Unicode considerations, support, and migration

The following topics help you plan for a Unicode implementation on Remedy AR System.

Support for non-Unicode clients

A non-Unicode client can access specific language data stored on a Unicode Remedy AR System server installed on a Unicode database if the non-Unicode client is installed on the computer with the same character set to which that language belongs.
For example, if an English computer has Unicode Remedy AR System server installed on it with a Unicode database, and the data stored is in German, Japanese, and Russian, then:

  • A mid tier that is installed on a Japanese computer (Japanese character set) can work with the Japanese data on that database.
  • A mid tier that is installed on a French, English, or Spanish computer (Western European character set) can work with German data on that database.
  • A mid tier that is installed on a Bulgarian computer (Cyrillic character set) can work with Russian data on that database.

Support for unicode clients and non-Unicode servers

You can run a Unicode client on a non-Unicode server without restrictions.

Unicode considerations for Remedy AR System components

If you run the following Remedy AR System components in Unicode mode, they do not corrupt data when run against a Unicode-enabled Remedy AR System server:

  • Remedy AR System server
  • Remedy AR System Plug-in Server
  • Remedy Approval Server
  • Assignment Engine
  • Remedy Distributed Server Option (DSO)
  • Remedy Email Engine

The following sections discuss considerations for running specific Remedy AR System components with Unicode.

Remedy AR System server

A Remedy AR System server running in Unicode mode might be required to run another program (as a Run Process action, for example) and to accept characters written by the program through the program's standard output.

On UNIX systems, the program must write UTF-8 characters to its output. For example, a Remedy AR System server running in Unicode mode requires data returned from a Set Fields filter action to be in UTF-8. A non-Unicode server running in the Japanese locale requires data to be returned in EUC.

On Windows systems, Remedy AR System checks the first 2 bytes of the program's output. If it is in UTF-16 character encoding, Remedy AR System treats it as Unicode. Otherwise, Remedy AR System treats the program's output as characters from the system's active code page. For example, a Japanese server runs on an operating system using Windows codepage 932 (Shift-JIS character set).

Plug-in server

Two codesets affect the plug-in server and the plug-ins that run under it:

  • The codeset in which the server provides characters when it calls the plug-in's callback routines
  • The codeset that the plug-in uses when it makes API calls to the server

The server always uses its own codeset when delivering characters to plug-in callback routines. Therefore, a Unicode server always delivers characters in the UTF-8 codeset.

Mid Tier

Mid Tier is a Unicode client for the Remedy AR System server. A single mid tier can manage clients and transfer data in any language supported by Remedy AR System.

The Mid Tier's Flashboards service renders characters for display. Ensure that fonts are available for the characters of all languages in which you provide Flashboards.

API programs

When operating in Unicode mode, the API accepts and returns characters in the UTF-8 character encoding. It does not support the UTF-16 character encoding.

runmacro

The runmacro program, which is sometimes used to do batch exports of data, is not Unicode-safe. Do not use runmacro with a Unicode server.

BMC Remedy ODBC driver

The BMC Remedy ODBC driver is a multithreaded, ODBC 3.5-compliant Unicode driver that runs a Remedy AR System API client under Windows.

If you connect ANSI applications to a Remedy AR System Unicode server through the BMC Remedy ODBC driver, any data transferred is converted from ANSI to UTF-16, and then from UTF-16 to UTF-8. If the Remedy AR System server is non-Unicode, the data is converted from ANSI to UTF-16, from UTF-16 to UTF-8, and then from UTF-8 to the server's native character set.

Utilities

The following utilities are compatible with Unicode servers:

  • artext
  • arhelp
  • archgsel
  • archgid
  • arworkflow
  • ardisabled
  • arlabel

Remedy Developer Studio

BMC Remedy Developer Studio is Unicode-safe. It has no character set restrictions.

Remedy Data Import

BMC Remedy Data Import is Unicode-safe whether you run it under standard operating conditions or from the command line (arimportcmd).

For Remedy AR System use the Java-based import utility. For more information, see Enabling the Data Import utility in the Remedy AR System documentation.

Remedy AR System Administration Console

The Remedy AR System Administration Console form is Unicode-safe.

For more information about the console, see Configuring AR System servers in the Remedy AR System documentation.

Remedy Migrator

BMC Remedy Migrator is Unicode-safe. 

For more information about Unicode, see the Unicode Consortium website at http://www.unicode.org.

Unicode database support for forms

The Unicode database option enables you to have multi- and single-byte forms, data, and workflow stored in the same database or database instance.

Unicode support for AR System database types

Each database type supported by Remedy AR System supports Unicode at one of the levels listed in the following table.


Unicode support for AR System database types

During installation, the Remedy AR System installer gives you the option of creating a Unicode database. You can safely do this if you meet the following requirements:

  • You are not installing on an existing AR System database.
  • Your database supports Unicode at the column or tablespace level, or you configured your database instance for databases that support Unicode at the database-instance level.
Warning

If you have a non-unicode Remedy AR System database, you must first migrate it to Unicode before upgrading your AR System server. If you choose the Unicode database option during an upgrade against a non-Unicode AR System database, you will corrupt your database. See Migrating your database to Unicode.

Migrating your database to Unicode

If you are upgrading a Remedy AR System that already has a database, you must migrate the database to Unicode before proceeding with the Remedy AR System upgrade. This ensures your data integrity.

The following procedures describe how to migrate your database to Unicode. For more details, see your database documentation.

To migrate an Oracle database to Unicode

Follow these general steps to migrate an Oracle database. For detailed information, see your Oracle documentation.

  1. Confirm that your Unicode Oracle database uses the AL32UTF8 character set.
    The character set is defined during the creation of the Unicode database. There is no change of character set for an existing database. During the creation of the database, the response to the prompt for a character set is AL32UTF8. The Oracle database engine performs any conversion required during import of the original (non-Unicode) database into the new database.

  2. Perform a full export and import of the whole database.

    Note

    UTF-8 columns usually store fewer characters that non-Unicode columns. If you use UTF-8 character encoding, you might be introducing data truncation. For more information, see your Oracle documentation.

To migrate a Microsoft SQL Server database to Unicode

Follow these general steps to migrate a Microsoft SQL Server database. For detailed information, see your Microsoft SQL Server documentation.

  1. Create columns in the target database that correspond to the source database as shown in the following table.

  2. Migrate your data on a column-by-column basis.

    Warning

    If the database has Unicode and non-Unicode columns, Remedy AR System will not work.

 

 

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