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Software Applications

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Overview

The

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Oracle 10g client

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used to be required on client computers running the Sungard BSR Advance C/S client/server database system, because it communicates with an Oracle database. The 10g client installation is described in

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the /wiki/spaces/TAR/pages/26457135 general article and the /wiki/spaces/TAR/pages/26459440 article. However, with a new version of Advance

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Web (AWA), an Oracle client is no longer needed. For the companion program SmartCall, a new version of Oracle, version 11g, is required. And version 11g offers an alternative to the big, awkward Oracle Universal Installer (oui.exe) we had to use with 10g. The alternative is what Oracle calls an "instantclient"; its installation is so simple that I'll document it here.

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Product Details

A summary of the specifics of the product.

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The Oracle client is not install on lab or classroom computers.

 

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Installation Instructions

College Owned Equipment

To set up an instantclient installation of Oracle 11g that has the same components as the Carleton "basic" installation of Oracle 10g, the first three "packages" listed below are needed:

 

Instant Client Package

Description

Notes

Basic Lite

Smaller version of the Basic, with only English error messages and Unicode, ASCII, and Western European character set support (10.2 only)

OCI
OCCI
JDBC

SQL*Plus*

Additional libraries and executable for running SQL*Plus with Instant Client

SQL*Plus 10.1
SQL*Plus 10.2

ODBC Supplement*

Additional libraries for enabling ODBC applications with Instant Client (Not all platforms)

ODBC

ODAC*

Includes ODP.NET, Oracle Services for MTS, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, Oracle Provider for OLE DB, and OO4O with Oracle Instant Client

 

Optional packages are marked with a *.

For the latest version available today, this mean three .ZIP archives are needed: instantclient-basiclite-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip, instantclient-odbc-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip, instantclient-sqlplus-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip. These files are currently stored in APPS\Windows\Oracle102\instantclient; they will be moved to an Oracle11 directory on the new archive service as soon as it is available. Also in that directory are Oracle Web pages and the whitepaper related to the use and installation of the instant client.

Here are manual installation instructions for use at Carleton:This process is a manual installation / setup that will configure the system to work for Carleton.

Preparation

You will need the following files to complete the manual installation. You can either plan to access these via the APPS server from the client's machine, or copy them to a thumb drive to take with you before visiting the client.

  1. Visit APPS\Windows\Oracle102\instantclient
  2. Copy the following items to the thumb drive, or a local folder on the client's machine:
    • instantclient-basiclite-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
    • instantclient-odbc-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
    • instantclient-sqlplus-win32-11.2.0.1.0.zip
    • ldap.ora, sqlnet.ora, tnsnames.ora

 

(These files will be moved to an Oracle11 directory on the new archive service as soon as it is available. Also in that directory are Oracle Web pages and the whitepaper related to the use and installation of the instant client.)

"Installing" Oracle

  1. If there is another version of an Oracle client on this computer, remove it first. Because
    If there is usually no uninstaller available in Control Panel ->Add or Remove Programs> Programs and Features, just delete the following directories and their contents:
        "C:\Program Files\Oracle10" and
        "C:\Program Files\Oracle" and their contents.
    (You may not be able to remove one directory because one oci*.dll file is in use; ignore the problem and it will go away in the next step. In )
  2. Open the Services management Management console (services.msc) , disable and disable any Oracle services, if there are any. You also need to remove any Oracle directories from the Windows PATH environment variable, which is easiest to do in step X below.
  3. Create the directory ": C:\Program Files\Oracle11" and unzip all the
  4. Unzip the contents of all three .ZIP archives listed above into this directory.
    (Windows Explorer can open a .ZIP archive like a folder directory and then you can "Extract all files".) These extracted files are probably going to be created under an instantclient_11_xx subdirectory; once the extractions are done, If you accidentally extract the parent directories as well simply move all the files and folders out of that the three "instantclient_11_xx subdirectory up into the main " directories and into "C:\Program Files\Oracle11".
  5. Create the directory:  C:\Program Files\Oracle11\Network\Admin
  6. Copy the three Carleton *.ora files listed above into the C:\Program Files\Oracle11\Network\Admin directory.
    These files define how the Oracle client will try to locate database services; their modification is beyond the scope of this article.
  7. Create the directory:  C:\Program Files\Oracle11\bin
  8. Copy all '.dll' files that you extracted into "C:\Program Files\Oracle11" directory . in to "C:\Program Files\Oracle11\bin"

