Siebel IP 2015 Installation

It is high time I try to learn something new in Siebel.

The puny IP 2013 at work could not cough up anything exciting anymore, and so I decided it was time to move on to greener pastures..

.. of IP 2015.

A note of caution before you proceed - this is a rant and not a technical post. So you Siebel lovers can move on to more interesting things in life - like setting up a copy of eMedical OM on a server with 4 GB RAM.

I downloaded the installation files from the Oracle eDelivery site. The new site is confusing to choose Siebel installation files - so I reverted to the older ( more familiar) site. And, this may just be the last time I see the beloved legacy screens of the good old eDelivery.

After an endless wait with my super speed internet, it was time to roll up my sleeves and start the installation.

Creating the installation files is the same - just run the utility to create the installation files. Is this not something that can be enabled on the server? Is this because of the respect towards on-premise software?

Firing up tools brings up the now familiar installer UI. Just remember to start the setup.bat and not any of the other fancy files with fancy icons. This, ladies and gentlemen, is only the first of the reinforcements that you are now in the developer territory.

The worst thing about this?

Take off the new color and the ToC at the left with useless information - and you could be still in 2005. Even the error messages are more or less the same 🙂

Siebel has changed little in a decade, which should be a reason for little comfort and rather big concern.

I had read earlier that the installation was optimized and got a big shock when the installer quickly jumped to 100%.  But that turned out to be a false start - it was just the initial check before the file copy kicks in.

After a fairly long wait for JRE installation and web template file copy, I was beginning to wonder whether I was stuck in a time loop. Not to fear - the installation did complete successfully.

I fail to see the need for the installation UI showing the names of files as they get copied to disk. Could someone faint at heart about the file names do a “tail” on the installation log while saner people just see a progress bar?

Or, was that just the result of seeing too many end-user installations (like Office 2016)?

Tools installation was quickly followed by the client and sample database installation.

All the silly options that I have never seen a developer fill out at the time of installation are still there. Just ignore all of them and copy the CFG file from your best friend. Hopefully, she has done a better job of typing in the required information.

The sample database still uses the older installer. Probably someone found that it was just too much pain to change sample installation after they painfully changed Tools and Client installers? I may never know.

The saving grace is that there are no additional clicks for the language installation during Sample installation.

I missed one thing in all this hoopla - the new default folder is called “Tools” and not “Tools_1” (I believe this was the same in 2014, that I passed). I loved that - it provided an aura of my deep, dark(?) Siebel knowledge.

Users looked up to me since they did not quite understand just how many Tools_* installations are out there. They never dared cross me for the fear that I could make that tend to infinity.

Oh, well..

At last the excitement was over, and I ended up with the screen that has been my companion across the years.

Of course the same cannot be said about the client.

btw I did this entire thing on Windows 10 - not a hitch so far.