Configuring PPM External Database DMS Solution

There are two ways to define the external DB schema to use for storing documents:

• By providing JDBC connection parameters (the External Database (JDBC) DMS Driver option)

• By creating a new JNDI datasource on your PPM Server and providing the JNDI name of that datasource (the External Database (JNDI) DMS Driver option)

You can find these two options in the list of supported Target DMS options in the DMS Migration Configuration screen of the Administration Console.

Available DMS Migration options for a PPM server currently using PPM Center Database DMS

Why Store the DMS Documents on Another Database Schema?

You might not want to store them in the PPM Center database schema for different possible reasons:

• Your PPM Center database schema is regularly backed up, and the extra documents space renders back-up procedure too time-consuming if the volume of PPM Center attachments is very large (hundreds of GB).

• You would like to back up your PPM Center database daily, but it is acceptable to back up attachments only weekly or monthly.

• You do not want any additional load on the PPM Center production database to be caused by attachments storage, retrieval and searches.

Which Option (JDBC or JNDI) to Choose?

The short answer is: For staging and production environments, you should always choose the JNDI option, but for test and development environments, JDBC should be enough and is simpler to set up.

	External Database (JDBC)	External Database (JNDI)
Advantages	Simple to setup (no change on PPM Server).	Better performance (JDBC connections are pooled and reused). Allows exhaustive configuration of datasource. Note: For instructions on creating JNDI datasource, see Creating JNDI Datasource.
Disadvantages	Performance impact: A new JDBC connection must be created for every DMS operation (download a document, save a document, search documents).	Needs to create datasource on each of your PPM Server(s).