Applications are designated as Unicode-mode applications or non-Unicode-mode applications.
Unicode-mode applications support multiple character sets. When Essbase works with Unicode-mode applications, it uses the UTF-8 encoding form to interpret and store character text. Character-based artifacts in Unicode-mode applications, such as member and alias names, can include characters from different languages.
Because Unicode-mode applications accept input files in non-Unicode-encoding and UTF-8, Essbase relies on locale indicators and user prompting to read or write non-Unicode-encoded files.
Clients working with Unicode-mode applications can have locales different from that of Essbase Server. For example, client computers with Japanese locales and client computers with German locales can work with the same Unicode-mode application on an instance of Essbase Server that has a Spanish locale.
For Unicode-mode applications, the limits of most artifact names are longer than the limits in non-Unicode-mode applications, and the limits are calculated based on characters rather than bytes. See Increased Name Lengths.
Non-Unicode-mode applications support one character set that is defined by a locale value that must be the same for Essbase Server and all non-Unicode clients that work with non-Unicode-mode applications. By default, Essbase creates applications in non-Unicode mode.
You can define an application as Unicode-mode when you create the application (see Creating Unicode-Mode Applications), or you can migrate a non-Unicode-mode application to Unicode mode in a separate step (see Migrating Applications to Unicode Mode).
Unicode-mode and non-Unicode-mode applications can reside on the same Essbase Server.