Unicode Considerations for Automic Automation

Supporting Unicode allows the system to perform character conversion where necessary. Your system can easily handle operations in which different character sets are involved, as can be the case with File Transfers, OS Agent Jobs, importing and exporting objects, loading data, and so forth.

There are only a few components that do not support Unicode:

  • Service Manager

  • Call APIs

  • Archive Browser Utility

  • AE DB Client Copy utility, which can only be used when both Clients are Unicode-compliant

If you newly install an Automic Automation system, you must set up the AE database with a UTF-8 code set, see Preparing the AE Database.

If you upgrade your system from a non-Unicode to a Unicode supported version, you must ensure that you carry out the necessary migration tasks required before upgrading. The main issues to consider are the following:

  • A non-UTF-8 AE database must be migrated to a database configured for UTF-8 before you can start the regular upgrade process to a version that supports Unicode. For more information and detailed instructions on how to migrate your database, see Migrating the AE DB to UTF-8.

  • Make sure that the database and all connection strings are set up correctly.

  • ZDU is not supported for a first upgrade to an Automic Automation version that supports Unicode / UTF-8.

    There are significant DB schema and AE message changes that cannot be supported in compatibility or rollback mode. Furthermore, the AE database UTF-8 migration process requires a downtime so that all data is migrated correctly, which is required to avoid an encoding misalignment resulting in corrupted data.

  • Some utilities support UTF-8 while others do not. Make sure you are familiar with how the different utilities handle UTF-8.

  • AWI input fields that allow you to set a password are restricted to the characters allowed in the encoding sets mentioned in the XML Parameters of the UC_SYSTEM_SETTINGS, see XML Parameters.

  • Make sure you are aware of how Unicode / UTF-8 support affects the Agents, Objects and / or script elements.

For a complete overview of how Unicode / UTF-8 support impacts Automic Automation, see Universal Language Support (Unicode).