Preface

Oracle's Siebel CRM is the market-leading Customer Relationship Management software. Unmatched in functionality and scalability, it offers a lot of challenges for the system administrator. This book will be your safe vessel while navigating the deep waters of installing and managing Siebel CRM.

This book is a complete exercise in installing and managing Oracle's Siebel CRM 8 for your organization. You will understand the Siebel architecture and install it piece by piece. In easy-to-follow chapters, the book guides you through the installation of Siebel server, client, and third-party reporting software on Microsoft Windows and Linux. We begin with the planning process, cover downloading the software, and explain the exact installation and configuration tasks.

After reading this book, you will feel fully prepared for setting up multiple Siebel servers and multi-lingual configurations. Not only does the book give you step-by-step instructions, it also fosters your general understanding of the intricate features and functionality of Oracle's Siebel CRM. For example, you will understand how data security works. In addition, you will learn how to support development environments and how to migrate configuration changes between environments using Application Deployment Manager.

Another benefit of this book is that it teaches administrators how to establish system monitoring strategies to identify and avoid performance bottlenecks.

This book provides a practical, hands-on experience. Chapter by chapter, a Siebel CRM self-study environment is created that can be used to follow the examples described in the book and to explore Siebel CRM functionality. The book ensures that you understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. It contains clear step-by-step instructions, explanatory tables, screenshots, and precise diagrams.