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HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
Installing and deploying
Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
Setting up HCL Commerce environments
Learn how to set up development, testing, and production environments, and how to update the production environment through deploying custom changes and applying maintenance.
Setting up an HCL Commerce production environment
You can set up your production environment however you like by using the provided Docker images for your HCL Commerce servers.
Prerequisites for your production environment
Before you set up the HCL Commerce production environment, perform these steps to ensure that your environment satisfies the prerequisite software.
Configuring a database
Prepare an IBM Db2 or Oracle database to use as the HCL Commerce database.
Using an IBM Db2 database
HCL Commerce is compatible with IBM Db2 Database Version 11.5.

Documentation
HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
- Getting started
  HCL Commerce has different advantages for business users, administrators and developers. HCL Commerce targets each of these roles with a tailored set of offerings so that each of your users can get maximum benefit.
- Installing and deploying
  Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
  - HCL Commerce assemblies
    HCL Commerce consists of HCL Commerce Enterprise, and HCL Commerce Developer, a separate offering that is used by developers of the platform. Each offering is logically divided into subpackages called electronic assemblies, or eAssemblies. An eAssembly is a group of software that is devoted to a particular platform or environment. Each eAssembly contains the individual product images for that environment, called parts. Which parts you need depends on your usage and configuration choices.
  - Downloading software
    To set up an HCL Commerce production, development, or test environment, you require the associated product software images.
  - Supported software levels, fixes, and settings
    The following table provides a list of generally available (GA) software levels, fixes, and settings for the latest HCL Commerce Version 9.1 release.
  - Hardware requirements
    The following reference provides a general guideline for the hardware capacity that is required for the HCL Commerce Version 9.1 release. This includes both full development and production environments for sites that are based on different sets of HCL Commerce solutions.
  - Setting up HCL Commerce environments
    Learn how to set up development, testing, and production environments, and how to update the production environment through deploying custom changes and applying maintenance.
    - Setting up an HCL Commerce development environment
      This section describes how to set up an HCL Commerce development environment. The HCL Commerce development environment is a flexible collection of software, collectively known as HCL Commerce Developer, for developers or system administrators to develop and test stores and HCL Commerce application code.
    - Setting up an HCL Commerce production environment
      You can set up your production environment however you like by using the provided Docker images for your HCL Commerce servers.
      - Planning your production environment
        Before you set up your production environment, ensure that you understand the HCL Commerce application structure and that you are familiar with basic steps for setting up the environment.
      - Prerequisites for your production environment
        Before you set up the HCL Commerce production environment, perform these steps to ensure that your environment satisfies the prerequisite software.
        Globalization
        Before you install HCL Commerce, ensure that the system meets all globalization prerequisites for your operating system.
        Preparing a Docker host server to launch Utility server Docker container
        The Utility server Docker container contains a tool that you can use to set up the HCL Commerce database schema and initialize the database. It is recommended that you prepare a dedicated server where you can run the Utility server Docker container and initialize all new databases.
        HCL Commerce container users and privileges
        In earlier releases of HCL Commerce, Docker images were run with root privileges by default. Beginning with HCL Commerce 9.1.14.0, provided HCL Commerce application images are supplied with a non-root user and user group. This user is intended to be used to run the containers and their applications within your deployment, more strictly limiting access to host container resources.
        Setting the spiuser password in your Docker images
        An administrator needs to choose a password for a default SPI user that is named spiuser, and then set the spiuser password in the HCL Commerce Docker containers.
        Configuring a database
        Prepare an IBM Db2 or Oracle database to use as the HCL Commerce database.
        Using an IBM Db2 database
        HCL Commerce is compatible with IBM Db2 Database Version 11.5.
        Using the preconfigured IBM Db2 Docker image
        Rather than install the IBM Db2 Database and manually configure it for use with HCL Commerce, you can simply launch the preconfigured IBM Db2 Docker image as your development or test database.
        Installing IBM Db2
        Install IBM Db2 Database Version 11.5 or higher to serve as your database.
        Preparing an IBM Db2 database
        You need to use a script to prepare an IBM Db2 database for use with HCL Commerce.
        Loading the HCL Commerce database schema
        You must use a script to load the HCL Commerce database schema.
        Using an Oracle database
        Use Oracle Database to serve as your database.
        Building custom Docker images for use with an Oracle database
        By default, when you deploy HCL Commerce Docker containers, the containers are configured to connect to an IBM Db2 database that is named mall, with a database user name wcs. If your database type is different, then you must update the Docker containers to contain the required driver.
      - Deploying HCL Commerce to production environments
        HCL Commerce provides all applications in Docker images for deployment in a configuration of your choice. Also included are Kubernetes Helm Charts and Docker Compose sample files. Kubernetes is the intended deployment method for a live production site, however a production environment for testing, debugging or developing purposes can be deployed using the more simple Docker Compose method.
    - Default port numbers
      Review this information for the default port numbers that are used by HCL Commerce services or the component products.
  - Deploying custom changes
    With HCL Commerce Version 9.1, you can customize HCL Commerce Docker image with the source code, configurations, and the Docker container start-up logic. Learn how to build Docker images with your customized code and deploy the images (and other changes) to your Docker containers.
  - Updating HCL Commerce overview
    Learn about HCL Commerce release types, and learn how to update your custom HCL Commerce site deployments.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to HCL Commerce Version 9.1, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Operating
  Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  Topics in the Administering category highlight tasks that are typically performed by the Site Administrator, to support daily operations of the HCL Commerce site.
- Customizing
  The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
- Tutorials
  HCL Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your HCL Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  Topics in the Samples category highlight the various samples that are provided with HCL Commerce.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage HCL Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of HCL Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of HCL Commerce site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with HCL Commerce, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.

DB2

Using an IBM Db2 database

HCL Commerce is compatible with IBM Db2 Database Version 11.5.

You can either install IBM Db2 directly through the installation package, or you can choose to run your database in a container. HCL provides a preconfigured IBM Db2 Docker container to be used as a development or test database. Do not use database containers in your production environment.

Note:

If you are using the preconfigured IBM Db2 Docker container for your test database, you can skip this section, and move on to Building custom Docker images for use with an Oracle database.
If you are planning on using the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for Db2, the IBM Db2 Database license that is provided with HCL Commerce cannot be used due to licensing limitations.
To use IBM Db2 on Amazon RDS, you must contact IBM or an authorized reseller to obtain a license with a unique IBM Customer Number and Site Number.
For more information on Db2 on Amazon RDS, see Getting started with new Amazon RDS for Db2 on the AWS News Blog.