Install and configure Oracle 12c Release 2 database

Use the following instructions to install and configure Oracle 12c Release 2 (12.2) for use with WebSphere Commerce.

Before beginning

• You should have advanced knowledge of Oracle database (at the DBA level) before you change the database settings as recommended in this documentation.

• For more information about Oracle database, go to the Oracle Web page. Obtain copies of the Oracle database documentation and software from the
  Oracle Technology Network. The Oracle database information in this documentation is provided only as a guideline.

• We can access Oracle database patches and patch sets at the Oracle Metalink Web page.

• For more information about Oracle database terminology and concepts, see the Oracle Concepts document that is provided with your purchase of Oracle.

• (AIX) The Oracle might require other file sets or components that are not installed by a default installation of the operating system. Ensure that you review the Oracle database documentation carefully and install any file sets or components required by Oracle.

Procedure

1. Install Oracle 12c Release 2. For more information about installing Oracle, see Oracle Database Online Documentation 12c Release 2 (12.2).

2. Create and configure a non-CDB database before you deploy WebSphere Commerce. When creating and configure a non-CDB Oracle database, take note of the following information:

   • (AIX) (Linux) User account to own Oracle software

   • (AIX) (Linux) Oracle database home directory

   • Oracle WebSphere Commerce database name

   • Oracle SID for WebSphere Commerce database

   • Oracle ID and password for database administrator

   • Oracle ID and password for WebSphere Commerce database user

   • Oracle TCP/IP listener port number

   This information is needed when we deploy WebSphere Commerce.

   For security reasons, ensure that an Oracle DBA account is not used as the WebSphere Commerce database user.

   Also, do not use SYSTEM or SYS as user IDs for the WebSphere Commerce schema.

   Note: IBM recommends using the Oracle automatic memory management feature to manage the Oracle database memory on your system. For details on the Oracle automatic memory management feature, see your Oracle documentation. Ensure that the following settings are applied when creating your Oracle database through the Oracle Database configuration assistant:

   • The following settings are recommended.

     Recommended database parameter settings for Oracle 12c Release 2

     Parameter	Value
     block size	8 KB
     open_cursors	1000
     MEMORY_TARGET	700 MB
     MEMORY_MAX_TARGET	700 MB

   • Ensure that the database uses the following character sets:

     Required database parameter settings for Oracle 12c Release 2

     Parameter	Value
     Database character set	AL32UTF8
     National character set	UTF8

     Important: Refer to the Oracle database documentation for instructions on setting or changing database parameters. Set these values correctly because we cannot change the character sets after the WebSphere Commerce database is created.

   • If you intend to support multi-byte languages, for example, German (de_DE), ensure that NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS is set to CHAR. For more information, see Oracle: Choosing a Character Set: Length Semantics.

3. Several columns of the TI_ATTR table have had their data type changed from CLOB. The six columns are now defined as varchar(32672) in DB2, and varchar2(32767) for Oracle in the wc-dataimpoart-preprocess-attribute.xml configuration file. The same change has been made in the ATTRIBUTES column of TI_ADATTR. This change reduces the preprocessing time of these two tables. This change requires that Oracle users enable the "Extended Data Types" feature described in
   https://oracle-base.com/articles/12c/extended-data-types-12cR1. If we are migrating from a previous version, drop all temporary tables before proceeding.

   Note: We must also execute the instruction highlighted below, or the Oracle database will not come back online after a restart. We need only execute this instruction once.

   CONN / AS SYSDBA
   SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;
   STARTUP UPGRADE;
   ALTER SYSTEM SET max_string_size=extended;
   @?/rdbms/admin/utl32k.sql
   SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE;
   STARTUP;

4. Complete the creation of the database. For information about creating the database, see the Oracle documentation.

Next topic: Preparing an Oracle database