Building Blocks of a Siebel CRM Deployment

The following figure shows an example of the elements in a Siebel CRM deployment. A brief description of these elements appears in the following table to help you understand the Siebel CRM architecture.

The current release of Siebel CRM supports certain specific database connector and operating system platforms, as well as certain combinations of them. For a list of the operating systems and RDBMS products supported by the current release, see the Certifications tab and certified database connectors on My Oracle Support.

The following table describes the major elements in a Siebel CRM deployment.

Entity	Description
Siebel Web Clients	Includes the following client types: Siebel Web Client Siebel Mobile Web Client Siebel Developer Web Client (limited support) Siebel Mobile applications For more information, see About Siebel Client Types.
Siebel Application Interface.	The Siebel Application Interface identifies requests for Siebel data and forwards them to the Siebel Servers. It receives data from Siebel Servers and helps format it into Web pages for Siebel clients. You install and configure the Siebel Application Interface as a separate module, located in the DMZ. (The DMZ or demilitarized zone is located behind an external firewall but outside of an internal firewall.) For more information, see About the Siebel Application Interface.
Siebel Server load balancing	Siebel Server load balancing is provided by Siebel Application Interface and Siebel Gateway working together. For more information, see About Siebel Server Load Balancing.
Siebel Enterprise Server	A logical grouping of Siebel Servers that connect to one database and that allows management of Siebel Servers as a group. The corresponding configuration entity is called the Siebel Enterprise. For more information, see About the Siebel Enterprise Server and the Siebel Server.
Siebel Servers	Application server software that provides both user services and batch mode services to Siebel clients or other components. For more information, see About the Siebel Enterprise Server and the Siebel Server.
Siebel Gateway	Stores configuration and status information for Siebel Enterprise, Siebel Server, Siebel Application Interface, and other components. For more information about Siebel Gateway, see About the Siebel Gateway. Note: Siebel CRM supports an optional native clustering feature for Siebel Gateway to provide high availability benefits to Siebel CRM customers. This feature works at the software level and is the preferred and recommended approach for clustering the Siebel Gateway. For more information, see Defining High Availability Policies.
Siebel database	Stores database records. Includes third-party RDBMS software and Siebel tables, indexes, and seed data. Also includes the Siebel runtime repository.
Siebel File System	Shared file system directory or directories storing data and physical files used by Siebel clients and Siebel application components. For more information, see About the Siebel File System.
Siebel CRM deployment	All of the physical and logical elements required to deploy Siebel applications, including: Siebel database Siebel Gateway Siebel Enterprise (configuration entity) Siebel Servers Siebel Application Interface Siebel clients and Web browsers Other components
Siebel Enterprise Integration Management (EIM) Siebel Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)	These modules allow importing and exporting of data from other databases to the Siebel database and provide various other integration services. For more information, see About Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager and About Siebel Enterprise Application Integration.
Siebel Tools Siebel Web Tools	Siebel CRM provides two main development tools: Siebel Tools is a Windows-based, integrated environment for configuring Siebel applications. Siebel Web Tools is an Application Object Manager component that provides similar functionality through the Siebel Web Client. Most of the information provided about Siebel Tools also applies to Siebel Web Tools. You use Siebel Tools to modify standard Siebel objects and create new objects to meet your organization’s business requirements. For example, you use Siebel Tools to extend the data model, modify business logic, and define the user interface. Note: For more information about these programs, see About Siebel Tools and Siebel Web Tools. See also Using Siebel Tools.