Oracle 10 upgrade - Primary & standby database

[Former Member]

Hi Expert,

I need some information on your project experience. We're currently planning a oracle 10 upgrade. Have a few question:

1. We're planning to upgrade the primary database first and a week later the standby database. Will the archive log which is sent from primary to standby database will still work? Will the recovery still work?

2. Is this the right patch to go 10.2.0.4? I'm currently on 4.7 ext 2

3. Will there be a performance issue known of oracle 10 running on 32-bit machine, since it has the limitation of the memory (3G). Do I need to set AWE option on windows?

Thanks in advance.

[stefan_koehler · Accepted solution]

Hello Eida,

> We're planning to upgrade the primary database first and a week later the standby database. Will the archive log which is sent from primary to standby database will still work?

No this is not supported and won't work with a physical standby database. Oracle gives you the possibility to perform a rolling upgrade with a logical standby database, but a logical database is not supported by SAP (Sapnote #105047 - Point 12).

> Is this the right patch to go 10.2.0.4?

Yes, the patchset 10.2.0.4 is the right one.

>Will there be a performance issue known of oracle 10 running on 32-bit machine, since it has the limitation of the memory (3G)

The question is .. do you need more then 3 GB of memory to run your database well. If it is a very small system, 3 GB should be sufficient.

Regards

Stefan

[Former Member]

Eida,

I actually posted my experience with doing a rolling upgrade of a PHYSICAL standby database.

It WILL work, and is fairly straight forward.

Everyone who states that it is not supported by SAP is correct, but if you follow the steps posted in Oracle metalink on how to do it - you'll be ok.

If you have any questions - please let me know. I did my upgrade on AIX, but I see no reason why it won't work in Windows.

Thanks,Sean

[stefan_koehler]

Hello Sean,

please let me go more in detail with some of your comments.

> I actually posted my experience with doing a rolling upgrade of a PHYSICAL standby database.

This statement is wrong. You can't do a rolling upgrade with a physical standby database. You have to convert the database to a logical standby database .. and then you can perform a rolling upgrade. But if you have done the conversion, it is not a physical anymore.

This is also described and mentioned in this white paper:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/maa_wp_10gr2_rollingupgradebestpractices.pd...

Data Guard SQL Apply (logical standby database) is required in order to perform a database rolling upgrade. You can also do a rolling upgrade when starting with a physical standby by temporarily converting the physical standby to a logical standby. If starting with 11g, see the Rolling Database Upgrades for Physical Standby Databases using Transient Logical Standby 11g paper for details on doing a rolling upgrade when starting with a physical standby. If starting with 10g, see MetaLink note 300479.1.

> It WILL work, and is fairly straight forward.

In this point you are almost correct, because of a standard SAP system is not using the unsupported data types, etc. (afaik)

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14239/data_support.htm

To be honest if a sap basis admin asks such a question, i would not recommend to perform an unsupported way, because i am in doubt about his dataguard know how.

Regards

Stefan

[Former Member]

Hi,

I will not recommand to Upgrade your database until its a major issue.

If there is no issue with current version do not go for Upgrade.

Its also not so important because your SAP version is also not upto date.

This upgradation is SAP recommandation only.

If you are really wana go for upgradation, be carefull after all prepation then only perform.

Regards,

Gokul Chandola.