Upgrade 8i to 9i --- multiple oracle_base !!!!!!

Sanity Check needed

System: Oracle 8.1.7.1.0 on AIX 5.1

This is my last holdout on 8.1, to be upgraded to 9.2, and I have a rather unusual challenge. Asking for a sanity check if my approach will work, if there is a better approach, and what I might be overlooking.

On this particular box, we have two databases, spd01 for dev work and spq01 for QA. Not only did the original DBA choose to give each its own $ORACLE_HOME, he chose to give each its own $ORACLE_BASE, and it's own system owning account. Sign on to AIX with oraspd if you want to work with spd01, with oraspq if you want to work with spq01.

I know there has been some recent debate here over giving each db its own $ORACLE_HOME, but separate ORACLE_BASE is a whole new ballgame. Also, my recent misadventure patching another box has sensitized me to issues dealing with $ORACLE_BASE and the inventory location. This particular setup is screaming to be cleaned up. Even though each orasp* user account gets its own $ORACLE_BASE, there is still only one /etc/oraInst.loc, pointing to only one inventory location. My guess is this simply won't work.

(Just to make it even more interesting, he gave each its own installation of BMC's SQL-Backtrack for the backups! And those installations are unnecessarily intertwined into the ORACLE_BASE structures.)

So, what we have is this:
For database SPD01, account oraspd gets the environment:
$ORACLE_BASE = /02fs01/vendors/oracle1
$ORACLE_HOME = /02fs01/vendors/oracle1/product/spd01/8.1.7

For database SPQ01, account oraspq gets the environment:
$ORACLE_BASE = /02fs01/vendors/oracle2
$ORACLE_HOME = /02fs01/vendors/oracle2/product/spq01/8.1.7

and the single /etc/oraInst.loc has:
inventory_loc=/02fs01/vendors/oracle1/oraInventory inst_group=dba

What I have in mind for the upgrade, and to clean up this mess is this:

1. Install one copy of the latest version of SQL-Backtrack into its own directory structure, completely separate from any Oracle directories. (The discussion of SQL-BT vs. rman is not on the table.) Get that working, then delete all of the old installations out of the Oracle related directories.
2. Shutdown and cold backup both databases.
3. Create a new, single AIX account to own Oracle. Call it (drum roll please!) -- oracle.
4. TAR, then delete both ORACLE_BASE directories
5. Tar, then delete /etc/ora* At this point, there should be no remnants of an Oracle installation, other than the databases themselves.
6. Create a new directory at /02fs01/vendors/oracle to be a new, unified ORACLE_BASE
7. Install Oracle 9.2.0.1.0 into a single ORACLE_HOME at
   $ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2.0
   
8. Restore the original $ORACLE_BASE db 'admin' directories from the tars to $ORACLE_BASE/admin/<sid>
9. Restore the original contents of $ORACLE_HOME/dbs from the tars to
   $ORACLE_HOME/dbs
   
10. Restore the original init<sid>.ora parameter files to
    $ORACLE_BASE/admin/<sid>/pfile/init<sid>.ora (currently located in
    $ORACLE_HOME/dbs). Create links in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs, to refer to the
    actual location.
11. Try as I might, I can't find current password files. And I see we have remote_os_authent = true. ???
12. Begin the migration procedure.

It also occurs to me that after removing the existing installation, and before installing 9.2, I might want to install 8.1.7 in the new single
$ORACLE_BASE, to make sure I can bring up the db, before introducing
9.2 into the mix. At that point, I would have a clean, single-home, single-base installation to work with.

Thoughts, comments, criticisms welcome. Received on Wed Oct 19 2005 - 12:37:16 CDT