Configuring a custom external database

You can choose a custom external database for your ODM Kubernetes release.

About this task

ODM for production supports database connections to custom external databases, for example Oracle databases. In this case, the customer is responsible for the backup and recovery process.

To use a custom external database, configure the externalCustomDatabase parameters.

externalCustomDatabase.datasourceRef: data source secret for both Decision Center and Decision Server data source files.
externalCustomDatabase.driverPvc: Persistent Volume Claim to access the JDBC database driver.

Procedure

Create an XML file to configure the Decision Center data source.

Name the file datasource-dc.xml.

The following example shows a configuration file for Oracle.

<server>
    <!-- Declare the jar files for Oracle access through JDBC. -->
    <library id="OracleLib">
            <fileset dir="/drivers" includes="ojdbc*.jar"/>
    </library>

    <!-- Declare the database -->
    <dataSource jndiName="jdbc/ilogDataSource"
                isolationLevel="TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED"
                statementCacheSize="150">
            <connectionManager maxPoolSize="25"
                               minPoolSize="10"
                               connectionTimout="10s"
                               agedTimeout="30m"/>
            <jdbcDriver libraryRef="OracleLib"/>
            <properties.oracle driverType="thin" 
                               databaseName="xe" 
                               serverName="oracleServerName" 
                               portNumber="1521" 
                               user="system" 
                               password="oracle"/>
    </dataSource>
</server>

Note: The /drivers path must not be modified. The path locates a directory in the container. To copy a driver to the /drivers directory, use the following command.

kubectl cp ojdbc8-12.x.x.x.jar namespace/odm-release-name-odm-decisioncenter-XXXXXX:/drivers/

Create an XML file to configure the Decision Server data source.

Name the file datasource-ds.xml.

The following example shows a configuration file for Oracle.

<server>
    <!-- Declare the jar files for Oracle access through JDBC. -->
    <library id="OracleLib">
            <fileset dir="/drivers" includes="ojdbc*.jar"/>
    </library>

    <!-- Declare the database -->
    <dataSource jndiName="jdbc/resdatasource">
            <jdbcDriver libraryRef="OracleLib"/>
            <properties.oracle driverType="thin" 
                               databaseName="xe" 
                               serverName="oracleServerName" 
                               portNumber="1521" 
                               user="system" 
                               password="oracle"/>
    </dataSource>
</server>

Create a secret from the two XML files.
Use the kubectl create secret command to create a secret. The following example creates the secret customdatasource-secret.
```
kubectl create secret generic customdatasource-secret --from-file datasource-ds.xml --from-file datasource-dc.xml
```

Create a Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) to host the JDBC Oracle driver.

The following YAML file (driver-pvc.yaml) defines the PVC customdatasource-pvc.


kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: customdatasource-pvc
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi

The following command creates the PVC.

kubectl create -f driver-pvc.yaml

When you install a new Operational Decision Manager release, use the custom parameters for the secret and PVC you created.
```
externalCustomDatabase.datasourceRef=customdatasource-secret
externalCustomDatabase.driverPvc=customdatasource-pvc
```
Push the JDBC driver in the PVC by running a kubectl cp command.
1. Get the name of the pod for the ODM helm release by using the command kubectl get pods | grep odm-release-name.
  The command returns a list of pods.
2. Check that the Oracle database is up and running.
3. Add the Oracle JDBC driver to a pod with the following command.
```
kubectl cp ojdbc8-12.x.x.x.jar namespace/odm-release-name-odm-decisioncenter-XXXXXX:/drivers/
```

Restart all the pods by using the kubectl delete pod command.

kubectl delete pod odm-release-name-odm-decisioncenter-XXXXXX \
kubectl delete pod odm-release-name-odm-decisionserverconsole-XXXXXX \
kubectl delete pod odm-release-name-odm-decisionserverruntime-XXXXXX \
kubectl delete pod odm-release-name-odm-decisionrunner-XXXXXX