1 Introduction to the Upgrade Process for Oracle Database

Where to Find the Latest Information About Upgrading Oracle Database

Oracle provides late-breaking updates, discussions, and best practices about pre-upgrade, post-upgrade, compatibility, and interoperability on the My Oracle Support Web site at https://support.oracle.com. You can search on note IDs or key words like "Database Upgrade."

• For the complete knowledge base and latest information about patch sets, go to My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com and enter your search criteria.

• For information about upgrading to Oracle Database 11g Release 2, see Oracle Upgrade Companion ID 785351.1 at My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com. Other upgrade companions are also available for upgrading to earlier releases.

• For information about downloading and running the pre-upgrade information tool, see Oracle Database Pre-Upgrade Utility ID 884522.1 at My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.

Overview of Oracle Database Upgrade Tools and Processes

The upgrade procedure transforms an existing Oracle Database system (including associated applications) into an Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) system. The upgrade steps apply to all operating systems, with the possible exception of a few operating system-specific details identified in your operating system-specific Oracle documentation.

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) supports the following tools and methods for upgrading a database to the new release:

• Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA)

  Provides a graphical user interface that guides you through the upgrade of a database. DBUA can be launched during installation with the Oracle Universal Installer, or you can launch DBUA as a standalone tool at any time in the future.

  Note:

  DBUA is the recommended method for performing a major release upgrade or patch release upgrade.

• Manual upgrade using SQL scripts and utilities

  Enables upgrades to be performed at the command line with SQL scripts and utilities.

• Export and Import utilities

  Uses Oracle Data Pump utilities, or the native Export and Import features within Oracle Database. These utilities perform a full or partial export from your database, followed by a full or partial import into the new Oracle Database 11g. Export/Import can copy a subset of the data, leaving the database unchanged.

• CREATE TABLE AS SQL statement

  Copies data from a database into a new Oracle Database 11g database. Data copying can copy a subset of the data, leaving the database unchanged.

Major Steps in the Upgrade Process for Oracle Database

Detailed instructions for upgrading an existing Oracle database to the new Oracle Database 11g release are provided in the appropriate chapters in Oracle Database Upgrade Guide.

The following steps outline the major procedures performed during the upgrade process:

• Step 1: Prepare to Upgrade

• Step 2: Test the Upgrade Process

• Step 3: Test the Upgraded Test Database

• Step 4: Prepare and Preserve the Production Database

• Step 5: Upgrade the Production Database

• Step 6: Tune and Adjust the New Production Database

Step 1: Prepare to Upgrade

• Become familiar with the features of the new Oracle Database 11g release.

• Determine the upgrade path to the new release.

• Choose an upgrade method.

• Choose an Oracle home directory for the new release.

• Develop a testing plan.

• Prepare a backup strategy.

  Note:

  During the upgrade, consider running multiple releases of the database software so you can use the existing release as your production environment while you test the new release. See "About Running Multiple Oracle Releases".

Step 2: Test the Upgrade Process

• Perform a test upgrade using a test database. The test upgrade should be conducted in an environment created for testing and should not interfere with the actual production database.

Step 3: Test the Upgraded Test Database

• Perform the tests you planned in Step 1 on the test database and on the test database that was upgraded to the new Oracle Database 11g release.

• Compare results, noting anomalies between test results on the test database and on the upgraded database.

• Investigate ways to correct any anomalies you find and then implement the corrections.

• Repeat Step 1, Step 2, and the first parts of Step 3, as necessary, until the test upgrade is completely successful and works with any required applications.

Chapter 2, "Preparing to Upgrade Oracle Database" provides detailed information about Steps 1 through 3.

Step 4: Prepare and Preserve the Production Database

• Prepare the current production database as appropriate to ensure the upgrade to the new Oracle Database 11g release is successful.

• Schedule the downtime required for backing up and upgrading the production database.

• Back up the current production database. Perform a full or an incremental backup, as necessary, to ensure your database is protected against data loss.

Step 5: Upgrade the Production Database

• Upgrade the production database to the new Oracle Database 11g release.

• After the upgrade, perform a full backup of the production database and perform other post-upgrade tasks.

Chapter 3, "Upgrading to the New Release of Oracle Database" describes Steps 4 and 5 when using DBUA or when performing a manual upgrade. Chapter 4, "Post-Upgrade Tasks for Oracle Database" describes the backup procedure for Step 5 after the upgrade, and other post-upgrade tasks for Step 6.

Step 6: Tune and Adjust the New Production Database

• Tune the new Oracle Database 11g production database. The new production database should perform to the same standards, or better than, the database before the upgrade.

  Chapter 4, "Post-Upgrade Tasks for Oracle Database" describes these adjustments.

• Determine which features of the new Oracle Database 11g release you want to use, and update your applications accordingly.

• Develop new database administration procedures as needed.

• Do not upgrade production users to the new release until all applications have been tested and operate properly.

  Chapter 5, "Upgrading Applications After Upgrading Oracle Database" describes considerations for updating applications.

Figure 1-1 illustrates the major steps in the upgrade process.

Figure 1-1 Upgrade Steps

Description of "Figure 1-1 Upgrade Steps"

About Oracle Database Release Numbers

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide describes moving between different releases of Oracle Database. Starting with Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2), maintenance releases of Oracle Database are denoted by a change to the second digit of a release number. In earlier releases, the third digit indicated a particular maintenance release.

Figure 1-2 illustrates each part of a release number and what it represents.

Figure 1-2 Example of an Oracle Release Number

Description of "Figure 1-2 Example of an Oracle Release Number"

More information about release numbers are contained in these topics:

• Convention for Referring to Release Numbers in Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

• About Running Multiple Oracle Releases

Compatibility and Interoperability Between Oracle Database Releases

Compatibility and interoperability issues may arise because of differences between Oracle Database releases. These differences might affect general database administration and existing applications.

