SICS Software Installation

SICS Software Installation

Installation Overview #

The installation of the SICS software is in three stages:

  • Installation of the DBMS.
  • Installation of the SICS System Administration Utility.
  • Installation of each SICS client.

This chapter describes only the installation of the software prior to setting up all of the database components. For subsequent configuration details see the relevant “Database Preparation” chapter for your database.

In this document it is assumed that the SICS software is installed to the folder:
C:\DXC\SICS_PC_26.1 or C:\DXC\SICS_Life_26.1

This folder will be referred to as <installation_root>.

Installation of the DBMS #

The Database Management System must be installed and configured by your DBA before any SICS software is set up. Please refer to the documentation for your particular DBMS for this process.

For information about which databases SICS supports, and which JDBC drivers to use,
please see Hardware and Software Requirements.

The requisite components for the subsequent SICS installation are as follows:

  • The DBMS should be properly installed, configured, and tested according to the vendor’s specifications. Since operating environments, network transports, and physical hardware vary from site to site, it is the responsibility of your database and network support organizations to verify the installation and configuration of the DBMS.
  • A JDBC connection must be configured on each SICS installation. The JDBC connection must point to the SICS Instance, which is created through the DBMS. The connection details must be specified in the file <installation_root>/runtime/conf/sics-database-sources.xml. The file includes instructions and templates for connections to Oracle and SQL Server. Please refer to this file for more details.
    In particular, please notice the following:
    • If the user name and/or password is defined in the DBMS with lowercase or mixed case letters, then you MUST add this entry to the datasource in sics-database-sources.xml:<caseSensitiveUserNames>true</caseSensitiveUserNames>
      and you must enter the user name and password on the SICS login screen exactly the way they are defined in the DBMS.
    • The <caseSensitiveCnuUserNames> tag in the datasource definition controls how the retrieval of the SICS user from the database table handles case. The default value is false, which means that SICS presumes that the user id stored in SICS is in uppercase and it will convert the authentication user id into uppercase in order to retrieve it.
      In a situation where the authentication user id and the SICS user id are in lowercase or mixed case, then you must set the value to true <caseSensitiveCnuUserNames>true</caseSensitiveCnuUserNames>

Enable database optimizations (optional) #

The SICS database schema can be initially created in a ’traditional’ form or in an ‘optimized’ form. The optimized form will save disk space as well as processing time and it is highly recommended for SQL Server. We are unlikely to ever make it mandatory but would expect any new DXC Assure Re implementations to enable it.

The optimized form has these differences compared to the traditional form:

Oracle and SQL Server:

  • VARCHAR is used instead of CHAR also for columns of size 8-50, this includes the OBJECT_ID column and any FK_ foreign keys.
  • VARCHAR columns are generally listed as the last columns in the table creation scripts, except OBJECT_ID which is listed first (as it is never NULL).

SQL Server only:

  • Integer fields will be SMALLINT, INTEGER or BIGINT depending on their size.
  • The type of the VERSION column is changed from NUMERIC(10,0) to INTEGER, thus reducing storage size from 9 to 5 bytes.
  • For all tables except ‘join’ tables and General Ledger tables (GL_*):
    • The primary key (usually OBJECT_ID) will be NONCLUSTERED.
    • An extra, implicitly hidden column INTEGER_ID INTEGER IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL will be added.
    • An extra clustered index will be created on each INTEGER_ID.
  • The 3 tables CLASSIF_LEGAL_AREA, CLASSIF_REF_DATA and AC_RETRO_WORK, which usually have no primary key, will use INTEGER_ID as primary key.

PostgreSQL for these database engines, SICS will only have an optimized mode. The setting is ignored when creating/updating the database.

Optimized form / mode is turned off by default and must be enabled explicitly. SICS database optimization will require updates to BO report conditions/variables to remove trailing spaces, otherwise the reports may not fetch correct data after the SICS database optimization. Please refer to the comments in conf/sics-database-sources.xml for a description on how to enable the optimized mode for a specific datasource.

