Database migration across platforms of different “endian” (byte ordering) formats using the Transportable Tablespaces (TTS) process is now certified for Oracle E-Business Suite Release R12 (12.0.6, 12.1.3) with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0). Migration between different platforms of the same “endian” format with 12c can be accomplished using export/import (datapump) utilities.  This certification requires that the source database be 11gR2 (11.2.0.3 or higher) and the target database be 12cR1 (12.1.0.1 or higher).  

This migration process requires a patch delivered by our EBS Platform Engineering team that is ‘Controlled’, i.e. it requires a password obtainable through Oracle Support. We released the required patch in this manner to monitor customer issues and to gauge uptake. The “endian-ness” of platforms can be checked by querying the view V$TRANSPORTABLE_PLATFORM using sqlplus (connected as sysdba):

SQL> select platform_name, endian_format from v$transportable_platform;

Here’s a list of relevant platforms certified for the EBS R12 with 12cR1 on the database tier:

Big Endian Platforms Little Endian Platforms
Oracle Solaris on SPARC Linux x86-64
HP-UX Itanium Oracle Solaris on x86-64
IBM AIX on POWER Systems MS Windows x64

The use of Transportable Tablespaces can greatly speed up the migration of the data portion of the database – it does not affect metadata which must still be migrated using export/import. We recommend that users initially perform a test migration with export/import on their database with the ‘metrics=y’ parameter to find out the relative size of data vs metadata in their database and to have a basis to compare any gains in timing. Generally speaking, the larger the relative size of data (as compared to metadata), the more likely it would be that TTS is suitable as a migration process to reduce downtime.

Pending Certifications

Testing with 12cR1 as the source is still pending.

Full transportable export/import, a new feature in 12c to move an entire database, is not certified for use with E-Business Suite databases yet. 

Transportable Database (TDB), a migration process for platforms of the same “endian” format, is also a pending 12cR1 certification exercise.   

References

 

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