13 Implementation Process

This release of BDI defines the full life cycle of the BDI software product. The BDI life cycle and phases are described in detail in the software lifecycle management section of this document. For every life cycle phase and task that BDI defines, it provides corresponding tools and utilities to manage and operate on those phases.

There are several prerequisite steps that should be followed to have a successful BDI installation and deployment.

• Understand the BDI Core Concepts.

• Understand the deployment options.

• Understand the BDI life cycle.

• Understand the physical and logical requirements and limitations of the BDI Components.

• Understand the BDI Operational Considerations.

The process of implementation should follow these general steps:

• Work with the teams at your organization dedicated to Oracle Retail to coordinate plans for the number and type of environments needed (for example, Dev, Integration, Production).

• Each type of environment needs to be sized, deployed, and managed in conjunction with the implementation of the Oracle Retail applications. It is critical to understand the volume requirements of the production system so that the appropriate decisions can be made about the deployment option and the physical location and sizing.

• All deployments have integration to existing retailer systems. It is critical to understand the position of the BDI as it fits into the overall integration architecture and that the current operations and architecture team understand the BDI and its capabilities.

• Select a deployment option (distributed or centralized). This may be mixed depending on the phases of deployment. Development and test may be centralized and production distributed. Understand the operational complexities of each and plan for the staffing.

• Work with the application server administration teams to determine the physical and logical placement of the BDI components.

• Work with the system administrator and database administrator to appropriately place, size, and configure the file systems and databases.

  Work with the system administrators to select the central BDI management location, bdi-home.

• The installation of the BDI has many prerequisites and dependencies that require the understanding, support and effort of database administrators, system administrators, application server administrators, and your organization's Oracle Retail application teams. It is a critical role of the BDI system administrator to work with each team, regardless of the site organization structure.

• Create operational plans for the BDI life cycle.

• Create plans for environment monitoring and maintenance.

• Plan to performance test.