Database considerations

By default, IBM® WebSphere® Portal Express® installs and uses IBM DB2 Universal Database™ Workgroup Server Edition. Installing with DB2® lets you quickly get WebSphere Portal Express installed and running in a production-level environment.

Use one of the other supported databases in a production environment or when you are developing presentation templates or authoring web content. The Derby database can be sufficient for non-production installations of WebSphere Portal, the performance of Derby with Web Content Manager is poor. A typical cause of performance issues is transaction timeouts. Although you can increase these timeouts, the resulting performance is prohibitively slow. You must use one of the other supported database management systems. They are better able to handle large amounts of data and can be tuned for performance.

With appropriate tuning, other databases can provide performance gains. Other databases support vertical and horizontal clusters and cloning. Use multiple databases for high performance and availability.

When you choose to transfer data to another supported database, perform the database transfer before you use the portal extensively. Large amounts of data in the databases can cause the database transfer to fail if your Java heap size is not large enough. Because information is added to the databases as you use the portal, perform database transfer as soon as you realize that a high volume of data needs to be stored and failover is necessary. Transferring the database sooner rather than later avoids the problems typically caused by transferring a high volume of data at a later stage to the other supported databases, including not having adequate Java heap size.

If you are transferring from a database other than the default database, you will need to edit the wkplc_sourceDb.properties, wkplc_dbdomain and wkplc_dbtype.properties files to update the source database information as an additional step before attempting the database transfer functions.

Important: When using a database management system that is used by multiple applications, schedule database transfer activities and preparation to off-peak hours or maintenance windows. Shared system catalog tables are modified during database transfer work which prevents production applications from accessing data.

Important: Data cannot be transferred from DB2 for z/OS® to any other supported database.

Database users
There are two types of database users: database configuration users and database runtime users. Become familiar with the privileges required for each user type to work with the database domains of IBM WebSphere Portal Express and the commands for creating database configuration users and granting privileges.
Database topologies
Consider the database configuration options in relation to your IBM WebSphere Portal Express deployment scenario. The complexity of the network topology will increase as you scale from a proof-of-concept environment using IBM DB2 Universal Database Workgroup Server Edition to systems using vertical and horizontal cloning techniques.
Supported database transfer configurations
This topic highlights which databases you can transfer to from your current database.
Shared database domains
Database domains classify and help you determine how to distribute portal data. To maximize data availability, you can distribute portal data across multiple databases and for some domains, share data between multiple lines of production. You can choose to transfer a single database domain or multiple domains.
Database compatibility considerations
If you are a database administrator, consider the database requirements for IBM WebSphere Portal Express.
Planning for DB2 on Windows
When planning to transfer data to IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Server Edition, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed. Some fix packs require steps prior to the transfer task to complete successfully.
Planning for DB2 on Linux
When planning to transfer data to IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Server Edition, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed. Some fix packs require steps prior to the transfer task to complete successfully.
Planning for IBM DB2 for i
When planning to transfer data to IBM DB2 for i, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed. Some fix packs require steps prior to the transfer task to complete successfully.
Planning for DB2 for z/OS
When planning to transfer data to IBM DB2 Universal Database for z/OS, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed. Some fix packs require steps prior to the transfer task to complete successfully.
Planning for Oracle
When planning to transfer data to Oracle, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed.
Planning for Oracle RAC
When planning to transfer data to Oracle RAC, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed.
Planning for SQL Server
When planning to transfer data to SQL Server, you should consider the databases and user information, such as database names, what data is stored, and the database space needed.

Parent topic: Planning to install WebSphere Portal Express