Prepare an Oracle database for PolicyCenter

About this task

Important:

Guidewire supports only single-byte character sets that are a strict superset of ASCII, and AL32UTF8 or UTF8 for Unicode. Use only a supported character set with PolicyCenter. Refer to your Oracle documentation for a complete list of supported character sets. WE8ISO8859P1 is a single-byte character set that supports both Western European languages and American English. AL32UTF8 and UTF8 are Oracle character sets supported for the storage of Unicode data, such as Asian characters.

If using the AL32UTF8 or UTF8 character set, configure the Oracle instance to set nls_length_semantics to char. Otherwise, the application server will not start.
Note: Oracle recommends that you do not set the nls_length_semantics parameter to char (due to concerns about third party applications relying on the value being set to byte), but Guidewire specifically relies on having it set to char. For more details, see Oracle support MOS Doc ID 144808.1.

Guidewire does not support non-ASCII characters in database schema object names and qualifiers. Without limitation, these names and qualifiers include table names and column names. If you do not restrict schema object names and qualifiers to ASCII characters, an exception will result.

Procedure

  1. Create a new database instance for PolicyCenter.

    Guidewire recommends that you not share the PolicyCenter database with other data or applications.

  2. Create one or more tablespaces to support the PolicyCenter logical tablespaces. Guidewire recommends that you create a separate tablespace for each logical tablespace:

    Logical Name

    Usage

    ADMIN

    Stores system parameters.

    OP

    Stores the main PolicyCenter data tables.

    TYPELIST

    Stores system code tables.

    INDEX

    Stores system indexes.

    STAGING

    Stores inbound staging data tables.

    LOB

    Stores off-row LOB (large object) data. The LOB tablespace is optional. If you do not specify a physical tablespace for the LOB logical tablespace, then LOB data is stored in the tablespace mapped to the OP logical tablespace.

    PolicyCenter uses the LOB tablespace for new tables only. For an existing configuration in which the PolicyCenter schema has been created, if you designate an LOB tablespace, PolicyCenter does not move existing LOB columns to the LOB tablespace. If you add an LOB column to an existing table, PolicyCenter does not put the column in the LOB tablespace. If you define a new table with LOB data, PolicyCenter stores the LOB data in the designated LOB tablespace.

    See About Oracle SecureFile LOBs.
  3. Create a single database user, pcUser, in the PolicyCenter database.
  4. Grant pcUser the following permissions:
    • alter session
    • create procedure
    • create sequence
    • create session
    • create table
    • create trigger
    • create view
    • query rewrite
    • select any dictionary

    If your users want to view statspack data on the PolicyCenter Info Pages interface, you also need to grant the pcUser access to Statspack's (perfstat user) tables.

  5. Grant quota on all the tablespaces listed in step 2 to the pcUser.
  6. Set default tablespace for pcUser to the one being mapped to the OP logical tablespace.
  7. (Optional) In a production environment, edit the PATH environment variable and move any Oracle directories to the end of the variable, after the PolicyCenter directories.

    This action prevents potential conflicts with PolicyCenter files as Oracle adds directories to the PATH environment variable if you run the database and application servers on the same computer.

    Note: Guidewire recommends that you do not run database and application servers on the same computer in a production environment.
  8. Test a connection to the database from a database client and verify that all the tablespaces are visible.
  9. Define the method you will use to gather Oracle database statistics. Select and configure your choice as outlined in Database statistics generation for Oracle databases.