[sknmail@rediffmail.com]

Hi,

When upgrading OTM from v4.5/v5.0 to v5.5, what would be the right approach w.r.t. upgrading the database as the administration guide does not mention on which of Oracle should be upgraded v5.0 database should be while at the time of upgrading from v5.0 to v5.5 database -

Approach 1 -
- Upgrade from v4.5 to v5.0 on same database instance installed on Oracle 9i.
- Take an export of upgraded v5.0 database
- Install Oracle 10G on another system
- Import the exported v5.0 database
- Upgrade to v5.5 by applying the dbupdate and dbmigrate scripts.

Approach 2 -
- Upgrade from v4.5 to v5.0 on same database instance installed on Oracle 9i.
- Upgrade to v5.5 by applying the dbupdate and dbmigrate scripts.
- Take an export of upgraded v5.5 database
- Install Oracle 10G on another system
- Import the exported v5.5 database

Approach 3 -
- Upgrade from v4.5 to v5.0 on same database instance installed on Oracle 9i.
- Upgrade from Oracle 9i to Oracle 10G version.
- Upgrade to v5.5 by applying the dbupdate and dbmigrate scripts.

What do you think is the correct process or do you feel any other approach better than this, please suggest.

Thanks very much in advance,

Regards,
Suresh

[acuartero]

Suresh,

All of these are valid approaches. I don't believe that there is anything in the dbmigrate scripts for 5.5 that require 10g. As long as you don't actually start the OTM application server with a mismatched database version you shouldn't have any problems. If you actually plan on upgrading your database hardware then let me suggest a 4th approach. That is to take an export of your current 4.5 database and bring it into a 10g instance and run the migration scripts from 4.5-5.0-5.5 all in-place against the 10g database. This has the advantage of leaving your existing 9i database in place in the event that you need to rollback to 4.5 due to an unsuccessful go-live.

You would of course need to also install 4.5 , 5.0 & 5.5 along with the last SR available for each before you begin the migration. You must also run dbpatch as the last step of each version's migration scripts (the admin guide is not exactly clear about this step).

I don't know what your OS platform is but it is often easier to install the migration environments on a windows platform (a desktop or laptop is fine for migration since you won't actually start the app from here) and the fnal 5.5 environment on the target OS hardware. I would suggest that you run through the migration at least twice before the go live so you can resolve any errors (on the first run) and get accurate timings (on the second) so that you can properly schedule your activities for go-live.

Good Luck,
-Alan

[chrisplough]

Just a note, as we've been doing several OTM migrations to OTM v5.5 (from versions v5.0, v4.5 and v4.0):

I've had some issues with exporting from Oracle 9i and importing into Oracle 10g -- primarily around db objects that are invalid and never seem to get fixed. While this should work and I very much agree with Alan's post -- we've had to do the following:

- Upgrade from v4.5 to v5.0 on same database instance installed on Oracle 9i.
- Take a cold DB backup
- Upgrade from Oracle 9i to Oracle 10G version.
- Take a cold DB backup
- Upgrade to v5.5 by applying the dbupdate and dbmigrate scripts.
- Update to v5.5 CU3 (or CU2) by applying the dbupdate_55 script.
- Take a cold DB backup

I added the backups in - as we use these to give recovery points in case something goes wrong. Also note that I added in the dbpatch_55 script - as this is VERY important.

The largest issue you're likely to hit will be getting this all done within your migration window (usually a weekend). In this case, a super-fast DB server and performing pre-migration data purges helps tremendously.

Thanks,
--Chris

[sknmail@rediffmail.com]

Thanks very much to Alan and Chris for those valueable suggestion and advice.

- Suresh

[chrisplough]

You're welcome. Please keep us posted with your progress and any lessons learned.

--Chris

[nikesh mohanlal]

Hi All,
It would be great if anyone could provide any docs on how to migrate a screen from otm 5.0 to 0tm 5.5 and also any precautions to be taken before the migration work has to be done.Any useful docs or links is highly appreciated.
Regards,
Nikesh.

[chrisplough]

Nikesh,

This question may be best addressed as a new topic within the Forums, so that others become aware of it.

Thanks,
Chris