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Upgrade Guide for Microsoft Windows > Postupgrade Tasks > Postupgrade Tasks for Global Deployments >

Migrating to Unicode

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After you have upgraded your Siebel eBusiness Application to Release 7.5, you can migrate your upgraded database from a non-Unicode code page (or character set) to Unicode. Migration to Unicode is an optional step that requires the assistance of Siebel Expert Services.

For information about Unicode and global deployment for Siebel eBusiness Applications, see Global Deployment Guide.

CAUTION:  Verify that your encryption method has been upgraded before you proceed with the Unicode migration. Use of a non-RC2 encryption method in a Unicode environment might result in irrecoverable data loss. See Upgrading Your Encryption Method.

Planning Considerations for the Unicode Migration

If you are planning to migrate your upgraded application to Unicode, you need to consider the following points:

Migration to Unicode increases the size of your database. For this reason, you need to allocate additional space for your database before migrating to Unicode. For more information, contact Siebel Expert Services.

Migration to Unicode may cause truncation of certain data in DB2 UDB databases. In the past, long columns with a type of varchar could have a maximum length of 16,383 characters. However, in Unicode, the maximum length of long columns with a type of varchar is 16,350. During the migration to Unicode, long columns of type varchar that exceed 16,350 are truncated. To prevent this, you can perform tasks to identify which data may be truncated and take appropriate measures before migration. For more information, contact Siebel Expert Services.

The upgrade does not preserve custom tablespace information for DB2 UDB databases. This presents a problem during your migration to a Unicode code page, because you need to know which tables need to be re-created. If your RDBMS is DB2 UDB and you use custom tablespaces, you need to modify the upgrade scripts to handle custom tablespaces.

NOTE:  Contact Siebel Expert Services for instructions about how to modify upgrade scripts to handle custom tablespaces.

Migration to Unicode may affect integration with third party systems. For more information, contact Siebel Expert Services.

Certain handheld and wireless application platforms do not support Unicode. For more information, contact Siebel Expert Services.

Release 7.5 supports two types of Unicode:

• UTF-8. UTF-8 is supported for Oracle databases for Release 7.5. UTF-8 uses the same encoding for Western European languages.
  • Occupies one byte for Western European languages.
  • Occupies up to three bytes for some Asian languages, such as Japanese.
• UCS-2. UCS-2 is supported for DB2 UDB and Microsoft SQL Server databases for Release 7.5. UCS-2 does not map one-to-one with Western European languages, but it occupies two bytes for all languages.
  • Occupies two bytes for Western European languages.
  • Occupies two bytes for Asian languages.

Migration Process

If you decide to migrate your database to Unicode, perform the following two-step process. Migrations to Unicode require the assistance of Expert Services.

To migrate to Unicode, you perform a two-step process

1. Upgrade your non-Unicode code page database to Release 7.5.
2. Migrate your upgraded Release 7.5 database from a non-Unicode code page to Unicode. To perform the migration, you can use either database vendor native utilities or Siebel utilities. For more information, contact Siebel Expert Services.

   CAUTION:  You cannot use a non-Unicode code page for your development environment, and then later, migrate to Unicode for your production environment.

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