RE: How do folks do quick Oracle installation - Oracle 10gR2

From: Mark W. Farnham <mwf_at_rsiz.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:41:45 -0400
Message-ID: <2741666F6BC24539BFC5A57F51A403FA_at_rsiz.com>



"However I was informed that Oracle does not formally support tar-based

installations."  

"If the Oracle Home has to be deployed to multiple destinations with the

same configuration, cloning is the only supported method."  

The first quote represents a class of common erroneous misstatements of the class of support limitations represented by the second quotation.  

The second quotation says don't call us if you're having trouble performing cloning by any other method.  

The first quote can be interpreted that a valid result set of the installation is not supported after the cloning is complete.  

Of course Oracle's own "Rapidclone" process (fully supported) includes steps involving tar, so even the second quotation from doc id 565009.1 is inaccurate and internally inconsistent taken in the broad view. Taken in the narrow view "Don't call us if you don't know how to use tar or if you forgot to clone oraInventory and all the required libraries equally well as you did the RDBMS, or if you failed to preserve groups, owners, and permissions, or if you failed to provide user equivalence" it is perfectly understandable. Support is not there to teach you UNIX or any reimplementation family of UNIX. A support analyst twisting the meaning would also be understandable after a valid non-OUI clone when a new issue is called in. That doesn't mean you have to sit still for someone making that latter twist to deny support of non-cloning issues.  

Reductio absurdem, to take the view that a correctly executed tar clone is not supported is saying you cannot upgrade your hardware without walking through installation from media no longer shippable through 20 years of patches.  

Regards,  

mwf  

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Laimutis Nedzinskas
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:07 AM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: RE: How do folks do quick Oracle installation - Oracle 10gR2  

I have mentioned OEM just in case :)  

However I was informed that Oracle does not formally support tar-based

installations.  

This metalink document tells more on the issue:  

Subject: FAQs on RDBMS Oracle Home Cloning Using OUI

 Doc ID: 565009.1  

...

What is the difference between cloning and copying an Oracle Home ?

Cloning re-plays all the actions that were performed during the

installation of the Oracle Home like relinking, updating the inventory,

etc., and hence the cloned home can be patched using OPatch, patchsets can

be installed to it, etc., other than extracting files from the software

kit.

By copying the Oracle Home from one server to another, all the above

mentioned actions are not performed and also it is not possible to apply

patches or patchsets to copied Oracle Home.

Simply copying the Oracle Home is not supported.

If the Oracle Home has to be deployed to multiple destinations with the

same configuration, cloning is the only supported method.

....    

<snip>

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Received on Thu Mar 19 2009 - 05:41:45 CDT

Original text of this message