| Oracle® Beehive Deployment Guide Release 2 (2.0.1.8) Part Number E16645-06 |
|
|
PDF · Mobi · ePub |
| Oracle® Beehive Deployment Guide Release 2 (2.0.1.8) Part Number E16645-06 |
|
|
PDF · Mobi · ePub |
This module provides an introduction to Oracle Beehive and an overview of the deployment process, and includes the following topics:
Oracle Beehive is the next generation of Oracle's enterprise collaboration technologies. Oracle Beehive provides a unified collaboration application and platform comprised of a comprehensive set of integrated, Java-based services, offering a new paradigm for enterprise collaboration solutions.
Oracle Beehive unifies common yet typically disjointed collaborative services, such as e-mail, time management, instant messaging, and content management, among others, and delivers them through standard protocol clients, integrated Web services, and familiar desktop tools such as Microsoft Outlook. This unified offering enables teams, individuals, and organizations to more easily collaborate, generate new information, make timely decisions, and, take action.
Oracle Beehive allows IT departments to consolidate their collaboration-enabling infrastructures and implement people-centric, rather than tool-centric, applications in a centrally managed, secure, and compliant environment. The Oracle Beehive platform is built on proven and cost-effective Oracle technologies, such as Oracle Database and Oracle Application Server, which provide reliability, manageability, scalability, and performance.
Oracle Beehive is a comprehensive enterprise collaboration platform that provides a wide range of functionality for deployments both small and large. As with any complex software technology that is designed to support the needs of an entire enterprise, there any many options to consider related to its deployment. Deploying Oracle Beehive can be complex from the standpoint that the system can leverage and interoperate with many hardware and software components. However, with proper planning as well as the right tools and resources in place, deploying Oracle Beehive can be straightforward and easily achieved.
This guide provides details on the things you will need to consider when planning to deploy Oracle Beehive. This guide will also help you evaluate many aspects of your organization's deployment needs, and will enable you to choose and plan the most appropriate path for successfully and optimally deploying Oracle Beehive. For reference purposes, examples of common deployment scenarios are provided. References and links to more in-depth details on certain options and components, especially those provided by other Oracle products, are also provided where appropriate.
Note:
To gain a comprehensive, high-level understanding of the features, options, and benefits that Oracle Beehive provides, see Oracle Beehive Concepts.This guide provides details on the various aspects for consideration when deploying Oracle Beehive, including:
Network considerations
Architectural considerations
Integration with other supported Oracle and third-party products
High availability
Coexistence with third-party components
Installation and upgrades
Note:
No install or upgrade-related procedural information is provided in this guide. For that type of information, see Oracle Beehive Installation Guide for your operating system.Deploying supported clients
Supported deployment scenarios
To successfully deploy Oracle Beehive you should know or understand the following:
Oracle Beehive architecture
Available Oracle Beehive features and options
Your organization's deployment needs
The resources that are available for deployment, including software and hardware components as well as technical personnel
You should read this and other related chapters before installing Oracle Beehive and allowing users to access the system.
Before deploying Oracle Beehive, Oracle strongly recommends that you consider a framework and methodology to follow through the various deployment stages. Doing so will help you and your organization prepare for, plan and execute a successful deployment of Oracle Beehive.
For your convenience, a sample framework to follow is provided in this section. However, following this framework is not mandatory for a successful deployment of Oracle Beehive. You should use whatever approach or methodology that best meets the needs, standards, and obligations of your organization based on the available resources and other factors.
The framework provided here is divided into several stages that follow each other in order. This framework also integrates the use of three successive deployment environments:
Development or customization
Testing
Production
Following this or a similar framework will help ensure a successful initial deployment of Oracle Beehive. It will also enable your organization to successfully maintain, administer, and upgrade the system in future.
The proposed framework for deploying Oracle Beehive includes the following stages, in order:
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #1: Create a Deployment Plan
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #2: Research and Knowledge Gathering
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #4: Install and Configure the System
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #6: Evaluate and Test the System
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #7: Training for Developers, Administrators, and End Users
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #8: Launch the System into Production
Oracle Beehive Deployment Stage #9: On-going Maintenance and Administration
The first thing that you and others in your organization should do is to choose an approach or methodology for deploying Oracle Beehive. The second thing that you should do is put that approach in writing and begin to create a plan based on it. The initial plan that you create should contain the general or high-level tasks that you expect will be required to deploy your Oracle Beehive instance. This can include major stages such as those listed here. The addition of specific, low-level tasks and their details should be added to the plan only as they become known, which often occurs in the following stages of the deployment process.
You should also begin to identify key resources that will be involved in the deployment process. These resources may include system administrators and technical staff members as well as senior-level members in your organization who possess decision-making and signoff authority.
The research and knowledge gathering stage includes gaining a solid understanding of what Oracle Beehive is as well as what related options are available to you and your organization. To gain a comprehensive, high-level understanding of the features, options, and benefits that Oracle Beehive provides, see Oracle Beehive Concepts.
During this stage, you should gain an understanding of how your organization plans to deploy and use Oracle Beehive. You should understand your organization's goals for deploying Oracle Beehive, and what the motivators and constraints are for achieving those goals, including any time frames or deadlines. This should also include confirming whether or not your organization plans to migrate users and data from existing systems. Remember to consider your organization's current and future needs, whether actual or potential, as you gather this information.
Once you have a better understanding of the various available Oracle Beehive options and components, determine which ones will apply to your deployment and then gather the information related to their requirements. This includes obtaining hardware and software requirements, server and host names, and port numbers, among other important information. This may also include identifying users and data sets that will be migrated from existing systems to Oracle Beehive, and how your organization plans to migrate them.
