upgrade standby to 10.2 from 9.2 (we use brarchive)

[Former Member]

All,

Oracle has a metalink note, and documentation about upgrading a standby database, as long as you use Data Guard.

Our standby database is maintained with BRARCHIVE - and I can not find any guidance from SAP on upgrading the standby, if you use BRARCHIVE.

Here is what I will attempt, if I do not get any guidance:

- sync the secondary and primary

- stop shipping logs

- upgrade the primary

- bring up the standby w/ the 10.2 binaries

- apply all of the logs, which I believe will upgrade the data dictionary

Has anyone done this? We have a very large database, and rebuilding it from scratch would require a lot of work.

Thanks,

Sean

[Former Member]

I want to point out, that it is possible to upgrade to 10.2 from 9.2 while using BRARCHIVE. He is what I did - if you have any questions, please let me know.

Before you upgrade, make sure LOG_ARCHVE_DEST_1 is set, and not LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST. LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST is not suppored in 10.2 enterprise edition. I would save some pain later, and comment out LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST, and use LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST1='location=/oracle/SID/saparch/blahblah'

- Install and patch 10.2 binaries on standby (db can be up)

- Install and patch 10.2 binaries on primary (db can be up)

- Make sure the most recent archived redo log has been applied to the standby

- I would do a few archive log switches - just to be sure

- when you are ready to do the ugrade, shutdown the standby

- STOP the process that ships and applies logs to the standby

- Upgrade the primary

When the primary is upgrading - make sure you have not turned off ARCHIVE LOGGING - it is in an option in the DBUA. You will need about 1 gig in the archive destination for the upgrade.

- When the primary upgrade is done, do the following:

- upgrade BRTOOLS on the primary

- upgrade BRTOOLS on the standby

- change the dbenv scripts on the primary and standby

Here is where the magic happens

On the STANDBY - make sure your environment is set to the new 10.2 ORACLE_HOME. I would also change /etc/oratab.

With the 10.2 environment set, login to the standby as sysdba

- startup nomount

- alter database mount standby database

make sure STANDBY_FILE_MANAGEMENT is set to AUTO on the standby

You can now start BRARCHIVE - and let it apply logs to the standby.

When it finishes, you are upgraded.

You should change the standby init.ora or spfile to reflect any changes you made on the primary (for example, change compatible to 10.2.0).

I hope this helps.

[Former Member]

Great info,

thanks for sharing!

[Former Member]

I don't think this will work.

If I remember correctly, Oracle will temporarily switch to noarchivelog during the migration.

No logs to apply ...

[Former Member]

Joe - you have the option of switching to noarchivelog, but it is not necessary. I upgraded to 10g in dev, and left the database in archivelog mode, to see how much log activity would be generated. I believe approximately 1 gig of logs are generated during the upgrade from 9.2 to 10.2.