Setting Environment Variables

You need to create two new Windows environment variables and modify another. (You can use the SetX command line utility if you're familiar with it; there's a copy of the utility in that original directory holding the .ZIP archives

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)

  1. Select: Start > Control Panel > System
  2. Click on Advanced System Settings (or select the Advanced tab).
  3. Click on the Environment Variables button.
  4. In the System variables (bottom) list, scroll down to the Path variable, select it, and choose click Edit. Remove
  5. Edit the entry to remove any existing Oracle directories from the Path entries ONLY (they are usually at the front), and put this new directory as the first in the Path: C:\Program Files\Oracle11;  then choose OK.
    Back at the Environment Variables dialog, select the New button under the System variables (bottom) list, and create these two new variables with the indicated values (no blanks):
    TNS_ADMIN                      C:\Progra~1\Oracle11
    ORACLE_HOME                C:\Progra~1\Oracle11
    (in these, we're using the short form of the "C:\Program Files\Oracle11" directory name, to avoid confusing Oracle.)
  6. Copy the three Carleton *.ora files-tnsnames.ora, ldap.ora, sqlnet.ora-into this Oracle11 program directory. You can find these files in the original directory holding the .ZIP archives, or in APPS\Windows\Oracle102. These files define how the Oracle client will try to locate database services; their modifcation is beyond the scope of this article.

That's it; installation is done in four easy steps. To make the environment variables changes effective, you have to reboot. After you do, it should become possible to delete that last oci*.dll files from any old C:\Program Files\Oracle10" directory, and then the empty directory itself.

  1. in front).
    Do NOT delete the entire entry.
  2. Add the following to the start of the Path variable (copy and paste):
    C:\Progra~1\Oracle11\bin;C:\Progra~1\Oracle11;
  3. Click OK.
  4. Add the following two new system variables using the New button at the bottom of the screen (under System variables):

    TNS_ADMIN C:\Progra~1\Oracle11\Network\Admin
    ORACLE_HOME C:\Progra~1\Oracle11
  5. Click OK.

Notes

This instantclient lacks two important pieces that were present and used with the traditional Oracle client. SQL*Plus Worksheet was used by "a handful of people" at Carleton, but is becoming obsolete. (I believe that Microsoft Access or Excel, along with the advance ODBC data source, can replace it.) And TNSPING was used by all of us to demonstrate that an Oracle client installation worked and that Oracle was correctly installed. Without TNSPING, it becomes more difficult to prove that the instantclient is correctly installed and working: Assuming that the Advance client has also been installed, from an elevated command prompt, run the SQLPlus program using these command line parameters:
     sqlplus.exe username/password@advance
where username is your Oracle (not Advance, not Windows) login and password is your Oracle password. If this succeeds, SQLPlus displays its SQL> prompt, at which you can enter this query to retrieve one record:
     select * from entity where rownum = 1;
Retrieving one record demonstrates that the instantclient is installed correctly and locating Carleton data to which you have read access.

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The installation would be the same on a personal computer. Remember that a restricted VPN connection would be required to access Carleton data.

 

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Who To Call

BSR Advance CS and its companion applications are supported by Central Records staff Carla Thomas, Tony Pierre, and Denise Flicek. Within ITS, Oracle database systems administration is done by Richard Goerwitz, who can answer many Oracle questions (like how do the three *.ora files work). Sande Nissen in ITS will package any Oracle 11g client installations that are needed, for distribution through the KBOX user portal.

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