The following topics discuss compatibility and interoperability:

• What Is Compatibility for Oracle Database?

• What Is Interoperability for Oracle Database?

Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) in Oracle Database

Oracle recommends the Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) standard for Oracle Database installations. The OFA standard is a set of configuration guidelines for efficient and reliable Oracle databases, which results in more streamlined maintenance.

OFA provides the following benefits:

• Organizes large amounts of complicated software and data on disk to avoid device bottlenecks and poor performance

• Facilitates routine administrative tasks, such as software and data backup functions, which are often vulnerable to data corruption

• Alleviates switching among multiple Oracle databases

• Adequately manages and administers database growth

• Helps to eliminate fragmentation of free space in the data dictionary, isolates other fragmentation, and minimizes resource contention

If you are not currently using the OFA standard, then switching to the OFA standard involves modifying your directory structure and relocating your database files.

Converting Databases to 64-bit Oracle Database Software

If you are installing 64-bit Oracle Database 11g software but were previously using a 32-bit Oracle Database installation, the database is automatically converted to 64-bit during a patch release or major release upgrade to the new Oracle Database 11g release.

To complete the conversion, you must manually perform the following post-upgrade tasks:

• Increase initialization parameters affecting the system global area, such as SGA_TARGET and SHARED_POOL_SIZE, to support 64-bit operations.

• Reconnect after starting up the database so that a new session is created with the appropriate 64-bit initialization. For example:

  CONNECT  AS SYSDBA
  STARTUP UPGRADE
  CONNECT  AS SYSDBA
  SPOOL UPGRADE.LOG
  @catupgrd.sql
  

Troubleshooting 32-bit to 64-bit Conversion for Oracle Database

When migrating a 32-bit database to 64-bit, when running the utlrp.sql script, there is a known error, ORA-07445.

ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [_intel_new_memcpy()+2132] [ACCESS_VIOLATION] [ADDR:0x11D1F0F67] [PC:0x621BEA4] [UNABLE_TO_READ] []

The utlrp.sql script, which is located in the ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin directory, is used to recompile stored PL/SQL and Java code. This error and workaround are described in Note 341880.1 "How to convert a 32-bit database to a 64-bit database on Linux" on My Oracle Support at http://support.oracle.com.

About Rolling Upgrades for Oracle Database

The rolling upgrade process supports Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instances in an Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) environment one at a time, without stopping the database. Depending on the method you choose to perform a rolling upgrade, you can upgrade the Oracle Database software or Oracle ASM instances, apply patchsets, or apply individual patches (sometimes referred to as one-off patches), incurring little or no database downtime. Database instance rolling upgrade is not supported.

Moving From Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition of Oracle Database

If you have Oracle Database Standard Edition at a release earlier than the new Oracle Database 11g release, then you can change it to Oracle Database Enterprise Edition by installing Oracle Enterprise Edition software and subsequently following the normal upgrade procedures, as described in Chapter 3, "Upgrading to the New Release of Oracle Database.".

To change your existing Standard Edition database to an Enterprise Edition database 

1. Ensure that the release number of your Standard Edition server software is the same release as Enterprise Edition server software.

   For example, if your Standard Edition server software is release 11.1.0.6, then you must upgrade to release 11.1.0.6 of Enterprise Edition.

2. Shut down your database.

3. If your operating system is Windows, then stop all Oracle services, including the OracleServiceSID Oracle service, where SID is the instance name.

4. Make a backup copy of files under $Oracle_Home/network/admin. This ensures that the listener is configured after you complete the steps in this procedure.

5. Back up all database files and data under the current Oracle home that you need to keep.

   • On Linux, back up $Oracle_Home/dbs/.

   • On Windows, back up $Oracle_Home/database/.

6. Edit the orabase_cleanup.lst file found in the Oracle_Home/utl directory and remove the "oradata" and "admin" entries. Refer to "Deinstallation of the Oracle home in the earlier release of Oracle Database may result in the deletion of the old Oracle base that was associated with it".

7. Deinstall the Standard Edition server software.

   Run the deinstall tool from the Oracle home. The deinstall tool is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/deinstall directory for UNIX platforms, and in the ORACLE_HOME\deinstall directory for Windows platforms.

   IMPORTANT:

   The deinstall tool deletes all existing database files that reside under Oracle home, including data in the database. Therefore, Oracle recommends that you retain a current backup of your data.

8. Install Enterprise Edition server software using Oracle Universal Installer (OUI).

   Select the same Oracle home that was used for the Standard Edition that you uninstalled. During the installation, be sure to select Enterprise Edition. When prompted, choose Software Only from the Database Configuration screen.

9. Start up your database.

Your database is now upgraded to Enterprise Edition.

About Moving From Enterprise Edition to Standard Edition of Oracle Database

To properly convert from an Enterprise Edition database to a Standard Edition database you must perform an Export/Import operation. Oracle recommends using the Standard Edition Export utility to export the data. If you only install Standard Edition software, then some data dictionary objects become invalid and create problems when maintaining the database.

Enterprise Edition contains data dictionary objects that are not available in Standard Edition. The Export/Import operation does not introduce data dictionary objects specific to the Enterprise Edition, because the SYS schema objects are not exported. After the Import in the Standard Edition database, you are only required to drop user schemas related to Enterprise Edition features.

About Upgrading from Oracle Database Express Edition to Oracle Database

To upgrade Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) to Oracle Database 11g, you must install Oracle Database 11g on the same system as Oracle Database XE and use DBUA to perform the upgrade.