Portal, Express Beta Version 6.1 Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux,Windows

Database considerations

By default, IBM^® WebSphere^® Portal Express installs and uses IBM DB2 Universal Database™ Enterprise Server Edition. Installing with DB2 lets you quickly get WebSphere Portal Express installed and running in a production-level environment.

With appropriate tuning, other databases can provide performance gains. Other databases support vertical and horizontal clusters and cloning. Use multiple databases for high performance and availability.

Other databases require increased CPU and memory resources and add complexity to the configuration environment.

When you choose to transfer data to another supported database, perform the database transfer before you use the portal extensively. Large amounts of data in the databases can cause the database transfer to fail if your Java heap size is not large enough. Because information is added to the databases as you use the portal, perform the database transfer as soon as it is practical to avoid problems in a production environment.

If you are transferring from a database other than the default database, you will need to edit the wkplc_comp.properties and wkplc_dbtype.properties files to update the source and target database information.

• Database topologies
  The increasing complexity of network topology as you scale from a proof-of-concept environment using Derby to systems using vertical and horizontal cloning techniques.
• Shared database domains
  You can choose to transfer a single domain or multiple domains. To maximize availability, data may be distributed across multiple databases and shared between multiple lines of production.
• Planning for databases
  This section provides information to give the database administrator an overall picture of WebSphere Portal database requirements.