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Introduction

This chapter introduces Oracle8 ConText Cartridge and discusses the various administration tasks that you may need to perform for the system.

The topics covered in this chapter are:

• What is ConText?
• ConText Features
• ConText and the Oracle Server
• Overview of Administration Tasks
• Administration Methods

What is ConText?

ConText is an Oracle server option which enables text queries to be performed through SQL and PL/SQL from most Oracle interfaces.

By installing ConText with an Oracle server, client tools such as SQL*Plus, Oracle Forms, and Pro*C are able to retrieve and manipulate text in an Oracle database. Most tools which can call an Oracle stored procedure can perform text queries and other text operations.

ConText manages textual data in concert with traditional datatypes in an Oracle database. When text is inserted, updated, or deleted, ConText automatically manages the change.

ConText Features

ConText provides advanced indexing, analysis, retrieval, and viewing functionality that can be integrated into any text applications that use the Oracle8 server. The list of features include:

• full integration of structured data and text
• external and internal storage of text in the database
• support for a variety of document formats, including plain text, plain text with HTML tags, and many of the popular word processing formats
• text retrieval based using Boolean, statistical, and linguistic methods
• indexing and retrieval for all NLS-supported languages, including the following multi-byte languages: Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
• advanced text retrieval (stemming, fuzzy matching, etc.) for English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch text
• advanced linguistic analysis, including theme-based queries, for English text
• text highlighting and viewing
• application development using any tools that support SQL or PL/SQL, including:
  • SQL*Plus
  • Designer 2000
  • Power Objects
  • Oracle WebServer
  • Visual Basic and Oracle Objects for OLE
  • OCI and the PRO languages

    See Also: For more information about text retrieval, linguistic analysis, highlighting, and document viewing, see Oracle8 ConText Cartridge Application Developer's Guide.

ConText and the Oracle Server

The ConText process model uses the Oracle server model with the addition of one or more ConText server processes and a queue for handling text operations.

ConText can be used in both dedicated server (one server process for each user process) and multi-threaded server environments (dispatcher, shared server, and background processes).

This diagram shows ConText servers and the Text Request Queue working in concert with an Oracle server process in a dedicated server environment.

In the standard Oracle server model, when a user process connects to the database, it spawns a dedicated server process which handles all incoming requests from the user process.

With ConText, if a request comes in that includes a text operation, the text operation portion of the request is sent to the Text Request Queue for processing by the next available ConText server processes.

For example, a query is submitted for both structured data and text. The query is picked up by the Oracle server process via the Request Queue. The Oracle server process divides up the query, sends the text query portion to the Text Request Queue, and processes the structured data portion.

The first available ConText server picks up the text query from the Text Request Queue and processes it. The results from the text query are combined with the results from the structured data query and returned to the user process as a single set of results.

See Also: For more information about ConText servers, see "ConText Servers" in Chapter 2, "Administration Concepts". For more information about text operations, see "Text Operations" in Chapter 4, "Text Concepts". For more information about the Oracle server model, see Oracle8 Server Concepts.

Overview of Administration Tasks

Administration is divided into three areas:

• ConText Administration
• Text Setup and Management
• Linguistics Services Setup

This diagram illustrates the different administration tasks for ConText and identifies whether the task can be performed through the GUI administration tool or the command-line.

The tasks in the three areas may be performed by a single user or may be divided between different users/responsibilities.

ConText Administration

ConText administration includes the following tasks:

• managing ConText users
• monitoring and managing ConText servers
• monitoring and managing the ConText queues

Who Performs ConText Administration?

ConText administration tasks are always performed by the ConText administrator, who may be the system and/or database administrator or a separate user.

See Also: For more information about each of the ConText administration tasks, see Chapter 3, "Administering ConText". For more information about ConText users, servers, and queues, see Chapter 2, "Administration Concepts".

Text Setup and Management

Text setup and management includes the following tasks:

• defining text storage and indexing options through preferences
• identifying text columns through policies
• creating ConText text and theme indexes
• creating and managing thesauri for use in queries

In addition, text setup and management may also include loading text, as well as updating and deleting text.

Who Performs Text Setup and Management?

Text setup and management may be performed by the ConText administrator because they require access to system and database resources.

For example, loading text into the database requires access to the appropriate tables.

In addition, creating indexes requires ConText servers to be running with the appropriate designation and only ConText administrators can manage ConText servers.

However, some tasks, such as defining policies and preferences, may be performed by application developers because the options used to create a index have an effect on how an application retrieves text.

See Also: For more information about each of the text setup and management tasks, see Chapter 6, "Setting Up and Managing Text". For more information about loading text, text storage, ConText indexes, and thesauri, see Chapter 4, "Text Concepts". For more information about preferences, policies, and other objects in the ConText data dictionary, see Chapter 5, "Understanding the ConText Data Dictionary".

Linguistics Services Setup

Linguistics Services administration includes the following tasks:

• creating preferences and policies
• defining custom setting configurations

Who Performs Linguistic Services Setup

Linguistic Services setup may be performed by the ConText administrator or by the application developer.

For example, the ConText administrator may be responsible for setting up all of the preferences and policies in the system, including policies that are used for theme indexing or requesting the Linguistic Services for documents.

On the other hand, application developers may be responsible for creating custom setting configurations as part of the process of creating linguistic output for use in applications.

Note: The preference and policy setup tasks for the Linguistic Services are identical to the setup tasks for text and theme indexing. Custom setting configurations can only be defined in the System Administration tool provided by the ConText Workbench and, as such, are not discussed in this manual.

See Also: For more information about creating preferences and policies, see Chapter 6, "Setting Up and Managing Text". For more information about creating custom setting configurations, see the Help system provided with the System Administration tool. For more information about the Linguistic Services, see Oracle8 ConText Cartridge Application Developer's Guide.

Administration Methods

ConText provides two different methods of administration:

• Command-line
• System Administration Tool

Most of the administration tasks can be accomplished using either method; however, some tasks can only be accomplished using one or the other method.

For example, setting configurations for the ConText Linguistic Services can only be enabled for a database session through the command-line, while custom setting configurations can only be created/modified in the administration tool. As a result, if you want to use custom settings for the Linguistic Services, you must use both the administration tool and the command-line to administer ConText.

Note: Much of the conceptual and reference information presented in this manual are relevant to both the command-line and the System Administration Tool. However, the instructions presented in this manual for performing administration tasks are for command-line administration. For more information about performing administration tasks using the System Administration tool, see the help system provided with the tool.

Command-line

Command-line administration includes:

• machine command-line for running ConText executables and utilities
• SQL*PLus and PL/SQL

For example, the command-line for the server machine on which ConText is installed must be used to start ConText servers and access the administration utilities provided with ConText.

All remaining ConText administration tasks, such as shutting down ConText servers, managing queues, and creating indexes, can be performed using SQL or PL/SQL, either on the server machine or on any other machine that has SQL*Plus and PL/SQL installed and is connected to the server machine through SQL*Net.

System Administration Tool

The System Administration tool is a client-based application that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for administering ConText servers, text, and the Linguistic Services.

The System Administration tool is distributed with the ConText Workbench, which can be installed on any PC running Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 95.

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