Transforming, loading, and extracting data using the WebSphere Commerce loading utilities

WebSphere Commerce provides multiple utilities for preparing and loading data into a WebSphere Commerce database. The loading utilities are flexible and you can continue to use these utilities when you customize the WebSphere Commerce schema.

The main loading utilities for administrators are the Data Load utility and the mass load utility. The Data Load utility is a loading utility that is bases on business objects to load data into a WebSphere Commerce database. The Data Load utility offers the following advantages:
  • The Data Load utility is easier to use. You do not need to understand the details of your WebSphere Commerce database. You must understand only the business object model, and how to map your data to the business object model.
  • The Data Load utility transaction boundary is based on business objects as opposed to being based on table objects.
  • The Data Load utility is scalable and has better performance than the mass load utility.
  • The Data Load utility has a much improved summary report, and provides a better error report to assist with diagnosing problems when errors occur.

Feature Pack 6 or laterThe massload utility is deprecated for WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 6. The Data Load utility is the recommended command-line loading utility. If you are currently using the mass load utility, you are recommended to switch to the Data Load utility to load your CSV and XML input files into your target database. If your system contains scheduled and automated processes that use massload, it is recommended that you update these processes to use the Data Load utility. Other WebSphere Commerce utilities that use the massload utility, such as the acpload utility, continue to use the massload utility in WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 6. If you have business reasons to continue using the massload utility, you can continue to use this utility. For more information about the Data Load utility, see Overview of the Data Load utility. You can switch to the Data Load utility by using the TableObjectMediator to load your data when no business object mediator exists for the data that you are loading. For more about the TableObjectMediator formation, see Data Load utility table-based mediator and builder.

Business users can also load data into WebSphere Commerce using the upload feature in Management Center. For more information about loading data with Management Center, see: