Upgrading from HPUX 10.20 to 11.00 while running Oracle 7.3.4

[Michael Francisco]

We have a production K260 running Oracle 7.3.4 on HPUX 10.20. Our application requires us to upgrade to both HPUX 11.00 and Oracle 8.0.6. I don't like to make more then one major production modification at a time, so I would like to upgrade the HPUX to 11.00 first then upgrade the Oracle to 8.0.6 a week later.

My questions are:

1) will upgrading to 11.00 be painless...or will I have problems running the Oracle 7.3.4 as is?

2) will the upgrade force me to reinstall Oracle 7.3.4?

3) is the K260 capable of running in 64bit mode?

4) will this upgrade cost me a lot in terms of memory (Everything is running well now; we will replace the K260 with an N class sometime next year, so I would rather not purchase memory if it isn't necessary)?

5) am I being too paranoid in not wanting to upgrade both the HPUX and Oracle at the sametime?

Thanks in advance for your input.
Michael

[Rick Garland]

There have been dividing opinions as to the upgrade path from 10.20 to 11.00.
There are previous posts concerning this issue and others related to it. Can do a search in thge forums using "UPGRADE" as the keyword.

For me, the upgrade has not gone well. For others, it has.

K class systems can be 64 bit able if you have the appropriate firmware. Can check your firmware version via stm. If not, need an HP tech to upgrade the firmware.

[Vince Inman · Accepted solution]

Am in the process of doing this right now. You will have to get the 11.x specific media from Oracle and reinstall 7.3.4.

1. 7.3.4 should run on 11.0 without
problems.

2. Yes you will have to re-install.

3. K260 do run in 64-bit mode.

4. 32-bit apps can only use 1.87 Gb of memory anyway so you probably don't need more memory under 7.3.4. V8 is a different animal.

5. No you are not being paranoid. Cutting over from 11.0 with Oracle is dependent upon Oracle more so than HP-UX. As well, if you are using Oracle Apps, web server, etc., this can be a less than optimal experience.

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Im not sure if you will not have to install again oracle because I have 2 cds one saying 7.3.3 for HPUX and one saying 7.3.4 for HP-UX 11.0 32 bits...
In which case I would go through a new install of the OS and then oracle 8.0.X
and everything would be clean (I always had trouble with the upgrade, not HPs fault, more the users who havent said all, like putting the paths in hard in the programs the same as different other structures...)

[John Palmer]

Some answers:-

1. It depends, opinions differ on the matter. Many recommend doing a clean install of 11.00 and this is what I have done.

2. Yes you need the 11.00 version of 7.3.4. The 10.20 version will not run on 11.00 but the databases do not need to be changed or upgraded.

3. Yes the K260 has a PA8000 chip but unless you have shed loads of memory there is no point. Stick to HP-UX 11.00 32bit.

4. Not so as you will really notice.

5. No I think this is a sensible strategy unless you have plenty of time in your maintenance slot to do the install/upgrades and sufficient testing.

If you have a spare disk (or can remove the root mirror) then I would recommend setting the system up for dual-boot i.e. having the ability to boot 10.20 and 11.00 from different disks. This will give you a much simpler reversion path if things go wrong.

Hope these answers are of some assistance.

Regards,
John

[Rhonda Thorne]

I have to disagree with Vince, 7.3.5 is certified to run on 11.00. we are planning the move to 11.00 and 7.3.5 or oracle 8 on V class soon

[John Palmer]

Michael,

Another option is to upgrade Oracle to 8.0.6 first. This runs on both 10.20 and 11.00, without any software changes.

[R. Allan Hicks]

I'm running 8.1.6 on a V180. I have had very few problems with HP-UX in the process. The server gave me some problems, and the tools under HP-UX have been giving me major headaches.

A few things that I've learned are:

1. Read the installation instructions _very_ carefully and make sure that HP-UX has the correct patches installed.

2. Migration from 7 to 8 is not hard, but if you use the export/import method, be sure to create an 8 database before you import. My first attempt was to do a full export on 7 and import on 8. The result appeared to work, but would not properly install the replication packages. If you go ahead and create your control files and rollback segments, you can do the import w/o problems.

3. If you use Oracle Forms under HP-UX, I missed the line in the installation manual that said you cannot install them in the same Oracle Home as the server. If you do, you will mess up the libraries.

4. HP-UX Oracle Forms(6.0) requires patch set 7 to run. NT forms (6.0) ran fine.

5. SQL*plus, Oracle Forms prior to patch set 7 and the Legato media manager were missing shared libraries and/or pointed to the wrong libraries. (That was in the November version of code. It may be fixed now).

6. I have an open TAR with Oracle on RMAN. If I do a full database backup, the backup will hang, and the server will eventually report a seemingly unrelated problem. If I stop and re-start the server, the instance does not start properly and when I re-boot, fsck complains and repairs the files system. It works fine for tablespace backups. I'm not sure how this will come out, I'm suspecting a problem with either Legato or VFS.

All in all the server, O/S and PC based tools appear solid. It's just the HP-UX tools that have given me problems. So, if you read the manuals (at least better than I did), you shouldn't have any problems.

-Good Luck
Allan Hicks

[Wodisch_1]

Hi,
I do remember problems with the "tnslsnr"
of Oracle7.3.4/HP-UX10.20 under HP-UX11.00
It ist not supported (by Oracle), and it
did not work (local access was ok). So, get
the HP-UX 11.00 release of Oracle7.3.4 and
the current patches (>=7.3.4.5.x at least).
HTH,
Wodisch