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Re: Remote automated installation of Oracle clients

From: Niall Litchfield <niall.litchfield_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:14:42 +0000
Message-ID: <7765c8970701100414j504412b8v34c266f37b4bed83@mail.gmail.com>


At my last place we (not the dbas!) created msi packages for desktop installations of the Oracle client. This was very error prone, especially when doing a deinstall of the previous client. We weren't able to use OUI for reasons that I never really understood/agreed with.

The Oracle client - even the instant one - is also really quite large to run unattended at logon, especially over a WAN. I'd advise against this, users really don't like waiting 10 minutes to logon/get a usable pc.

As far as a standardised tnsnames.ora goes, good luck catching all the apps that are out there including the ones people don't know about/have forgotten about. I'd be tempted to consider using AD as the single repository for your net service names, but haven't actually ever done this - it's a discussion where I am now where we have a similar situation.

On 1/10/07, Stephen Booth <stephenbooth.uk_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We have a situation where we need to rationalise the range of
> installed Oracle clients (i.e. the bit that sits between the app and
> the network stack) we have installed. We currently have versions from
> 7.x through to 10.2 installed accross approximately 12,000 desktops
> (accross various locations in an area of around 26 square miles)
> running various apps on Windows versions from NT4 to XP (mostly
> Windows 2000). We are also introducing a standard TNSNAMES.ORA file
> (this is the impetus to standardise on a single client version as
> different locations on disk and formats of the TNSNAMES.ORA file would
> make it pretty much impossible to manage the rollout of the file
> otherwise).
>
> With the number of desktops to be updated and the area they are spread
> over it would not be possible to do this by visiting every desktop so
> management are proposing automated installation of the Oracle client
> through scripts run at logon requiring no user interaction. Has
> anyone ever tried something like this? Are there any lessons learned
> you would be willing to share?
>
> I haven't been able to find any references to this sort of work other
> than how to do a silent install using a responses file. I have looked
> at the 10g Instant Client which looks like it might be more suited to
> our needs as we just need to copy the files onto the desktop and set
> the path variable. Does anyone have any experience of using this
> client that they'd be willing to share. I have used it in test and it
> seemed fine, I'd be grateful for any comments or advice.
>
> I suggested that we look at moving applications to Citrix or other
> thin client solutions so negating the need to have the Oracle client
> on the desktop but was told that this would be too expensive to
> consider right now.
>
> Thanks
>
> Stephen
>
> --
> It's better to ask a silly question than to make a silly assumption.
>
> http://stephensorablog.blogspot.com/
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenboothuk
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.orawin.info

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
Received on Wed Jan 10 2007 - 06:14:42 CST

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