Before proceeding with an APAR installation, we need to make sure that we have our environment setup correctly. In this post, we will both summarize and expand on using the correct configurations discussed in the Knowledge Center to help avoid and recover from APAR installation failures.   Let's get started:   Setting up the user you ... [ + Read more ]

Directly querying the search index is the quickest way to verify the validity of the search index, as well as troubleshooting many different types of issues with the search runtime. However, without knowing how to correctly query the search index and understand the results being returned, it will be difficult ... [ + Read more ]

In collaboration with Shant Minassians   Have you ever heard a story where a developer made a couple of updates in the production DB, and then two days later the DBA gets a call because the database is not accepting requests? Yes. It's not an urban myth. The transaction logs, on which ... [ + Read more ]

WebSphere Commerce and UBX integration   You can integrate Universal Behavior Exchange (UBX) with WebSphere Commerce so that you can import and export WebSphere Commerce customer segments as UBX audiences between third-party applications.                   Sometimes I find that following integrations steps in the Knowledge Center can become confusing and hard to following.  It's easier for me to have ... [ + Read more ]

In this post, we will discuss a few common issues around APARs/iFixes that we have received PMRs about, and the solutions we provided. While this is not an absolute list of issues you may run into, it will give you an idea of how you can get additional information (with ... [ + Read more ]

If an APAR installation was reported as successful, but for whatever reason a problem is identified. You will not be able to reinstall the APAR unless you uninstall it first. Depending on the nature of the problem, uninstall may also fail. The following steps are specific to forcing reinstallation of the last ... [ + Read more ]

This post compiles a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) for APAR and iFix installation. This post is updated as new questions come up.   APAR and iFixes - Frequently Asked Questions:   Q) I see both a FP and FEP cumulative iFix. Do I have to install both? There may be cases where the ... [ + Read more ]

I wanted to share simple troubleshooting technique to help identify how specific code is being called.  Sometimes you can enable traces but you are still not able to determine how it is being called.  There is a a JVM Generic Argument that you can use called "XTrace".  I will take ... [ + Read more ]

As mentioned in previous blog "Commerce v8 and WCH Integration" ,  I wanted to provide some troubleshooting tips when going through the integration with Watson Content Hub.  I will highlight specific issues and provide steps on how to analyze/review the problem and of course resolve.   I will make the assumption that you have already ... [ + Read more ]

With the release of Commerce Version 8.04, we are now able to integrate with Watson Content Hub.  I wanted to provide some insight on integrating with WCH.  How it can be used and how to set this up with Commerce.   What is Watson Content Hub? WCH is the new IBM SaaS Content ... [ + Read more ]

Stagingprop has two stages for propagating data from a staging to a production server: consolidation and propagation. In this blog we'll cover some important aspects for tuning stagingprop consolidation performance.  During the consolidation stage, the utility examines the STAGLOG table for unprocessed records, and it marks as processed those that don't ... [ + Read more ]

The list of supported currencies to a WebSphere Commerce site are defined in the SETCURR table.  The list of currencies supported to a specific store are defined in the CURLIST table. A store can also inherit supported currencies from another stored.  This is done through the STOREREL table.  This is how extended site stores ... [ + Read more ]

I have seen a couple of customers running into performance issues related to the BUSEVENT table.  This usually happens when many unused events are enabled in the wc-server.xml as it writes a significant amount of data into the table. Hence I would like to write this blog to remind you to disable ... [ + Read more ]

As part of the 8.0.3.0 release, the Keys framework was modified to allow for a non-sequential key to be generated for the ADDRESS and ORDERS tables.  It can also be used for other primary keys generated by the Keys framework.  This is feature to enhance the security of the application ... [ + Read more ]

Many sites have a need to integrate with one or more third party external systems, whether this need is for transferring orders, fetching tax information, pricing, payments, etc.  These integrations may operate over a variety of transport methods such as MQ/JMS, HTTP WebServices or RESTful services.  Whenever developing an external ... [ + Read more ]