Upgrading to Oracle Database 11g-1

Upgrading to Oracle Database 11g  2008-10-06 16:31:40

分类： Oracle

This article provides a brief overview of the areas involved in upgrading existing databases to Oracle 11g Release 1. The article provides the minumum information needed when preparing for the 11g Database Administation OCP upgrade exam, including:

• Supported Upgrade Paths
• Pre-Upgrade Validation Checks
• Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA)

The whole migration process is beyond the scope of this article so please refer to the  Upgrading to the New Release document for further information.

Supported Upgrade Paths

Direct upgrades to 11g are possible from existing databases with versions 9.2.0.4+, 10.1.0.2+ or 10.2.0.1+. Upgrades from other versions are supported only via intermediate upgrades to a supported upgrade version.

The preferred upgrade method is to use the Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA), a GUI tool that performs all necessary prerequisite checks and operations before upgrading the specified instances. The DBUA can be started directly from the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) or separately after the software installation is complete.

Alternatively you may which to perform a manual upgrade which involves the following steps:

• Backup the database.
• In UNIX/Linux environments, set the $ORACLE_HOME and $PATH variables to point to the new 11g Oracle home.
• Analyze the existing instance using the "$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/utlu111i.sql" script, explained below.
• Start the original database using the STARTUP UPGRADE command and proceed with the upgrade by running the "$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catupgrd.sql" script.
• Recompile invalid objects.
• Restart the database.
• Run the "$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/utlu111s.sql" script and check the result of the upgrade.
• Troubleshoot any issues or abort the upgrade.

An alternative to these upgrade methods is to use the export and import utilities (exp/imp or expdp/impdp). This enables upgrades from a wider variety of Oracle versions and has the advantage of leaving the original database available as a fallback option. The down sides of this approach are it is much slower, and it requires enough disk space to hold two copies of the database and the export dump file.