Suggested settings for creating the content store in IBM Db2 on Linux, Windows, and UNIX operating systems

The database you create on the Microsoft Windows, Linux®, or UNIX operating system for the content store must contain the specified configuration settings.

To ensure a successful installation, use the following guidelines when creating the content store. Use the same guidelines to create a database for log messages.

Guidelines for creating the content store

Use the following checklist to help you set up the content store on Db2.

  • Set the appropriate environment variables for Db2, which are as shown in the following table.
    Table 1. Environment variables for Db2

    Environment variable

    Description

    DB2PATH

    The top-level directory that contains the database client software or the entire database installation.

    LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    The load library path.

    Add the driver location to the path, and replace the double hash symbol with 64-bit.

    For Windows: LD_LIBRARY_PATH= $DB2_location/sqllib/lib##: $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    For Solaris and Linux:LD_LIBRARY_PATH= $DB2DIR/lib##: $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    AIX®: LIBPATH=$DB2DIR/lib##:$LIBPATH

    DB2INSTANCE

    The default database server connection.

    DB2CODEPAGE

    Setting this optional environment variable to a value of 1208 provides support for multilingual databases.

    For information about whether to use this environment variable, see the Db2 documentation.

    COGUDA_EXTENDEDCHAR_SUPPORT

    Some databases provide character string functions using byte-based schematic by default. This can cause issues with string processing. For example, Db2 database with the UTF-8 character set returns an undesired number of bytes instead of the number of characters for the LENGTH function.

    To avoid this type of problems, set this variable to T or t. As a result, IBM Cognos software specifies the string unit CODEUNIT32 for substring, character_length, and position expressions in the Db2 SQL so that these expressions work on the character-based schematic.

    Do not use this variable in the dynamic query mode.
  • Use UTF-8 as the code set value when you create the database.

    To check that your database has the correct code set, using the command-line interface, and type the following at the command prompt:

    db2 get database configuration for database_name

    The code set value is UTF-8 and the code page value is 1208.

  • Ensure that you set the configuration parameters as shown in the following table.
    Table 2. Configuration parameters for Db2

    Property

    Setting

    Application heap size

    (applheapsz)

    AUTOMATIC or at least 1024 KB

    If the application heap size value is too small, out of memory errors may occur when there are many users.

    Lock timeout (locktimeout)

    240 seconds

    Do not set this to an infinite timeout value.

    Db2 registry variable (DB2_INLIST_TO_NLJN)

    YES

    Setting this variable to YES improves performance.
  • Create a buffer pool with a page size of 32 KB, and a second one with a page size of 8 KB.
  • Create a system temporary tablespace using the 32 KB buffer pool you created in the previous step.
  • Create a user temporary tablespace using the 8 KB buffer pool you created.

    Global temporary tables will be created in the user temporary tablespace.

  • Grant the following database privileges for the user account IBM® Cognos® Analytics will use to access the database:
    • Connect to database
    • Create tables
    • Create schemas implicitly
    Tip: If you want to host more than one content store on your Db2 instance and you use both at the same time, use a different user account for each content store to ensure that each IBM Cognos Analytics instance is fully isolated from the other.
  • Ensure that the user account has use privileges for the user temporary tablespace and other appropriate tablespaces associated with the database.
  • Create a schema for the user account IBM Cognos Analytics that you will use to access the database, and ensure the user has create, drop, and alter permissions for the schema.
  • Create a profile that sources the sqllib/db2profile from the Db2 user's home directory. For example, the content of your profile will be similar to the following:
       if
[ -f /home/db2user/sqllib/db2profile ]; then
./home/db2user/sqllib/db2profile
fi
  • Your database administrator must back up IBM Cognos Analytics databases regularly because they contain the IBM Cognos data. To ensure the security and integrity of databases, protect them from unauthorized or inappropriate access.