Smartest way to create test databases (including upgrade) ?

Greetings,

The scenario:
We have to databases running on separate servers (unix):

• IFS ~ 17.5Gb version 8.1.6 (24*7 database)
• PERS ~ 3.3Gb version 7.3.4.2 (24*7 database)

We want to create testdatabases of these two and having them on one server with Oracle version 8.1.6.

Therefore we have to upgrade the PERS db (for the testdb) to 8.1.6, which means we need to make an export of PERS.

The problem:
Since the PERS db is a 24*7 database it may be problematic to make a full consistent database export. If I use the consistent=y parameter, then during the whole export operation no user can change any data. But if I use consistent=n then only one table at a time will we consistent. I suppose this mean that the data that have been changed during the export will not be consistent(if several tables are affected by a transaction). OK this is for a testdatabase and some data may not need to be accurate, but I must know about this before doing the export. Am I right about this or am I missing something here ?

For the IFS testdatabase I suppose I can use the hot backup datafiles and roll forward with the archived redo logfiles. I know that I must have the same filedirectory structure for the testdatabase. Since the Oracle version at the test server is the same (8.1.6) this must work, or am I way out of here ? No export should be needed. Are there anything else I must know of ? I cant use transport tablespace since it needs to be in Read Only mode (it is a 24*7 db).

Thanks for any comments about this.

/Christian Svensson Received on Tue Dec 04 2001 - 04:13:19 CST