Enable database Unicode mode (optional) #

NOTE: This section applies only to SQL Server. This mode must not be enabled on any platform other than SQL Server. For other DBMS platforms, support for unicode characters is via their char set (or equivalent) settings.

The SICS database schema can be initially created with or without support for Unicode (international) character. Without support for Unicode, the local locale / code page will determine what characters can be stored in the database.

The Unicode mode has these differences compared to the non-Unicode mode:

Character columns that capture business data will be `NCHAR` or `NVARCHAR`.

Unicode mode is turned off by default and must be enabled explicitly, and only for SQL Server. Please refer to the comments in <installation_root>/runtime/conf/sics-database-sources.xml for a description on how to enable the Unicode mode for a specific datasource.

NOTE: In SQL Server 2019, Microsoft introduced UTF8 charsets that can support unicode data in CHAR/VARCHAR columns. This has not been tested with SICS and is not recommended as an alternative to using the SICS unicodeMode setting.

SICS Installation #

NOTE:
Please verify that all requirements in Hardware and Software Requirements are met, prior to installing SICS.

Preparing the SICS System Administration Utility #

The SICS System Administration Utility is used to create the SICS database. With the System Administration Utility you can:

  • Drop and create SICS database tables and views.
  • Load base data (reference data, currencies, countries, etc) into the database.
  • Manage the different database environments.
  • Upgrade the database to a new SICS version.
  • Run the SICS Migration Utility (described in another document).
  • Perform general system administration.

In order to preparethe SICS System Administration Utility, download the file SICSDesktopRuntimePC.zip or SICSDesktopRuntimeLF.zip (hereafter called <desktop_zip_file>) and unzip to folder <installation_root>. After unzipping, there will be subfolders /jre and /runtime inside <installation_root>.

NOTE: The SICS System Administration Utility can only run on PCs with certain versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system (for details please see Hardware and Software Requirements). If the SICS database is to be installed on a server running an operating system other than those supported by the System Administration Utility, then the System Administration Utility itself must be configured and run from another machine with one of the supported operating systems.

NOTE: Once configured, you should not execute the SICS System Administration Utility until the necessary database preparations have been completed, as described in chapter about Database Preparation and subsequent chapters.

Installing the SICS Workstation #

General Information #

Note that before the SICS Workstation can be used, the SICS database must be created, as described in Database Preparation.

Installation #

NOTE : Starting with SICS 4.9, there will be no installer (setup.exe) files. There will be separate folders and files for the various SICS components.

For Installation:

  1. If you intend to upgrade an existing version of SICS by reusing the <installation_root>, rename the existing <installation_root> folder to <installation_root_OLD> and create a new, empty <installation_root> folder.
  2. Unzip the <desktop_zip_file> to folder <installation_root>. After unzipping, there will be subfolders /jre and /runtime inside <installation_root>.
  3. If upgrading an existing version of SICS, it is necessary to reconcile configuration files found in <installation_root>/runtime/conf with the existing ones in <installation_root_OLD>/runtime/conf. This applies to all configuration files except build_version.properties.

Installing the SICS Launcher #

Download SICSDesktopOptionalComponents.zip. Open the zip file and extract SICS Java Launcher.

Review the settings in SICS Java Launcher/conf/SicsJavaLauncher.ini and update as needed.

If you want to give your users access to several different versions of SICS 4, then you must set up a separate SICS Java Launcher folder for each version of SICS.

However, if you want to provide access only to the most recent installed version of SICS 4, including any Service Packs (or Special Service Packs) that you may have received and installed, then you can reuse the initial Launcher directory and just make sure the folder names in SicsJavaLauncher.ini match the latest installation.

Further information about the setup and configuration of the Launcher can be found in the document ‘SICS Java Launcher.docx’ inside the folder where the Launcher was installed.