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A quick guide to Oracle Discoverer packaging

Before proceeding to get the Oracle Discoverer software, it’s important to realize what you actually need and what the Oracle Discoverer packaging provides.

At the moment, there are two options when it comes to the current Oracle Discoverer software:

  • Oracle Business Intelligence suite, part of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2
  • Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite, part of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1

The first option – the Oracle Business Intelligence suite, part of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 – includes the following components:

  • Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer
  • Oracle HTTP Server
  • Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J)
  • Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control
  • Oracle Application Server Web Cache
  • Oracle Application Server Reports Services

The first component, Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer, in the above list represents actually a group of components whose name starts with Discoverer. The package includes:

  • Discoverer Plus
  • Discoverer Viewer
  • Discoverer Services
  • Discoverer Portlet Provider

Note, however, that the above list does not include all the Discoverer components. For example, you won’t find the following Discoverer components there:

  • Discoverer Administrator
  • Discoverer Desktop

The above components are included in a complementary package called Oracle Business Intelligence Tools.

As mentioned at the beginning of this section, another option to take advantage of the Discoverer components is to install the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite, which is part of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1.

This package includes the following components:

  • HTTP Server
  • WebCache
  • Portal
  • Forms Services
  • Forms Builder
  • Reports Services
  • Report Builder/Compiler
  • Discoverer Administrator
  • Discoverer Plus
  • Discoverer Viewer
  • Discoverer Services
  • Discoverer Desktop
  • Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control

As you can see, the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite, unlike Oracle Business Intelligence suite, does include Discoverer Administrator and Discoverer Desktop. So you won’t need to install another package to obtain these components.

A major downside to choosing the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite, though, is that it requires some additional software to be installed in your system. Here is the list of the required additional software components:

  • WebLogic Server
  • Repository Creation Utility
  • Identity Management
  • SSO Metadata Repository Creation Assistant
  • Patch Scripts
  • Identity Management 10gR3
  • Oracle Database

Due to this reason – to save you the trouble of installing a lot of software – the “Installation process” section later in this article will cover the installation of Oracle Business Intelligence suite, part of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 rather than the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1.

Getting the software

Once you have decided on the package you want to install, you can go for it to the OTN’s Software Downloads page at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html. It’s important to remember that each software component available from this page comes with a Development License, which allows for free download and unlimited evaluation time. You can look at the license at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/popup-license/standard-license.html. Later, if you so desire, you can always buy products with full-use licenses.

So, the OTN’s Software Downloads page, go to the Middleware section and, assuming you want to download Oracle Business Intelligence suite, click the Business Intelligence SE link to proceed to the Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2) page at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/htdocs/101202.html.

On this page, go down to the Business Intelligence section and find the links to the packages provided for your operating system. Each package is supposed to be copied on a separate CD. The number of CDs and the size of packages to be copied on them may vary depending on the operating system. What you need to do is download the installation packages and then copy each to a CD.

Looking through the links to the installation packages, you may notice that Tools CD – the link to the package containing the Oracle Business Intelligence Tools suite – is available only for Microsoft Windows operating system. This is because the components included in the Oracle Business Intelligence Tools suite are Windows-only applications.

If, instead of the Oracle Business Intelligence suite, you decided on the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer suite, you have to follow the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g R1 link in the Middleware section on the OTN’s Software Downloads page.

Following that link, you’ll be directed to the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11gR1 Software Downloads page at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/middleware/htdocs/fmw_11_download.html.

On this page, go down to the Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer section and pick up the distribution divided into several packages. Again, the number of packages within a distribution and their size may vary depending on the operating system.

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