Siebel 8.2.2 – First Impressions

Well, I’ve downloaded 8.2.2 Public Sector from eDelivery and unzipped all I need. Here’s a quick summary of what I’ve found so far!

ImageCreator – no more!

Unzipping all the JAR files into a single location left me a bit confused. Where’s ImageCreator.exe? No more, from what I can see! There’s a wee batch file called ‘snic.bat’ that does the job instead. Simply open a command prompt, set JAVA_HOME and run snic.bat. Behold, the new face of ImageCreator:

ImageCreator – but not as you know it

First thing to note – it works great in Windows 7 64-bit! WOO HOO! Thank you Oracle!

All the familiar options are there, so I opt to create installers for the Siebel Enterprise, Tools, Web Client and SWE. English language picked, it creates the installers. Simple, awesome, it works. Hurrah!

Installation

That done, I have two freshly created Windows 2008 R2 VMs ready to roll – one for the App Server / SWE and one for the database. I’ve taken the liberty of installing Oracle 11g in preparation – I hope you don’t mind! I’ve also set aside a Windows 7 64-bit VM for Siebel Client and Tools installations, with the 11g client already installed.

So, the installations. Are they now supported on Windows Server 2008? Well… Yes! The installation process for Server components now follows the OUI method of the Client and Tools installers for 8.1:

Familiar installer

Cool! Much better than the old 8.1 installers. Working great in 64-bit 2008 R2 too – no complaints about incompatibility!

Configuration

Launching the config shortcuts reveals a make over of the configuration wizards, in keeping with the installer look and feel. Everything works as before but it’s much cleaner and much more compatible.

Clean and compatible configuration

Initial Gateway Configuration failed and I don’t know why. You’ll notice that the file system structure of the installation looks very ‘Oracle’ like and far less ‘Siebel’ like – the configuration log files reside in a ‘cfgtools’ folder though I could find no error to speak of in any of the files. I was unable to uninstall the Gateway too – again, no trace of an error in the log files but the configuration wizard refused to complete successfully. Enterprise configuration ran without a hitch.

It’s at this point I will mention that the ODBC datasource for the Enterprise was created in the 32-bit subsystem. That is, checking in the registry (or through the SysWOW version of odbcad32.exe), you’ll see the ODBC entries in the WOW (Windows in Windows – the 32-bit subsystem supporting 32-bit apps in 64-bit Windows) area. This is a disappointment and certainly suggests no native 64-bit support. Checking the binaries in starting the Siebel Server and Gateway, I can see quite clearly that they are running in the 32-bit subsystem so are most certainly not native 64-bit.

GRANTUSR.SQL has received a well deserved make over – a far larger script prompts for more detailed information, performs more checks and is generally easier and safer to use. Excellent stuff.

SWE installation still does not support IIS 7.5 natively and requires the IIS 6 metabase compatibility to be enabled.

The rest of the configuration of the Database Server, Siebel Server and SWE are much the same as before.

Tools and Web Client

Familiar installation dialogs for Tools and Web Client. The only addition is the ability to sign up for Oracle updates, in line with newer Oracle product installations. Windows 7 is now seen as a supported OS, so no compatibility problems this time around. Nice!

Finally, support for Windows 7

 No problems with regsrvr hanging on the Client installation but the installer has crashed at 100% – ‘Updating registry key … AutoStartOnDisconnect’. I’ve had to kill it. Running again ‘As Administator’ seemed to get around this – still not great, thought. I want to be able to install client software without faffing around with UAC.

I’ve had to stop here – the ‘All Inclusive’ keys on the the Oracle License Key page are yet to include 8.2.2 keys, so I can’t go any further.

I’ll post again when I get chance to investigate some of the functional and technical changes present in 8.2.2.