Re: Moving an Oracle Database from Solaris to AIX

chris.kernaghan_at_gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have been asked to move an SAP system using an Oracle database from
> Solaris to AIX (on an IBM P590).
>
> Most of the move is straightforward, except the Oracle database
> transfer. It would make my life so much easier if I could simply
> restore the Oracle datafiles from an off-line backup of the Solaris
> system and then link it to a clean install of the Oracle binaries on
> the AIX system, rather than have to do an export and import.
>
> Is this possible, after all the AIX Oracle binaries would be the same
> patch level as the Solaris binaries and the file systems would be the
> same. Also as it would be an offline backup we would not have to do
> any recovery, so the archive logs and the original redo logs would not
> be required.
>
> Does anyone know if this is possible or has actually executed it
> successfully, any hints and tips on the gotchas would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> TIA
>
> Chris aka BoobBoo

I have exported & imported Oracle databases from one OS to another OS, but in every case both OS platforms were the same (Windows, for better or worse, although they were different production versions)(I'm developing an Oracle 10 on Solaris 10 in test environment presently). I've not done what it sounds like you are attempting to do, but AFIK in order to successfully migrate an Oracle database (my experience is <= 9i) from any place to any other place, a complete export -> import would need to be done in order to preserve e.g. table indexes, constraints etc. along with any objects such as triggers, packages, procedures, sequences (and views) etc. Recall that "create table A as select all from table B" is not the same as exporting table A along with its constraints, keys, indexes, and so on, not to mention other complex database dependencies.

That said, you may then run into gotchas spawned by moving your Oracle DB from one platform to another -- again, something I have not done.

http://asktom.oracle.com is a valuable resource, as someone else pointed out in this thread. Received on Sat Dec 29 2007 - 23:48:13 CST