JDBC configuration

When you define a JDBC data source in your agent, some configuration properties are created for you.

If you define a JDBC data source in your agent, the agent must use Java™ to connect to the JDBC database server. Java configuration properties are added to the agent automatically. The following Java configuration properties are specific to the agent runtime configuration:

Java Home: A fully qualified path that points to the Java installation directory
JVM Arguments: Use this parameter to specify an optional list of arguments to the Java virtual machine.
Trace Level: This parameter defines the amount of information to write to the Java trace log file. The default is to write only Error data to the log file.

Note: Agent Builder does not require the Java properties because it uses its own JVM and logging, which are configured through the JLog plug-in.

If you define a JDBC data source in your agent, the following required, common configuration fields are added to the agent automatically:

JDBC database type: Type of database to which you are connecting, IBM® DB2®, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle Database Server.
JDBC user name: User name that is used to authenticate with the database server.
JDBC password: Password that is used to authenticate with the database server.
Base paths: List of directories that are searched for JAR files that are named in the Class Path field, or directories that are named in the JAR directories field, that are not fully qualified. Directory names are separated by a semi-colon (;) on Windows, and by a semi-colon (;) or colon (:) on UNIX systems.
Class path: Explicitly named JAR files to be searched by the agent. Any files that are not fully qualified are appended to each of the Base Paths until the JAR file is found.
JAR directories: List of directories that are searched for JAR files. Directory names are separated by a semi-colon (;) on Windows, and by a semi-colon (;) or colon (:) on UNIX systems. The JAR files in these directories do not have to be explicitly identified; they are found because they are in one of these directories. Subdirectories of these directories are not searched. Any directories that are not fully qualified are appended to each of the Base Paths until the directory is found.

The runtime configuration also requires that you specify some additional details to connect to the database. You can choose how to specify the remaining configuration items, either as a JDBC URL or as basic configuration properties (the default):

URL configuration option
- JDBC connection URL: Vendor-specific connection URL that provides details on which host the database is located and the port number to which to connect. The URL format typically looks as follows:
```
jdbc:identifier://server:port/database  
```
  see the JDBC driver vendor documentation for the different URL formats.
JDBC Basic Properties option (default)
- JDBC server name: Host name that the database server is running on.
- JDBC database name: Name of the database on the host where the connection is made.
- JDBC port number: Port number on which the database server is listening.

Note: With the JDBC data provider, you can monitor multiple database types in the same agent by using subnodes. To monitor in this way, you must carefully define the Subnode Configuration Overrides. If you monitor multiple database types, the following configuration settings are likely to be different:

JDBC database type
JDBC user name
JDBC password

If you are using the basic configuration option, you must also define overrides for the following properties on the Subnode Configuration Overrides page:

JDBC server name
JDBC port number
JDBC database name

To define the configuration overrides for your subnode, see Using subnodes for more details about accessing the Subnode Configuration Overrides page. When you configure the agent at run time, all of these properties must be configured for each new subnode instance that is created.

In addition to configuration overrides, your agent must also point to JDBC drivers for each database type that you plan to connect to from your subnodes. The JAR directories parameter is the most convenient way to point to your JDBC drivers. List the directories that contain the JDBC drivers by using a semicolon to separate each directory. For example, if you are connecting to DB2 and Oracle databases with the agent, you must specify a JAR directories value similar to this example: C:\Program Files\IBM\SQLLIB\java;C:\oracle\jdbc.