Implementing Siebel Business Applications on DB2 for z/OS > Preparing for Implementation on the DB2 Host > About Setting Up the DB2 Subsystem >

Considerations in Choosing the Database CCSID

The current Siebel release supports ASCII- and EBCDIC-based coded character set IDs (CCSIDs) for all versions of DB2 for z/OS, and Unicode character set IDs on DB2 for z/OS Version 8, New Function Mode and later releases. The database CCSID you use determines a number of factors, for example, the sort order used in list applets.

Review Siebel Release Notes on My Oracle Support for information about known restrictions; for example, the following features are not supported on databases with EBCDIC code pages:

• Web Client migration
• Siebel Data Warehouse
• Siebel Dun and Bradstreet server components

You must run development databases with ASCII or Unicode code pages, because databases with EBCDIC code pages do not support the following procedures in a development environment upgrade:

• Merging prior configuration changes into a new custom configuration repository (for upgrades only)
• Compiling a new Siebel Repository file (.srf file) from the new repository

You can use an ASCII-, an EBCDIC-, or a Unicode-based CCSID to create your Siebel Schema, but, if you mainly use single-byte character sets, it is recommended that you use ASCII or EBCDIC CCSIDs to minimize storage space requirements. Review the following recommendations:

• Use an ASCII-based encoding scheme to reduce the overhead required for character conversion. Character conversion is performed by Distributed Relational Database Architecture (DRDA), between the database and the midtier ASCII servers.
• Use a Unicode-based encoding scheme if you require a character set that includes many characters that do not fit well in the ASCII or EBCDIC character set, for example, double-byte character sets for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.

You can partition table spaces on a database with either an ASCII, an EBCDIC or a Unicode code page, so that limit keys reflect the sort sequence difference between ASCII, EBCDIC and Unicode. For more information, see Configuring the Siebel Database Layout.

About Setting the CCSID

Configure the CCSIDs on the DB2 installation panel, DSNTIPF. The APPLICATION ENCODING field allows you to specify the default application encoding scheme. The value of the DEF ENCODING SCHEME field on the same panel determines whether the default format in which data is stored on DB2 is ASCII, EBCDIC, or Unicode.

NOTE:  Set the value of the MIXED DATA field on the DSNTIPF panel to NO for all supported languages except Japanese.