Oracle Forms

Hello,

for the curious ones here's the installation steps I did for installing Forms 11g on a developer machine (i.e. only the necessary components for using Forms Builder and Reports Builder) after looking through most parts of the documentation. My system runs WinXP Pro SP3 (32-bit) with 4 GB RAM.
If anyone else already did this: Is it really necessary to start the WLS_FORMS server (as a replacement for that small OC4J in Developer Suite 10g) to be able to do a one-button-run from Forms Builder? Only starting WLS_FORMS will create a java.exe process which is a real resource hog - it's using about 700 MB RAM! I do have a fast machine with plenty of RAM but there are also a few other applications running at the same time which need some of that (like Eclipse, Office, a few Forms 10g runtimes for testing etc.)

Remember: The goal in this case is to install as a "Developer Suite" replacement, not a full-blown application server (that's the next step on my list).

1. Download and install „WebLogic Server“
Filename: oepe11_wls1031.exe (this is the one including Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - you may also use the one without OEPE)

During install choose the following options:
Middleware Home Directory - this will be the parent directory of all components to be installed, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g
Install Type: Typical
WebLogic Server Directory - take the default under the chosen middleware home, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g\wlserver_10.3
Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse Directory - take the default under the chosen middleware home, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g\oepe_11.1.1.1.0

Necessary disk space: approx. 1 GB

2. Download and install „Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer“
Files:
ofm_pfrd_win_11.1.1.1.0_32_disk1_1of2.zip
ofm_pfrd_win_11.1.1.1.0_32_disk1_2of2.zip

Choose the following options during the setup process:

Installation Type: Install and configure
Choose "Create Domain" and use the defaults (and a password of your choice, of course)
Username: weblogic
Domain name: ClassicDomain
Middleware Home Directory - use the same directory you chose as middleware home during the WebLogic Server Setup, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g
Oracle-Standard directory - this is the oracle home you would have chosen during a DevSuite/OAS 10gR2 setup, e.g. dev11g
Weblogic Server directory - use the one you chose during the WebLogic Server Setup, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g\wlserver_10.3
Oracle Instance directory - this will contain the configuration files separated out of the oracle home, e.g. D:\oracle\fmw11g\dev11ginst_1
Oracle Instance name - name the instance, e.g. dev11ginst_1
On the "Configure Components" screen choose the following (minimal install):
Server components: Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports (these are dependencies of the Builder/Tools)
Developer Tools: Oracle Forms Builder, Oracle Reports Builder
Clustered: No
Automatic Port configuration

Necessary disk space: approx. 3 GB (note the first bug: necessary and available disk space labels were switched in my setup :)

3. Results of the setup (you're already finished at this point):

Domain standard directory is <middleware home>\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain
Domain-Port: 7001
Homepage: http://localhost:7001/
WebLogic Server Administrator Console: http://localhost:7001/console
Enterprise Manager Console: http://localhost:7001/em (not installed as I didn't choose this during setup)
EM Agent URL: http://localhost:5155/emd/main
Forms-URL: http://localhost:9001/forms/frmservlet
Reports-URL: http://localhost:9002/reports/rwservlet

Note that all processes/servers are started after the installation and consume around 1.5 GB RAM! You should restart at this point.
After a clean restart you see the following on your system:
An "Oracle Processing Monitor and Notification" (opmn) Windows service (as in 10gR2). This is set to start automatically and starts the following processes you see in the taskmanager:
opmn.exe, javaw.exe (EMAgent), Reports Server (rwserver.exe) and a reports engine (javaw.exe). These use about 100 MB RAM overall which seems reasonable.

You can start/stop the WebLogic Admin Server by running the following command though this seems not necessary to be able to run Forms from the Builder (thank god, the admin server uses about 700 MB RAM in a single java.exe process):
d:\oracle\fmw11g\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\startWebLogic.cmd
d:\oracle\fmw11g\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\stopWebLogic.cmd

So what do you need to start to be able to run Forms modules via one-button-run from Forms builder? It seems you have to start the WLS_FORMS managed WebLogic server (replacing oc4j) or WLS_REPORTS, respectively. Those managed servers are installed into the ClassicDomain and can be started via the following commands (note that you don't need to have the Admin Server running inspite of specify its url on the command line):
d:\oracle\fmw11g\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\startManagedWebLogic.cmd WLS_FORMS http://localhost:7001
d:\oracle\fmw11g\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain\bin\startManagedWebLogic.cmd WLS_REPORTS http://localhost:7001

If you want to stop the servers just hit CTRL+C to initiate a shutdown in the command line window. To stop them via the stopManagedWebLogic.cmd script you would've to start the admin server first.

To summarize what do you need to run for Forms development: Forms Builder (of course), WLS_FORMS (using about 650 MB RAM!) and (may be) opmn.exe (using 100 MB RAM).

If anyone finds out how to minimize the memory usage of WLS_FORMS I'd be delighted to know :)

Andreas