MCSG Server Migration / Upgrade - Looking for some gotchas!

[Christopher Hildrum_1]

All -

We currently are running a 2 node cluster:
N4000s
HP-UX 11.00
MCSG A.11.13
Oracle 9.2.0.3

We will be upgrading to latest SG while splitting the existing packages onto two new clusters:
2xRP2470
2xRP5450
HP-UX 11.11
Oracle 9.2.0.3
MCSG A.11.??

My questions are as follows:
1) Do in need to upgrade HP-UX to 11.11 on the existing cluster to migrate the packages to the new nodes?
2) Is there some Oracle upgrade that you may be aware of that needs to be done?
3) Any other things I may need to do (other than the basics - lock disk, etc.) so I don't get caught?

We are trying to do this with as little downtime as possible. I see some info on what things to watch, not on these questions though. But before we move ahead, I could use any information from those of you that may have done this before.

Any ideas would be great !

Thanks ahead of time !
Chris

[Karthik S S]

You said that you are running two packages. One is Oracle 9.2.0.3 and what is the other package that will be run on the second cluster?.

You need not upgrade the existing cluster. Because, package files will not contain any reference to the OS version that you are running. Are you planning to retain the hostnames with the new clusters?? If will be required to edit package and init.ora files.

-Karthik S S

[Geoff Wild]

You don't need to upgrade the current cluster prior to moving...

If you are migrating Oracle db's to the 11i cluster, then you will have to re-link the oracle binaries.

What I did last year was, add the new servers to the existing cluster....instead of creating new - that allowed me to test packages between the nodes. I would upgrade the old cluster first to atleast MC/SG 11.14.

Rgds...Geoff

[Christopher Hildrum_1]

The whole cluster (containing about 8 packages run only Oracle and all will be Oracle 9.2.0.3) will be split with new hostnames,IPs, etc - we will move them to the new servers, make sure they work, then change the cluster specifics.

[Christopher Hildrum_1]

Geoff -

So what you are saying is we should upgrade MCSG but now worry about the OS? What about the Oracle side - the Oracle binaries will not failover, they remain on each server - will the 11.00 to 11.11 Oracle application recognize the database on failover (after all configurations are done )?

[Geoff Wild · Accepted solution]

Chris,

Yes, don't worry about the OS upgrades - unless you want those servers to remain in the cluster...

As far as Oracle goes - No - you will have to failover the package - without starting Oracle, then have your DBA's re-link the Oracle Binaries - against the db. Check that with your dba's - the ones here may have just been playing safe - and wanted to re-link. Our Oracle Binaries are on shared disks.

I have some non-oracle packages - and I migrated those to the new servers first. I configured the packages to only failover between the 2 new nodes. After everything was migrated, I removed the old nodes from the cluster...You can always create a "test" package and use that for testing migration to the new servers...

Rgds...Geoff