Oracle Retail Technical Architecture - Logical

This is a logical diagram indicating the technogical footprint of Oracle Retail 13.2. In actual enterprise Installation, each application may use seperate DB and Apps Server.

ORMS and ORPM have a common Schema, rest of the application databases can be installed as seperate Schemas or seperate DB.

High Level steps in Installing Oracle Retail 13.2

Oracle Retail is a suite of Products loosely integrated with Retail Integration Bus (RIB) as well as Flat file integration. One of the advantages of this approach is that customers can choose and pick relevant modules to build best fit solution. Each product within this suite can be installed and integrated with your existing retail systems, giving clients flexibility in building the solution and not having to buy the whole suite. The new 13.2 version is based on Oracle Fusion Middleware in line with Oracle strategy going forward for all its applications.

The main products that most companies implement are:
1. RMS
2. RPM
3. ALLOC
4. ReSA
5. ReIM
6. RDW
7. OBIEE
8. RWMS
9. SIM


Among the products listed above RMS and RWMS are based on Oracle Forms technology while rest are Java based applications. With the Release of Retail V13.2, Oracle has moved all application including RMS and RWMS on Weblogic 11g. The earlier version of Oracle Retail, all products used Oracle Application Server to host the Applications.
Unlike Oracle e-business suite, Oracle retail doesn't have a common GUI installer. Each product has to be installed separately and it is because of this reason, Oracle retail becomes a Complex installation prone to errors relying heavily on the Oracle Retail DBA to follow a structured and well documented process to get the environment created. However Oracle has come a long way in easing the install process from the first version I worked with, V12 although a lot of the steps involved are still to be done manually apart from getting the file system structure ready for installation. Also a lot of installation bugs will be encountered and in most cases will have to carefully watch installation logs to sort out missing sql's or binaries not copied or forms not compiling due to missing objects, etc. Which can be easily fixed by running those scripts manually in the order they need to be run.

So below are the steps that will be required to have a basic setup with above products.
1. Install 11G DB and create schemas for RMS/RPM (share a common Schema), ReIM, RWS, ALLOC.
2. Install RMS/RPM, ReIM, Alloc DB objects with the installer for RMS
3. Install RMS batch files on the DB Host.
4. Install Weblogic 11g
5. Now Install Oracle Forms within the weblogic (This  will ask for creating a domain)
6. Create a managed server named rms_help within this domain.
7. Now use the RMS forms installer to deploy the code in this new domain.
8. Install RWMS DB objects
9. Create rwms_help managed server within the weblogic (I will use same wls but can use a seperate wls)
10. Create bip-server managed server on weblogic and deploy BI Publisher
11. Deploy RWMS forms and reports using the same forms domain created for RMS (In PROD, create seperate FORMS domain for RWMS)
12. Install RDW (Warehouse Datamodel)
13. Install OBIEE 11G and edit datasources to point to above RDW database.
14. Create managed servers for RPM, ALLOC on weblogic (For PROD install seperate weblogic)
14. Deploy the APPS using respective GUI intaller.
15. Create SIM DB using installer
16. Create SIM managed server on weblogic
17. Deploy SIM apps using installer


Note; This is a test Installation and hence the Architecture is simplified by using same DB and Weblogic Server. In a enterprise installation, we would use separate DB for RWMS, RMS/RPM/ALLOC/ReIM (Historically was one product but now separated but have close integration), RDW, SIM.

Refer my earlier post on Oracle Retail Explained for better understanding of Oracle Retail. Also earlier versions of Oracle retail follow a similar installation order but using Oracle Application server 10g instead of Weblogic.

Oracle Retail aka Retek Explained

Oracle Retail aka Retek is a broad suite of Oracle Products for the Retail Industry for managing Merchandising, Inventory Management and Inventory Planning. Originally called Retek and renamed to Oracle Retail after the acquitition by Oracle in 2005. The suite has gone through a considerable architectural changes with every release of the product with the latest being V13.2.x using Oracle latest middleware techonologies, Weblogic 11g to host all of the indvidual components in a web based solution.

The suite contains a lot of individual products that can be used as standalone products integrating with the companies exsiting merchandising systems either inhouse or off the shelf. The major ones are as listed below, for a full list of products visit Oracle Documentation http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/13xdoc-520375.html

Core Mechandising Suite:

ORMS --> Merchandising system and is the heart of the suite
ORPM --> Price Management
OReIM --> Inventory Management
ORAlloc --> Allocations
OReSA --> Sales Audit (Is part of the RMS)
ORTM  --> Trade Management (Again part of RMS)
ORDW  --> Data Warehouse (OBIEE Front End)
ORETL --> RDW specific ETL tool. Now phased out with ODI in V13.2

*ORDW : Now replaced by a new product called Retail Analytics in v13.2

Store Systems:

ORSIM --> Store Inventory Management
ORPOS --> Point of Sale system

Warehouse:

ORWMS  --> Warehouse Management system

Strategic Products:

RPAS : The Planning Application server on top of which other specific products seat on like th eone below.

AIP   --> Advanced Inventory Planning
MFP --> Merchandise Financial Planning
CM   --> Category Management

Integration:

RIB  --> Retail Integration Bus, the main integration toll for all the individual Products. Its a java message based tool.
SOA --> Oracle SOA is also actively pushed in the more recent releases for Integration activities.


One of the biggest challenges for a Retail Infrastructure consultant or as they are more popularly known, Retail DBA  is to manage and Install each product individually. Although not the most difficult thing to do but a very cumbersome and time consuming activity as keeping track of each product can get a bit overwhelming with each one having its own technical Implemetation which unlike Oracle's E-business suite does not have a common Installer for the whole suite. However Oracle is working on standardising the Product set. While the main RMS system is entirely based on Oracle Forms but the rest of the products are JAVA based but none sharing a common GUI. Oracle lately is pushing Oracle Retail Workspace, a Retail Specific Portal allowing a comman place to manage and make available the suite from a platform with real dashboard capabilities.