Form3.0 to 4.5; Oracle 7.1 to 7.3

Please advice.

We intend to migrate from Form3.0 to Form4.5. At the moment, we are using Oracle 7.1 database.

As the GUI migration could take up to 2 to 3 years to complete after taking into the considerations of the resources, maintenance work and arising urgent projects, there is a need for Form 3.0 and Form 4.5 to co-exist throughout the entire migration.

However, Oracle 7.3 does not support Form 3.0 while Oracle 7.1 does not have some advanced features such as UTL_FILE package (for handling File I/O at server side) which is useful in the messaging module.

The following 3 possible approaches have been identified:

1)
Only Oracle 7.1 database is used throughout the entire GUI migration. Both Form 3.0 and 4.5 are accessing the 7.1 database. This will sacrifice the advanced features only available in 7.3 but database administration will be simpliest as there is only a single database instance to maintain.

2)
The entire database migrate to 7.3. However, Form 3.0 is required to run in 7.1 but accessing the 7.3 database via SQL*Net V2 (similar to client-server except that both client and server can be on the same machine but different instances). Form 4.5 will be accessing the 7.3 database.

3)
Only those tables affected by the GUI migration are migrated together with the GUI modules. Tables that only belong to Form 3.0 will remain in 7.1. Shared tables such as customer, mailing list, etc will be accessed via database link (have not decide whether to reside on 7.1 or 7.3) Those tables will appear as if as local tables by public synonyms.

The impact on development, maintenance, administration and external interfaces compatibilities for all of the 3 approaches will have to be discussed, analysed and validated before a recommendation to be given to our users.

Some qustions :

1)
Which is the "Best" ?

2)
What is the advantages or advanced features available in 7.3 but not in 7.1?    

3)
What is the database administration requirements for the 3 different approaches? (such as backup, recovery, etc)

Thanks. Received on Tue Jul 08 1997 - 00:00:00 CEST