Tip:
To ease the transition from a development environment to a production environment and beyond, it is best to use virtual host names from the beginning. With this approach, you can transition and grow the system without having to significantly modify existing integrations of servers, services, and other components.This guide provide general deployment considerations and recommendations as they pertain to system requirements. For specific hardware and software requirements as well as other installation-specific information, see Oracle BeehiveInstallation Guide for your operating system.
The installation stage includes all installation-related steps, including pre- and post installation steps. Pre-installation steps include, among others, mapping out and planning for the installation process, preparing your operating system, and verifying that Oracle Database is already installed. Another pre-installation step is obtaining the Oracle Beehive installation package.
Oracle provides the Oracle Beehive installation package through an installation medium (CD, DVD, and so on) or through a download process from a supported Oracle website. For more information, see Oracle Beehive Installation Guide for your operating system.
Post installation steps include verifying that the installation was successful, configuring fundamental aspects of the system, and, optionally, beginning to migrate data from existing systems.
This stage includes customizing Oracle Beehive in one or more ways such as by integrating the system with other supported Oracle and third-party applications. This stage may also include deploying Oracle Beehive into a development environment to customize the system programmatically. This can include extending Oracle Beehive services or leveraging the platform's Application Programming Interface (API). The Oracle Beehive API enables organizations to retrieve and manipulate Oracle Beehive data as well as integrate the system with custom and third-party applications. For more information, see Oracle Beehive Application Developer's Guide.
After installing and customizing Oracle Beehive, but before launching the system, it is critical that you or your organization rigorously test the system to ensure that it functions as expected. This includes testing various server configurations and custom development, tuning the system, verifying that data from existing systems has migrated successfully, and conducting functional tests on all end-user clients that will be deployed into production. This stage also includes making any necessary changes if issues are discovered.
Note:
For more information on configuring and tuning the system, see Oracle Beehive Administrator's Guide.Test environments can either be replicas of their associated production environments (recommended) or they may be scaled-down versions that mimic production environment topologies but with less hardware.
An often-overlooked, but fundamentally important aspect of deploying a new system or application is training. In this stage, developers, administrators, and end users receive the information and instructions that they will need to begin customizing, managing, and collaborating with Oracle Beehive. This can include in-class training, online tutorials and demos, or other formats that are appropriate for your organization and the resources that are available. Oracle Beehive supports a variety of clients and users of all levels, so it might make sense to consider a different training strategy and delivery medium for each client or user type.
Including this stage in your overall deployment strategy will benefit your organization on many levels. For example, providing adequate training will likely reduce end-user issues and support costs. Conversely, it will also likely boost end-user adoption and productivity, ensuring that your organization receives the maximum return on the benefits provided by Oracle Beehive.
After testing Oracle Beehive and training end users, the next stage is to launch system into a production environment, or go live. This is the stage where all of the work and preparations from the previous stages come to fruition. Steps such as using virtual host names are of particular importance and can greatly simplify the process of launching the system. Depending on the protocols and needs of your organization, launching the system into production might include rolling out to one or more selected user groups at first and then, after confirming system stability, to the remainder of the enterprise. This stage may also include migrating users and data from existing systems.
After launching the system, you will enter the on-going maintenance and administration stage. This stage includes monitoring Oracle Beehive, changing configuration settings as needed, and managing users and groups, among other administrative tasks. This may also include coordinating regular updates and upgrades for the deployment of additional features, services, or hardware. For more information, see Oracle Beehive Administrator's Guide.
Before beginning the deployment process for Oracle Beehive, it is important to understand several fundamental deployment terms and concepts, including:
A server is a computer on which an Oracle Beehive instance runs. A node is a server in a network deployment of Oracle Beehive. Oracle Beehive supports deployments with multiple nodes.
A network zone is a defined and segregated area of a network that hosts one or more Oracle Beehive components.
A demilitarized zone (DMZ) is a computer host or small network that an enterprise inserts as a neutral zone between its internal, private network and the Internet. A DMZ prevents unauthorized users from accessing systems that contain confidential or proprietary data. In effect, DMZs act as proxy servers and provide another layer of network security, especially when used with firewalls.
An installation is the set of bits that comprise Oracle Beehive. Although multiple installations may exist on the same server, typically there is only one installation for each server.
An Oracle Beehive service is a discrete implementation of specific functionality that users and other services can leverage to accomplish a task. The capabilities and interactions of services enable the full scope of functionality that Oracle Beehive provides.
Oracle Beehive services can be installed and deployed on a single computer or among several computers distributed across multiple network zones. In the latter case, when multiple instances of service are deployed, the collection is referred to and represented as a single implementation of that service. By default, all services are deployed during the Oracle Beehive installation process.
An instance is an Oracle Beehive server that is running on a computer in an Oracle home (ORACLE_HOME). An instance may respond to requests from a specific enterprise. Oracle Beehive supports one server instance on each computer.
A site is a collection of physical hardware in the same geographic location used to run Oracle Beehive. Each Oracle Beehive site requires a minimum set of components to support a fully-functioning system. However, within each site, multiple instances of a variety of supported components, including services and servers, can be implemented. This can be useful for the purposes of availability and performance. Oracle Beehive currently supports only one site per deployment.
An enterprise is a container for all of the users, groups, and resources that leverage or that are a part of a single Oracle Beehive instance. Typically, an enterprise includes all of the users, groups, and resources within a company. Oracle Beehive supports one enterprise for each deployment.
Enterprises are the containers for organizations, which are groups defined by a department, line of business, project, or other criteria.
The hierarchical relationship between enterprises and organizations in Oracle Beehive provides a logical structure for organizing users, groups, and resources. This structure also allows system administrators to more easily manage users, groups, and resources through their organizational associations.
|
 Copyright © 2008, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Legal Notices |
|
