Re: Migrating Oracle 8 server from Sparc to Linux

In article <7nl82j$o69$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>, fabbri_at_my-deja.com writes:

> I'm exploring the possibility of migrating our Oracle 8 database from an
> old sparc Solaris machine to a new Linux Oracle 8 server.
>
> Could someone give me an overview of how much labor would be involved in
> doing this?

It's difficult to estimate the amount of effort without more information about what is in your database and how it is used but the process of migration should be relatively straightforward.

The four server focussed steps listed in the installation guide for Oracle 8 on Linux are:

1. Satisfy Prerequisites
2. Check the LINUX Environment
3. Install
4. Post-Installation

With a brand new system you have the freedom to choose a recent Linux distribution and arrange the hardware as you want it. You need to spend quite a bit of time reading the installation instructions and doing some careful planning - disk partitions for example, but once you are comfortable with what you need for your database, (1) shouldn't be much more work than creating a general purpose networked Linux box.

In (2) you just have a few routine system admin tasks to do. It's worth taking care over this to save problems later but we are talking about an hour or two at most.

I can't remember how long (3) took when I installed it (and this was on a 486 so it's hardly representative - but it worked!), but I guess that this would be less than an hour or two on a decent machine.

The difficulty of (4) is really dependent on your local requirements. If you have GB and GB of data or lots of stored procedures to recompile, they will slow you down. They key is your preparatory work - your import should run largely unattended if everything is well set up. A pre-migration purge of unwanted data and procedures might be appropriate. How are you going to get the data from A to B? Tape? Network?

Obviously if your data is anything more than 'play' data, you will want to do a trial migration first and test thoroughly. Don't forget to consider how your current backup procedures will work on the new system. Do you need to allocate time to update them? Do you need to create user accounts on the new machine? Would a pilot of one or two applications on the new box be a good idea before a complete migration? Do you need a fallback plan?

--
Regards,

Richard Senior
London, England Received on Tue Jul 27 1999 - 17:35:51 CDT