As you have likely heard – and if you haven’t, go see Dan’s post now– the first 8.55 PI has been released. It is a big change from how 8.53 and 8.54 PIs were delivered to us in the past. Oracle is now leveraging DPKs to get us our images. As Dan had mentioned in his previous post, there are two options with this new delivery method: VirtualBox and Native OS. Now, you may see VirtualBox and assume you will still be downloading zip files and then running good old ova_gen.bat to generate a PI .ova file. This is actually NOT the case anymore. The new ‘old’ way is still run in VirtualBox but delivered via DPK. Here is a basic run down of what happens now:
- Download the Update Image VirtualBox zip files.
- Extract the first zip file, which should produce a setup folder.
- Run the `psft-dpk-setup.ps1` script via PowerShell. Note: I had to adjust my Execution Policy to get this to work.
- The rest of the zip files will be extracted.
- A bunch of validation happens related to VirtualBox.
- If validated, a shell VM will be imported into your VirtualBox via a delivered .ova file.
- You will be asked some networking questions.
- The script will launch the shell VM and finish.
- The shell will now be running and prompt you with a few more questions.
- At this point the DPK files are actually imported into the shell VM.
- You are prompted with a few options to customize your deployment.
- The DPKs are deployed and the PI is up and running!
That was pretty high level, but I wanted to point out that the VirtualBox method is using DPKs – similar to the Native OS option. So again, don’t expect to find a ova_gen.bat file and full .ova file to drop into VirtualBox. There will be a slight learning curve with the new DPK method, even if you stick with VirtualBox.
Luckily, Oracle does a pretty good job going into detail in the DPK for Update Images installation guide. To find this guide in MOS, navigate to the PUM Home Page and then your Update Image Home Page. Under the Installation Documentation section, you should find a link to the document – PeopleSoft Deployment Packages for Update Images Installation (PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.55). This is a fairly lengthy document, walking you through all the different use cases and requirements for installation. It also covers the PeopleTools Client DPKs, which we will be covering in a Part 3 future post coming soon.
As always, feel free to join the conversation in the comments below. I would be interested to hear how others are fairing with this new process so far, and how it may change the way they currently operate.