1 Introduction

Oracle Configuration Manager is a standalone utility, distributed with Oracle products, used to collect product configuration information and upload it to the Oracle repository. When the product configuration data is uploaded on a regular basis, customer support representatives can analyze this data and provide better service to customers.

Oracle Configuration Manager may not be installed in customer environments because of restricted connectivity to the Internet or it may not have been bundled with the product at the time of installation. Utilities are now available to solve these problems. The Oracle Support Hub provides a tunnelling service which enables many systems on a corporate intranet to access the Oracle server. The Mass Deployment Utility enables the installation or configuration of Oracle Configuration Manager into many homes from a central location. The two utilities comprise the Oracle Companion Distribution kit.

This chapter provides the following information:

What Is the Companion Distribution Kit?
How to Install the Companion Distribution Kit

1.1 What Is the Companion Distribution Kit?

The Companion Distribution kit contains two utilities:

Oracle Configuration Manager Mass Deployment Utility

Installs the Oracle Configuration Manager into the homes of Oracle products that do not have Oracle Configuration Manager installed. This is done from a central location.

Updates and configures various systems from a single location
Oracle Support Hub Utility

Enables access to sites that are not on the Internet or have limited Internet access.

1.1.1 Mass Deployment Utility

There are Oracle products that currently do not bundle Oracle Configuration Manager as part of their kit. Also, there are previous product installations where Oracle Configuration Manager was installed, but not configured. The manual installation of Oracle Configuration Manager in these environments can be tedious and time consuming. The Oracle Mass Deployment Utility can facilitate the deployment of Oracle Configuration Manager in these environments from a single location.

The Mass Deployment Utility enables you to:

Install Oracle Configuration Manager into the home of Oracle products where Oracle Configuration Manager is not installed or configured
Update Configuration Manager installations to the latest version
Change the configuration of Oracle Configuration Manager in existing configurations

This distribution is accomplished from a single location to many systems where Configuration Manager is not installed, not configured, or running an older version of Configuration Manager.

Chapter 2, "Mass Deployment" explains the Mass Deployment Utility in detail.

1.1.2 Oracle Support Hub Utility

The Oracle Support Hub (formerly known as Oracle Configuration Manager Repeater) is an HTTP tunnel that enables the upload of the configuration data from individual Oracle Configuration Manager instances to the repository maintained at Oracle.

The Support Hub is deployed in the customer's network but it contains a connection to the external network. Therefore, the Support Hub becomes the only point of access needed between inside the network and the outside Internet.

Chapter 3, "Oracle Support Hub" explains the Support Hub in detail.

1.2 How to Install the Companion Distribution Kit

The Companion Distribution kit is available for download from both the Collector tab on My Oracle Support and Automated Release Update (ARU).

From the Collector tab on My Oracle Support (https://support.oracle.com):
1. Click Download Tools located in the Oracle Support Hub & Mass Deployment Tools section.
2. Save the p8355285_1000_Generic.zip file to the location where you want to install the companion distribution files.
3. Unzip the file as follows:
```
unzip -d <full_path> p8355285_1000_Generic.zip
```
  where <full_path> represents the full path where you want to locate the kit
  
  For example:
```
unzip -d /scratch/jsmith/install/ p8355285_1000_Generic.zip
```
From ARU (http://aru.us.oracle.com:8080/):
1. Click the Patches tab.
2. In the Patch Search section, select Oracle Configuration Manager (ocm_pf) for the Product and select OCM 10.0.0 for the Release.
3. In the resulting Patches Matching Search, locate bug 8355285 and select the related ARU number where the Status is Fix FTPed to Support.
4. From the Patch Request page, download the p8355285_1000_Generic.zip file. Save the file to the location where you want to install the companion distribution files.
5. Unzip the file as follows:
```
unzip -d <full_path> p8355285_1000_Generic.zip
```
  where <full_path> represents the full path where you want to locate the kit
  
  For example:
```
unzip -d /scratch/jsmith/install/ p8355285_1000_Generic.zip
```

The following will be placed in the ocm_companion/distributions destination directory:

Mass Deployment Utility kit (ocm_massdeployment-10.0.1.0.0.zip)
Support Hub kit (oracle_support_hub-10.3.1.1.0.zip)

Therefore the ocm_companion/distributions destination directory looks like the following:

ocm_companion/distributions
    ocm_massdeployment-10.0.1.0.0.zip (Mass Deployment Utility kit)
    oracle_support_hub-10.3.1.1.0.zip (Support Hub kit)

Copy these zip files to the location where you want to install the kits.