1. Database Upgrade Guide
  2. Planning Considerations for the Unicode Migration

Planning Considerations for the Unicode Migration

Migrations to Unicode require the assistance of Oracle’s Advanced Customer Services.

Contact your Oracle sales representative for Oracle Advanced Customer Services to request assistance from Oracle’s Application Expert Services to migrate your upgraded database from a non-Unicode code page to Unicode. To perform the migration, you can use either database vendor native utilities or Siebel utilities.

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

  • Database size increase. Migration to Unicode increases the size of your database. For this reason, you must allocate additional space for your database before migrating to Unicode. For more information, create a service request (SR) on My Oracle Support. Also, you can contact your Oracle sales representative for Oracle Advanced Customer Services to request assistance from Oracle’s Application Expert Services.

  • IBM DB2 data truncation. Migration to Unicode might cause truncation of certain data in IBM DB2 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 might be truncated and take appropriate measures before migration. For more information, create a service request (SR) on My Oracle Support. Also, you can contact your Oracle sales representative for Oracle Advanced Customer Services to request assistance from Oracle’s Application Expert Services. See also Identifying IBM DB2 Long Columns for Truncation in a Siebel Upgrade.

  • IBM DB2 custom tablespace information. The upgrade does not preserve custom tablespace information for IBM DB2 databases. This presents a problem during your migration to a Unicode code page, because you must know which tables need to be re-created. You must modify the upgrade scripts to handle custom tablespaces.

    For instructions about how to modify upgrade scripts to handle custom tablespaces, contact your Oracle sales representative for Oracle Advanced Customer Services to request assistance from Oracle’s Application Expert Services.

  • Third-party product integration. Migration to Unicode might affect integration with third-party systems. For more information, create a service request (SR) on My Oracle Support. Also, you can contact your Oracle sales representative for Oracle Advanced Customer Services to request assistance from Oracle’s Application Expert Services.

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