RDBMS 8.0.5 to 8.0.6 Upgrade Question

I have a question regarding upgrading a database from 8.0.5.X to 8.0.6.1, where the RDBMS is installed into an $ORACLE_HOME where other components (D2K Server and OAS 3.0.2) also exist. The original $ORACLE_HOME was created for the Oracle Applications 11.0.3 via. the "1 hour" (yeah, right) install process under the following directory: /u01/app/oracle/product/8.0.5. The platform is Sun SPARC Solaris 2.6 (as a quick aside, does anyone know how I can figure out if we are running the 32 or 64 bit version of the OS here?).

Can I install the 8.0.6 software into the same $ORACLE_HOME (assuming everything is shut down and backed up, of course)? If so, do I have to run the installer to remove the 8.0.5 components first, or would the 8.0.6 install overwrite the old 8.0.5 RDBMS components?

I'm also thinking of copying the ./8.0.5 tree to ./8.0.6 prior to the upgrade so the naming is consistient, but my concern here are configuration files for the application server (3.0.2) that may have a path hard coded into them.

With the above options, are there any known issues, gotcha's, precautions I should take since I'm installing the new RDBMS into an ORACLE_HOME that had a prior version?

My last thought is to create an entirely new $ORACLE_HOME by installing the RDBMS, etc., but since the original components were installed from the Applications 11.0.3 "1 hour" (that still just cracks me up) CD set, we don't have all of the individual product CD's (the 1 hour install basically unarchives these components from archive files on the CD).

I realize that I will have many tasks to perform beyond this (running scripts, checking environment settings, etc.) but I'm stuck on the RDBMS issue right now.

Any insight would be most appreciated. Thanks and best regards! Received on Thu Nov 30 2000 - 14:55:42 CST