such as TCP/IP, DECNet, and SPX/IPX, and provides a common programming layer for the Oracle developer.

Q What kind of user needs the Programmer/2000 installation?

A A software developer would use the development tools that come with the Programmer/2000 installation.

Q What is the Recovery Manager used for?

A The Recovery Manager is used for backup and recovery. This product performs these operations and maintains a catalog of previous backups.

Workshop

The workshop provides quiz questions to help you solidify your understanding of the material covered. See Appendix A, "Answers," for answers to the quiz questions you see here.

Quiz

1. What is the main component of an Oracle8 server?

2. What do the intelligent agents do?

3. Name three Oracle utilities.

4. Name several network protocols supported by Oracle SQL*Net.

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