Setting up the Spotfire database (Oracle)

There are multiple ways to set up an Oracle server for storing the Spotfire database, as discussed in previous sections. This topic lists more information about some parameters you must provide, and detailed steps for setting up the database using the provided scripts.

About this task

As discussed on Spotfire database setup, you can create a Spotfire database with the configuration tool or using the CLI command create-db. To use the create-db command, you must first have installed the Spotfire Server. Also note that when using Oracle from a cloud database provider, additional parameters and configuration is required.

To create and configure the Spotfire databases in a containerized environment, use the Cloud Deployment Kit for Spotfire on GitHub or the prebuilt container images.

To use the provided scripts to set up the database, follow the steps below.

Before you begin

Download and unzip the Spotfire Server installation kit from the Spotfire Download site. For instructions, see Downloading installation software.
The command-line database tool sqlplus must be installed in the system when configuring the database server using scripts.
You have access to an Oracle database server.

Procedure

Configure the following settings on the Oracle database server computer.
- User name and password authentication.
  Note: You can set up Spotfire Server to authenticate with an Oracle database instance using Kerberos. For instructions, see Using Kerberos to log in to the Spotfire database. In this case, you must run the database preparation scripts manually. See Running database preparation scripts manually.
- National Language Support (NLS) to match the language of the data you will bring into Spotfire.
  Note: If the database server NLS cannot be set to match the language of your data, Oracle provides other methods of setting NLS to a specific database or user. For more information, consult your database administrator or see the Oracle database documentation.
Go to the scripts/oracle_install directory in the downloaded installation kit and locate the create_databases script for your platform.
For details about the available scripts, see The Spotfire database scripts.

You might need assistance from your database administrator to copy the install directory to the database, and to provide the database details for the script.

The script supports the variables described in the table below. The script will prompt you for any required variable that is not set in your environment or in the script.

If desired, you can provide the variables before running the script using one of these methods:

Set the variables as environment variables.
Open and edit the script to define the variables in the section under Uncomment to set variables.


Variable	Description	Default
`SPOTFIREDB_ROOTFOLDER`	Location where the tablespaces are created. This must be a directory that is writable for the Oracle instance. Example: `<oracle install dir>`/oradata/`SID` or `<oracle install dir>`/oradata/`PDBNAME`. Note: Do not add a slash or backslash after the <SID>. Note: This variable is not applicable for the Amazon RDS create_databases scripts.	–
`DBSERVER_CONNECTIDENTIFIER`	Oracle TNS name/SID of the database/service name. Example: `ORCL` or //<`database server address`>/<`database name`>.
`DBSERVER_ADMIN_USERNAME`	Name of a user with Oracle Database administrator privileges for the database identified in the `DBSERVER_CONNECTIDENTIFIER`. Example: `system`.
`DBSERVER_ADMIN_PASSWORD`	Password of the `DBSERVER_ADMIN_USERNAME`. Warning: This is visible in clear text. Delete the script after use.	–
`SPOTFIREDB_USERNAME`	Name of the user to create to set up the Spotfire Server database.	`spotfire`
`SPOTFIREDB_PASSWORD`	Password for `SPOTFIREDB_USERNAME`.	–
`SPOTFIREDB_DATA_TABLESPACE`	Name of the tablespace to create.	`SPOTFIRE_DATA`
`SPOTFIREDB_TEMP_TABLESPACE`	Name of the temporary tablespace to create. Note: Conflicting tablespaces can occur if you are creating the Spotfire tablespaces on a database server that is already hosting a previous version of Spotfire Server. Make sure that you do not select any names for the new tablespaces and users that conflict with the already hosted tablespaces and users.	`SPOTFIRE_TEMP`

Results

The required Spotfire user and database table schemas are created in your database.

The log file log.txt file is created in the working directory. If the execution should fail, then the log file contains information about the failure. If the execution succeeds, then information about the changes made to the database is available in the log file.

Important: The scripts contain sensitive information so remove them after your Spotfire environment is installed.

What to do next

Install Spotfire Server, or if you have done that already, proceed to Initial configuration.