Installing the Oracle JDBC driver

About this task

This procedure only applies to installing Oracle JDBC driver as all other supported database drivers are packaged with Experience Portal.

To have the Oracle JDBC driver installed by the Experience Portal install program, perform the following steps after you install or upgrade Linux. It is recommended that you perform the procedure before you install or upgrade Experience Portal.

The procedure also provides information on how to install the Oracle JDBC driver after you install or upgrade Experience Portal.

Before you begin

To connect your Experience Portal system to an external Oracle database, you must first obtain the JDBC driver from Oracle. The Oracle JDBC driver is not shipped with Experience Portal.

Experience Portal is tested with the following Oracle Releases:

Oracle 11g Release 2: Download the Oracle JDBC driver from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/apps-tech/jdbc-112010-090769.html. Download files ojdbc6.jar and orai18n.jar.
Oracle 12c Release 2 (12.2.0.1): Download the Oracle JDBC driver and UCP downloads from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/jdbc/jdbc-ucp-122-3110062.html.
Oracle 21c (21.1): Download the Oracle JDBC driver and UCP downloads from https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/appdev/jdbc-ucp-21-1-c-downloads.html. Ensure that you download the ojdbc8.jar and orai18n.jar files, rather than the ojdbc11.jar file. The ojdbc8.jar and orai18n.jar files support the Java version used by your Experience Portal system.

Important:

Web browsers might change the file extension of the files to .zip when the files are downloaded. Rename the files back to ojdbc6.jar, ojdbc7.jar, ojdbc8.jar, and orai18n.jar.

Avaya recommends the following for better results:

Use Oracle 11g drivers when you are upgrading to Experience Portal 8.x and connecting to an Oracle 11g database.
Use Oracle 12c drivers for fresh installation of Experience Portal 8.x and connecting to either an Oracle 11g or 12c database.
Use Oracle 21c drivers when you are upgrading to Experience Portal 8.x and connecting to an Oracle database greater than 12c.

Procedure

Log in to Linux on the Primary Experience Portal server as a root user.
Run the mkdir ~/OracleJDBC command to create the ~/OracleJDBC folder.
Copy the ojdbc6.jar/ojdbc7.jar/ojdbc8.jar and orai18n.jar driver files to the ~/OracleJDBC folder.

Important:
Do not delete the Oracle JDBC driver files from the ~/OracleJDBC directory after you install or upgrade Experience Portal. You will need the files if you reinstall or upgrade Experience Portal.
If you install the Oracle JDBC driver after you install or upgrade the Experience Portal server, you must do the following:
1. Run the /sbin/service vpms stop command to stop the vpms service.
2. Run the cd $AVAYA_HOME/Support/Database command to navigate to the appropriate directory.
3. Run the bash InstallOracleJDBC.sh command to install the JDBC driver.
  
  Important:
  Run the InstallOracleJDBC.sh command only after you download the Oracle driver in the ~/OracleJDBC directory on the server.
4. Run the /sbin/service vpms start command to start the vpms service.
Repeat the procedure on each Auxiliary Experience Portal server.