Overview of Installation

To install your Oracle software you use the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI). The Oracle Universal Installer is a graphical user interface (GUI) tool that enables you to view the Oracle software that is already installed on your machine, install new Oracle software, and deinstall Oracle software that you no longer intend to use. Online Help is available to guide you through the installation process.

Checking Prerequisites

Before installing the software, the installer performs a number of automated checks to ensure that your machine fulfills the basic hardware and software requirements for an Oracle Database installation. If your machine does not meet a requirement, an error message is displayed. The requirements may vary depending upon the type of computer and operating system you are running, but some prerequisites include:

A minimum of 512 MB of memory is available.
Sufficient paging space is available.
Appropriate operating system service packs or patches are installed.
An appropriate file system format is being used.

The installer automatically sets any operating system environment variables that the Oracle database server requires for its operation.

Installation Choices

The Oracle Universal Installer guides you through an interview phase that asks you to specify your choices for installation and database creation. The exact sequence of steps depends on your operating system.

The installation options are divided into basic and advanced. During a basic installation, you need only make basic choices. For all other cases, you make both basic and advanced choices.

Basic Installation

When you install Oracle Database during basic and advanced installations, you make the following choices.

What database product do you want to install?

You can install one of the following:
- Enterprise Edition—Oracle's full featured database product which provides data management for enterprise-level applications. It is engineered for mission-critical, high-security online transaction processing (OLTP) and data warehousing environments.
- Standard Edition—This installation type is suitable for workgroup or department-level applications, and for small to medium sized enterprises. It is engineered to provide core relational database management services and options.
- Personal Edition (Windows operating systems only)—This installation type installs the same software as the Enterprise Edition, but supports only a single-user development and deployment environment.
- Custom Install—This installation type enables you to customize the Enterprise Edition. Use Custom Install to add a component to your existing installation that would not normally be installed or prevent certain components from being installed.
Do you want to create a starter database in addition to installing the Oracle software? To create the database, the installer automatically launches the Database Configuration Assistant at the end of the installation.

To install a preconfigured database, select one of the following database types, optimized according to usage:
- General Purpose
- Transaction Processing
- Data Warehouse
To create an custom database in which you configure your own database structure, see advanced installation.

Best Practice:
Oracle recommends that you install a preconfigured database, which is faster and easier to do. You can customize the database later.
What are your Database Configuration Options? Th ese options include your Global Database Name and Oracle System Identifier (SID).

The Global Database Name is the full name of the database that uniquely distinguishes it from any other database. The global database name is of the form database_name.database_domain, as in sales.us.acme.com. The database name portion sales is a simple name you call your database. The database domain portion us.acme.com specifies the database domain in which the database is located. Together, the database name and domain make up the Global Database Name.

During basic installation, Oracle automatically installs the sample schemas. Many of the examples in the database documentation are based on the sample schemas.

You will also be prompted to enter your database schema password for the SYS and SYSTEM accounts, which enable you to manage and administer the database.

Advanced Installation

During advanced installations, you are prompted to make the choices listed in this section, in addition to the basic options. The installation process provides defaults for every choice.

The advanced installation choices are described here. However, advanced installation steps are not documented in this chapter. For more information, see the Oracle Database Installation Guide for your platform.

During an advanced installation, you are given the following options:

Install the sample schemas?

To complete the exercises in this book and related course material, you must install the sample schemas. This data is also used in most examples throughout Oracle Database documentation. Oracle recommends that you install the sample schemas.

This choice is a configuration option only during advanced installation. This option defaults to No during advanced installation. However, sample schemas are installed by default during basic installation.
What kind of storage mechanism do you want your database to use?

A database includes several files that store the user data, database metadata, and information required to recover from failures. As an administrator, you decide what kind of storage subsystem to use for these files. You can select from the following options:
- File System—This default option creates database files that are managed by your operating system's file system. You can specify the directory path where database files are to be stored. Oracle Database can create and manage the actual files.
  
  If you are not certain of which option to use, choose the default selection of File System.
- Automatic Storage Management—This functionality enables you to define a pool of storage (called a disk group) in which Oracle automatically manages database file placement and naming. For environments with a large number of disks, this option simplifies database administration and maximizes performance. Disk mirroring and striping are performed automatically.
  
  Automatic Storage Management requires a separate instance to configure and manage disks groups. The installer guides you through the creation and launching of an Automatic Storage Management instance and its components. For more information, see Appendix A, "Automatic Storage Management" and Oracle Database Administrator's Guide.
- Raw Devices—This option enables you to manage your storage devices outside of the operating system file system by providing Oracle Database with unformatted physical disk space called raw devices. This method is primarily used in Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) environments. If you select this option, ensure that the raw devices have been created with an operating system command, and that they are not being used for any other purposes or by other Oracle databases.
What are your Database Management Options?

Here you specify whether to manage your database centrally or locally. The central deployment mode enables you to manage multiple targets, such as databases and application servers, from a single console. The local deployment mode can manage only a single database instance.

The central deployment mode requires a special agent to be installed on the database host. If no such agent is found, then this option is disabled.

If you are setting up a single database for the first time, it is recommended that you deploy Enterprise Manager locally, which is the default.You can later install additional databases and migrate your deployment mode to central management.

At the end of the interview, a summary window displays the options that you have chosen, the requirements for space based on those options, and the components that will be installed. If you have chosen to install a database, then this step is performed immediately after the software installation is complete.