Platform migration is the process of moving a database from one operating system platform to a different operating system platform. You might wish to migrate your E-Business Suite database to create testing instances, experiment with new architectures, perform benchmarks, or prepare for actual platform changes in your production environment. Database migration across platforms of the same “endian” format (byte ordering) using the Transportable Database (TDB) process is now certified with Oracle Database 11gR2 (11.2.0.1) for:
- Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 11i (11.5.10.2)
- Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.0.4 or higher
- Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 or higher
This EBS database migration process was previously certified only for
10gR2 and
11gR1.
Comparing Export/Import to Transportable Database The supported way to accomplish this in prior releases of the Oracle database has been to export the data from the database on the old platform, create a new database on the new platform, and import the data into the new database. This process could take a number of days for a large database. Transportable Database can be used to reduce the amount of time required to migrate a database between platforms that share the same “endian” format. Note that if the endian format is different between the source and target platforms, then Transportable Database cannot be used. For generic databases, a different method, such as Streams, Data Pump, or Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespaces must be used instead. For E-Business Suite databases, only the Export/Import option is a viable fallback if the Transportable Database feature can’t be used for your source and target platforms. The reductions in migration times can be significant. For example, a test database within the Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) High Availability Lab was migrated to a new platform using Data Pump export and import in 74 minutes. The same database was migrated using Transportable Database in 37 minutes, a 50% reduction in migration time.
What platforms are support for Transportable Databases? Suitable target platforms can be verified by querying the view V$DB_TRANSPORTABLE_PLATFORM using sqlplus (connected as sysdba) on the source platform:
SQL> select platform_name from v$db_transportable_platform;
If the intended target platform appears in the output, Transportable Database can then be used to migrate the database to this target. Otherwise, an alternative such as export/import should be used instead.
Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespaces (XTTS) not certified yet Please note that an alternative database technology known as Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespaces (XTTS) to migrate data between platforms of different endian formats is
not yet certified with Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle’s Revenue Recognition rules prohibit us from discussing certification and release dates, but you’re welcome to monitor or subscribe to this blog for updates, which I’ll post as soon as soon as they’re available.
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