Installing and configuring Oracle Database

Use the following instructions to install and configure Oracle Database 18c, or 19c for use with HCL Commerce Version 9.1.

Before you begin

  • 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. You can 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.
  • You 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.
  • AIXThe 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 that are required by Oracle.

Procedure

  1. Install Oracle Database. The following versions are supported for use with HCL Commerce:
    • Oracle Database 18c
    • HCL Commerce Version 9.1.4.0 or laterOracle Database 19c
    Important: The Elasticsearch-based search solution requires Oracle Database 19c.

    For more information about installing Oracle, see the Oracle Database Documentation.

  2. Create and configure a non-CDB database for use with HCL Commerce before you deploy HCL Commerce.
    When you create and configure a non-CDB Oracle Database, take note of the following information:
    • LinuxAIXUser account to own Oracle software
    • LinuxAIXOracle Database home directory
    • Oracle HCL Commerce database name
    • Oracle SID for HCL Commerce database
    • Oracle ID and password for database administrator
    • Oracle ID and password for HCL Commerce database user
    • Oracle TCP/IP listener port number
    This information is needed when you deploy HCL Commerce.

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

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

    Note: It is recommended that you use 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 you create your Oracle Database through the Oracle Database configuration assistant:
    • The following settings are recommended.
      Recommended database parameter settings for Oracle 12c
      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
      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. Ensure that you set these values correctly because you cannot change the character sets after the HCL 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-dataimport-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 you are migrating from a previous version, ensure that you drop all temporary tables before proceeding.
    Note: You must also execute the instruction highlighted below, or the Oracle database will not come back online after a restart. You 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 your database. For information about creating your database, see the Oracle documentation.

Results

The Oracle is now configured and ready to use in your HCL Commerce development environment.