PRODUCT SUMMARY
The architecture redesign of the Oracle Installer addresses today's challenges for software packaging, installation and distribution. The new Oracle Universal Installer is based on a powerful Java engine that provides an extensible environment able to handle more complex internal and customer requirements. The component based installation definition enable creating different levels of integrated bundles, as well as more complex installation logic within a single package. The platform specific tasks can be easily encapsulated from the overall installation process and allows for a consistent, robust while common installation process on any platform.
The Oracle Universal Installer is the installation engine of Oracle8i and products following.
This paper provides an overview of the most significant new capabilities of the Oracle installation technology that specifically address the new requirements.

ORACLE UNIVERSAL INSTALLER, THE INSTALLATION TECHNOLOGY OF CHOICE

The Oracle Universal Installer offers a multitude of new or improved features that enable you to perform a complex installation that is yet easy, intuitive to the user and ensures consistent and fully configured products.

Unified cross-platform solution
Java based Universal Installer offers an installation solution for all Java-enabled platforms allowing for a common installation flow and user experience independent of the platform. This provides the ability to have the installation of the same Oracle products on different platforms look identical and follow the same path.

Complex component and dependency definition
The new installation engine automatically detects dependencies among components and performs an installation accordingly, depending on the products and the types of installation the user has selected. It allows more complex installation flow logic to be defined as consistency checks are performed throughout the install.
Dependencies detected can be of the type required in which case the dependent products are automatically installed or they may be optional in which case the user may be presented with a choice.
Bundles and suites installs, a pre-defined set of products and their order, are easily identified with a minimum number of user dialogs and no duplicate information requested.

Web based installation
The Universal Installer can be used to point to a URL where a release/staging area was defined and install software remotely, over HTTP. A release media, CDROM or network stage, can be simply placed on a Web server and the installer can resolve its products installation definition which allows an installation session identical to a session performed locally. The installer’s ability to recognize dependent products already existent on the local target becomes more important in this case of a remote installation. If product dependencies, with correct version numbers, are detected on the local target the Installer will not re-install them, potentially reducing the network traffic during installation.

Unattended, "silent", installations using Response Files
Response Files are collections of variable settings that provide values that would have been asked to the user otherwise. For a particular component installation the Oracle Universal Installer can read these values from a pre-defined Response File. In typical customer environments an administrator would want to define installation dialog entries that an user needs to provide and save them in a file for future use. This file can provide full or partial answers to an installation. The Universal Installer with this file as an additional argument can create a smaller number of dialogs installation session or even a complete non-interactive installation session.

Implicit de-installation
The de-installation products installed using the Universal Installer is built into the engine itself. The de-install actions are the "undo" of installation actions. At install time the Installer logs all the actions it performs to special log files. At de-install time OUI performs the reverse of all these actions. Universal Installer also detects if a special de-install action was defined for a particular action, if needed, and it acts accordingly.

Multiple Oracle homes support
Oracle Universal Installer maintains an inventory of all the Oracle Homes on a target machines, their names, products and versions of products installed on them. The Universal Installer can allow installations of new products in an existing Oracle Home, a new Oracle Home or no Oracle Home (independent on any Oracle Home).

National Language Support/internationalization support
The Universal Installer detects the language of the operating system and it runs the installation session in that language. Installer dialogs text and error messages are displayed in the operating system language or, if translations not available, in the provided default language.

Integration and ISVs/VARs Support- Seamless integration of installation flows
Universal Installer installations can be transparently integrated into each other using the packaging tool provided by Oracle, the Oracle Software Packager. The Installer will identify the installation logic that was imported into another installation from a release media.

Extensibility
Oracle provides and extensive set of libraries that implement specific tasks to be performed during an installation. The Universal Installer also allows the use of custom built libraries that perform specific actions, user-defined, during an installation session. These libraries can be defined in Java and used during the installation definition which in turn will make them available to the Installer during the installation session. These libraries can be easily added to the galley of pre-defined Universal Installer libraries.

Support for easy porting
Installations can be ported with minimum effort as specific platform specific installation tasks (actions, queries…etc.) are encapsulated into libraries. At runtime, the installer detects the operating system it is running on and loads the libraries defined for it.

CONCLUSION
Oracle Universal Installer is a key new technology that will open new opportunities in the software packaging and installation arena. This state of the art solution will be critical to moving forward into the remote software distribution realm.

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