JDBC Connection fails due to SQL Server allows TLS1.2 only

In a recent upgrade, I had to get Maximo 7.6.1.2 to work with SQL Server 2019 (15.0.4198.2 - Jan/2022). 

Initially, I thought I needed to replace the JDBC driver that comes with Maximo with the latest JDBC driver version (10.2). However it doesn't solve the issue.

After searching the Web, I came across this page which suggests the problem is due to SSL protocol TLS 1.2 is required.

Thus, I managed to fix the issue by adding this parameter to the end of the jdbc connections string: sslProtocol=TLSv1.2;

The full connection string will look as follows:

mxe.db.url=jdbc:sqlserver://;serverName=[SERVERNAME];databaseName=[DBNAME];portNumber=1433;integratedSecurity=false;sendStringParametersAsUnicode=false;sslProtocol=TLSv1.2;

The other method that seems to work is adding this parameter: -Dcom.ibm.jsse2.overrideDefaultTLS=true to the JVM argument of the Application server, or execution command of any tools running java. For example, for the integrityui.bat tool, I edit the file and update it as below:

@..\java\jre\bin\java -Dcom.ibm.jsse2.overrideDefaultTLS=true -Dswing.handleTopLevelPaint=false -classpath %MAXIMO_CLASSPATH% psdi.configure.UpgradeUI -i