One database is used to run P6 Professional. It stores data used by all P6 Professional applications.
If you need detailed steps on installing Oracle Database or Microsoft SQL Server, refer to the database documentation included with those products.
P6 Professional supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. See Client and Server Requirements for details on which versions are supported. The Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server software must be installed on the database servers before you can create the database.
You can run the database wizard to automatically create a database structure and load application data into it; or, you can manually configure the database structures and then run a batch file to load application data. This chapter walks you through the automatic method.
Note: See Automatic Database Upgrade Considerations and Prerequisites for details if you have previously installed and configured P6 Professional databases and want to upgrade to the current version.
See Database Administration for additional tips and considerations related to database performance along with additional settings.
Oracle Database Considerations
Before installing the P6 Professional database, consider the following:
- If you intend to run P6 Professional on an Oracle Database server, the Oracle client must be installed on each machine that will be accessing the database server.
- When you install the Oracle database client, the TNSPING.EXE utility is automatically installed in the \oracle\ora_home\bin folder. You must have this utility for P6 EPPM applications. Do not delete it.
- Oracle must be run in Dedicated Mode (rather than MTS mode).
- If you need to use the Euro symbol in any Western European language, you must use codepage WE8MSWIN1252 or UTF8. Please note, if you change the NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS parameter from BYTE to CHAR the software will not be affected. Oracle recommends using CHAR if using UTF8 because some characters are two or three bytes.
Note: P6 EPPM does not support passwords with multi-byte characters.
To configure the Oracle Database server for SSL, please see the Advanced Security Administrator's Guide included with the Oracle Database Server Documentation for configuring the Oracle Server and Oracle Client(s) for SSL.