One of my colleagues asked me how he could connect a newly installed WebSphere Portal v8 profile ( wp_profile ) to an existing set of Portal databases - JCRDB, RELEASEDB, CUSTDB etc. - without initialising the data within those DBs.
The reason for this was that he'd reinstalled WebSphere Portal, but didn't want to lose the data that he'd previously transferred ( from Derby ) into the "real" DB2 databases.
This seemed like a really straightforward question, especially given the fact this would be a common use case when, for example, upgrading from one release to another. To extend the example, one might build a new WebSphere Portal 8 cell, leaving the existing WebSphere Portal 7 cell in place, and then "connect" the new servers to the old database.
Although I couldn't come up with the solution, my colleague ( Steven ) did.
To be more specific, he found this in the WebSphere Portal Wiki: -
Product Documentation > IBM WebSphere Portal 8 Product Documentation > Installing > Installing on Linux > Setting up a stand-alone production server on Linux > Linux stand-alone: Configuring your portal to use a database > Linux stand-alone: Setting up a remote DB2 database > Linux stand-alone: Type 2 driver support > Linux stand-alone: Changing DB2 driver types
This uses the following ConfigEngine commands: -
./ConfigEngine.sh validate-database
./ConfigEngine.sh connect-database
to do the job.
Sorted :-)