Database Character set concern

[hemajadav]

Hello All,

Smartops installation guide says to use the  character set AL32UTF8

"The Oracle database instance created for MIPO must be a AL32UTF instance:

CHARACTER SET AL32UTF8

NATIONAL CHARACTER SET AL16UTF16"

While, we have create a db with UTF8

SQL> SELECT VALUE FROM V$NLS_PARAMETERS WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET';

VALUE

----------------------------------------------------------------

UTF8

SQL>

Please help with below questions.

1) How could this affect our smartops instance later?

2) What is the procedure to change the character set. 

Thank You

Hema

[chris_topf · Accepted solution]

Hello,

the UTF8 character set is a subset of AL32UTF8.  That line in the installation guide is a suggestion really unless you have a need to use multibyte characters like Hebrew, Greek, etc.  If you have no need to do that, you will be just fine on UTF8 and there will be no affect on the instance later.

If the database for Netweaver is the same database that the EIS schemas are installed on, I seem to remember that Netweaver requires UTF8, so you couldn't use one database for Netweaver and EIS "if" you need to use multibyte characters.

If you have a need to change the characterset and the database is solely for EIS use and you just created it, it could be simple enough to delete it and recreate it with the AL32UTF8 characterset.
I also think that since the character set of the database is currently UTF8 and AL32UTF8 is a superset of UTF8, you might be able to change the character set without recreating.  I would consult Oracle documentation for those steps.

Thanks,
Chris
SAP Product Support

[hemajadav · Accepted solution]

Thank you Chris.

We are using same database for Netweaver and EIS, so we will go ahead with UTF8 character set.

My other concern is :

I have maintained AL32UTF8 in config tool.

-Dfile.encoding=AL32UTF-8

When i try to modify it, i get below error - Error occurred during initialization of VMjava.nio.charset.illegalCharsetNameException

Please suggest me

1) Should i leave it as AL32UTF-8

2) Can i remove the parameter in configtool and add it again with correct value UTF8

FYI, I have just created schemas and installed EIS component. There is no data loaded yet.

Thank you