Re: WTD: Top Reasons Why or Why Not to Upgrade from 7.3.4 to 8.

In article <953151193.13499.1.pluto.d4ee154e_at_news.demon.nl>, "Sybrand Bakker" <postbus_at_sybrandb.demon.nl> wrote:
> Top ten reasons:
>
> 1 7.3.4 is going out of support very soon
> 2 7.3.4 is going out of support very soon
>
> (You get the picture probably)
>
> Oracle 8 (enterprise edition only) comes with a new product called
 RMAN,
> which allows for backup of the changed blocks only.
> Of course this is all in upgrade courses (and probably on
> http://technet.oracle.com)
>
> Hth,
>
> Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA
>
> Wittling <mark.wittling_at_corp.bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:8EF890A68markwittlingcorpbell_at_205.152.0.37...
> > We'd also like to know, at a birds-eye view, what the main
 differences are
> > between the two releases. Performance obviously, but I hear there
 is a
> > difference when it comes to hot backups, etc. Can anyone throw a
 few more
> > in the bucket?
>

We recently got a package that runs on 7.3.4 on our Sun box. We already have another vendor package that runs on 8.0.6 on the same box. Given a choice I would rather have both packages on 8.0.6 and only have to worry about upgrading to 8.1.6 (or whatever level is current by then).

Ver 8 seems to run pretty well. There are several new features available in version 8 that make it superior to ver 7.3.4 for home grown applications:

1. varchar2 expanded to hold 4000 instead of 2000 bytes
2. LOB datatype obsoletes long. See dbms_lob to access any point in LOB. LOB's are much easier to accesss than longs.
3. ROWID expanded to support very very large databases.
4. Several specialized logical structures made available including A - Partitioned Tables added B - Indexed Oraganzied Tables
5. Optional Object Orientated features available
6. Net 8, adds additional features like connection manager to SQL*Net

And we run the same hot backup scripts we used with ver 7, but version 8 comes with a recovery manager utility, rman, that can be used to create and manage hot and cold backups. The rman hot backup does not require alter tablespaces into backup mode and can skip unchanged data blocks.

--
Mark D. Powell -- The only advice that counts is the advice that
you follow so follow your own advice --


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