Port of oracle software to a new server

[joe clark]

We are standing up a new server and plan to
copy over all the non-OS files/filesystems (everything except vg00). This would include the oracle software that had been compiled on another server. Does anyone know if there are any gotcha's with taking this software that was loaded and compiled on a previous server, to another server using the same HP-UX OS.
Thanks,
Joe

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Joe,

It should be the same level including patches of HP-UX.

You must relink oracle after the copy.

SEP

[Richard Hepworth]

Hi Joe,

You need to take into account any files that are put in your /dev/vg00 filesystems during the initial installation of your software and any possible changes to files such as /etc/services.

[DCE]

This can work. I have done it successfully at multiple DR tests.

The most common way is by using ignite, but I have also restored oracle to a DR server with the OS already on it (for time comparision - Ignite was faster, and the oracle ran fine

[TwoProc]

Joe, this is very do-able ( I do it pretty often).
The easiest way:
A) Put everything back where it was (same path for everything).
B) Leave instance name the same.
C) Relink your ORACLE_HOME
D) Relink your app(s) that use the ORACLE_HOME.
E) Find your "oraInventory" directory (usually a sibling to the ORACLE_HOME itself. IFF your machine names (source and destination) are of the same length, you can just run "rpl" in this directory to replace the source machines name with the destination. Ditto if you change the database instance name, ORACLE_SID, mount point of the ORACLE_HOME, or the path. You can find the tool at any of the porting archives. If you make these changes, they must be the *SAME* string length. Ex: old machine "bob" new machine "sue", old SID "CMB1" new SID "DGD2", etc. By doing this step you can patch the ORACLE_HOME. If you'll never need to patch this copy, then you don't need to worrry about this step.

F) Make sure to drag along (and edit as necessary) the /opt/oracle/oraInst.loc file, as well as your /etc/oratab file.

G) Fix up your environment variables (ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID) to match your new environment.

H) Fix up your $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/listener.ora and tnsnames.ora files to reflect your new machine name, new ORACLE_SID (if changed),new database name (if changed) and new port numbers (if changed).

[Ben Dehner]

One important thing, both servers must be the same architecture, either PA-RISC or Itanium. Even if they are both the same HPUX revision, Oracle has a different build for the different platforms. In this case you will need to re-install on the new server. You can still copy the pfile/spfile from the original server.

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi Joe,

Make sure you also move your Inventory files which are not always found in the same path as your Oracle Installation.

There are also startup files and files in /var/opt/oracle that need to be moved too!

good luck!
kind regards
yogeeraj