Understanding Converting PeopleSoft Systems on Oracle Databases to Unicode

Converting a PeopleSoft system on an Oracle database to Unicode may require creating a new Oracle instance with a Unicode character set. If your current database uses byte semantics (typical for PeopleSoft 8.9 applications or earlier), you must also create new column sizes for PeopleSoft columns created as VARCHAR2.

Note:

The AL32UTF8 character set is the preferred character set for the Oracle database. However, the UTF8 character set is also supported.

Be sure to specify CHARACTER SET AL32UTF8 (or CHARACTER SET UTF8) at the end of the CREATE DATABASE command.

For more information on CREATE DATABASE syntax information:

See Oracle Database SQL Language Reference SQL Statements: CREATE CLUSTER to CREATE JAVA CREATE DATABASE

For small databases, the simplest way of converting a PeopleSoft database on Oracle to Unicode is to export the entire database using PeopleSoft Data Mover, create a new Oracle instance using a Unicode character set, and re-import the entire database using PeopleSoft Data Mover. The details of this process are not provided in this appendix.

For larger databases, a better process is to use PeopleSoft Data Mover to pre-build the structure of the PeopleSoft tables and then use Oracle Data Pump to move the bulk of the data between the old and new Oracle instances. The details of these processes are provided in this appendix.

The Oracle Database Migration Assistant for Unicode (DMU) is a migration tool that can implement character set migration without exporting and importing data. This method does not require creating a new Oracle instance with a Unicode character set, as it modifies the existing instance. You can use DMU instead of Data Mover for converting Oracle databases to Unicode. It is a simpler, faster utility that also provides a validation mode to identify any data that may have issues converting to Unicode.

If you are using the DMU tool for your database conversion, then you can skip to the detailed information on this utility in the section Converting to Unicode on Oracle Databases later in this topic, or else read the following sections on the other available methods to migrate Oracle databases to Unicode.