WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.2 or later

Using Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) with WebSphere Commerce

WebSphere Commerce now supports using Oracle RAC as the WebSphere Commerce database. Oracle RAC enables you to scale your database tier horizontally by using a number of computers, LPARs, or blade servers to distribute your query processing across multiple nodes.

In order to take advantage of WebSphere Commerce Support for Oracle RAC, your system must meet the following conditions:


Requirement	Details
WebSphere Commerce Version	Version 7 Fix Pack 2 or later
WebSphere Application Server Version	Version 7.0.0.11, or later
Oracle RAC version	Oracle 11gR2 RAC, or a higher 11g fix pack. Oracle 12cR2 RAC, or a higher 12cR2 (12.2.0.x) fix pack. Note: Java Development Kit (JDK) version 8 is required to install and use Oracle 12cR2. See Updating a WebSphere Commerce Developer environment to use Java 8.
Driver Type	Oracle Thin Type-4 JDBC driver
JDBC Connection Pool	WebSphere Application Server Connection Pool
Number of RAC nodes	4 RAC nodes or fewer
Supported operating systems	All operating systems that are supported by both WebSphere Commerce and Oracle RAC

Limitations

It is important to note that some Oracle RAC technologies function with WebSphere Commerce, but are not officially supported:

Oracle OCI Type-2 JDBC driver: The Oracle OCI Type-2 JDBC driver works with WebSphere Commerce. However, use of this driver brings a number of drawbacks. It requires the installation and configuration of Oracle Client on WebSphere Commerce nodes. Performance tuning procedures become more complicated when you use this driver because you must tune the Oracle Client performance in addition to tuning WebSphere Commerce performance. For these reasons, WebSphere Commerce views Type-4 JDBC drivers as being strategic. WebSphere Commerce customers are encouraged to use the Oracle Thin Type-4 driver when you work with Oracle RAC.
Oracle Transparent Application Failover (TAF): Oracle TAF is a technology that is designed to help applications preserve transactions in the event of a RAC node failure. Oracle TAF requires that the application use the Oracle OCI Type-2 driver. To realize full benefits of TAF, the application must handle Oracle exceptions and use the Oracle OCI API to restart transactions from point of failure. However, the WebSphere Commerce database access code is database-neutral. This is the WebSphere Commerce strategic direction. WebSphere Commerce does not use the Oracle OCI API. Therefore, SELECT transactions cannot be restarted from point of failure when you use TAF with WebSphere Commerce. While you can configure TAF with WebSphere Commerce, it can provide only limited benefits in the event of node failure. For these reasons, TAF is not supported by WebSphere Commerce.
Oracle Implicit Connection Cache (ICC) Connection Pool: The Oracle ICC connection pool can be deployed into the WebSphere Application Server and used instead of the WebSphere Application Server connection pool. This configuration is supported by the WebSphere Application Server. However, the ICC connection pool is not fully integrated with WebSphere Application Server logging and PMI infrastructure. This connection pool is also deprecated by Oracle. Consequently, Oracle ICC connection pool is not supported by WebSphere Commerce. WebSphere Commerce Customers are encouraged to use the WebSphere Application Server connection pool with the Oracle Thin JDBC Type-4 driver.
WebSphere Commerce Instance Creation with Oracle 12.2: WebSphere Commerce does not support the creation of new instances on top of an upgraded WAS 8.5.5 that is using JDK 8. Since JDK 8 is a prerequisite for using Oracle 12.2, this means that instance creation is not supported for WebSphere Commerce installations that use Oracle 12.2.
Oracle Container Databases: Container databases are not supported with Oracle 12.2.

Exclusions

A number of Oracle technologies that are sometimes used together with Oracle RAC do not work with WebSphere Commerce:

Oracle Universal Connection Pool (UCP): Although WebSphere Application Server 7.0.0.23 added support for Oracle UCP connection pool, support for using Oracle UCP with WebSphere Commerce is not available.
Oracle Fast Connection Fail-over (FCF): Oracle FCF is another technology that is designed to help applications deal with node failure within the Oracle RAC cluster. Oracle ICC and UCP connection pools implement FCF. Like TAF, FCF requires the application to handle the Oracle exception. To achieve connection fail-over, the application must reconnect inside the catch block after it handles the exception. The WebSphere Commerce database access code is database-neutral and does not handle exceptions that are raised by FCF. Therefore, FCF cannot reconnect upon encountering an exception. For these reasons, FCF is not supported by WebSphere Commerce.