Installing support files for the Siebel EAI Connectors

If our company has decided to use any of the platforms or technologies in the list below to integrate with Siebel CRM, we should install the support files for the respective platform using the EAI Connector installation option of the Siebel Enterprise Server installer:

• Microsoft BizTalk Server
• OLE DB
• Oracle eBusiness applications 10.7 or 11i
• COM Data Control
• Java Data Bean

The following screenshot shows the selectable features for the EAI Connector installation option of the Siebel Enterprise Server installer:

A brief explanation of this option shall be given in the following sections:

• EAI Connector for Microsoft BizTalk Server

  According to the Siebel Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows, the EAI Connector for Microsoft BizTalk Server is not supported in Siebel CRM release 8.1. Oracle will make announcements on its support portal in case the support is re-established. (Source: Siebel Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows, Version 8.1)

  Selecting this feature will result in the creation of a directory that holds files needed to integrate Siebel CRM with Microsoft BizTalk Server, however unsupported it might be to use them.

• EAI Connector for OLE DB

  OLE stands for "Object Linking and Embedding" and is a technology layer established by Microsoft to connect applications. The OLE DB standard is the object linking and embedding technology used to link applications to databases.

  In versions up to Siebel 7.8, the Siebel EAI toolkit included an OLE DB provider option, which would enable so-called OLE DB consumers such as hand-written or standard software to connect to the Siebel business layer using the OLE technology stack. Executing the EAI Connector installer with this option would place the necessary support files onto a machine where the OLE DB consumer would run.

  However, OLE DB has been de-supported by Oracle in Siebel CRM 8.0. So, the feature selection is not of any use if we install Siebel CRM 8.0 or above.

• EAI Connector for Oracle

  When Siebel Systems Inc. was an independent software company, several connectors for other standard enterprise applications were part of the product portfolio. These connectors were made available for:

  • Oracle eBusiness applications 10.7 and 11i
  • SAP R/3
  • PeopleSoft applications

  PeopleSoft and Siebel have been acquired by Oracle in 2004 and 2005 respectively and Oracle has developed the Application Integration Architecture, which provides middleware-based integration for these and other standard enterprise applications.

  In the (admittedly rare) case of the need to integrate with one of these applications in a peer-to-peer manner, then only for Oracle eBusiness Suite we would have to run a separate installation process in order to obtain the support files. These files are basically pre-built scripts to create SQL views in the Oracle application's database.

  The SAP and PeopleSoft connectors are delivered with the standard installation procedure and do not require a separate installer to be run.

• EAI Connector for COM Data Control

  The Siebel EAI toolkit provides several programmatic options to integrate external applications with Siebel CRM using Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM). If we would have the requirement to run a program written in C++ or .NET on a machine that does not host a Siebel Server installation, we would have to run this EAI Connector installer to create the necessary support files. These would be mainly dynamic link library (dll) files, which enable the developer to connect to the Siebel Application Object Manager and use the Application Programming Interface (API) provided by Oracle.

  If the machine has a Siebel Server installation, then the libraries for COM support are already installed and it is therefore not necessary to run the installer separately.

• EAI Connector for Java Data Bean

  In a similar fashion as writing a C++ program to connect to a Siebel Application Object Manager from a Microsoft Windows machine, the Siebel EAI toolkit provides support for programs written in the Java programming language. These programs run on any operating system. If we need to place the support files—in this case mainly Java libraries to support connectivity to the Siebel Application Object Manager from Java code—on a machine that does not host a Siebel Server, then we would use this EAI Connector installer option to do so.

  During the Siebel Server installation, we noticed the "Java Integrator" feature which, when selected, will direct the Siebel Server installer to create a CLASSES subdirectory containing these libraries.

  Regarding the information about supported EAI connectivity above, we should use the EAI Connector installer whenever we plan to integrate Siebel CRM with Oracle eBusiness applications 10.7 or 11i (also known as Oracle connector) directly (not via middleware) or need to deploy support files for COM or Java-based connectivity on a machine that does not host a Siebel Server.

  The following table conveys the steps and necessary input to install the EAI Connector support files:

We can verify the successful installation by navigating to the specified target directory and checking whether a new subdirectory named eaiconn has been created. The eaiconn directory will contain the support files for each selected feature in a separate folder.