upgrading to 8.1.7.2.1

[manjunathk]

Hi Friends,
I need to make a plan for upgrading to 8.1.7.2.1 from 8.1.6.0.0 for our production database. It is a parallel server environment and the o/s is Compaq Tru 64 5.oa.
I have gathered all the information required from metalink, but still, it is my first migration/upgradation job and so I would be grateful for suggestions regarding any hints and precautions to be taken(there is more than 2 terabytes of data in the database)
And what is the time required for the entire process of upgrading?
Thanks
manjunath

[julian]

I also run OPS and recently upgraded sucsessfully to 8.1.7.2.0 Shutdown all instances before you run the patch. Afterwards run catalog and catproc. It is all a simple task. The only small problem I had is that a couple of SYS packages did not compile. I ran again (as far as I remember) catrep and utlrp and they did compile after all.
About the time: 20' or so for the patch and 5' for catalog and catrep.

[sambavan]

Julian,

That was because you wouldn't have set _SYSTEM_TRIG_ENEBLED = FALSE

Sam

[julian]

I did have it set! It was only one package that did not get compiled (a replication related package). Then, in Metalink, I found out that I was not the only one with that package (or was it 2 packages) not being compiled :-)

[manjunathk]

Thanks, Julian and Sam.
I have one more question. Presently, 'compatible' is set to 8.1.0 in our prod system. After upgrading to 8.1.7.2.1, what should the compatible changed to?
Thanks again
manjunath

[julian]

In init.ora, set

compatible = 8.1.7.2.1

[mike73]

Julian,

Did you upgrage your database to 8.1.7.2.1 ??? Or only running the patchset ??? If you have 8.1.6.0.0 and like to upgrade to 8.1.7.2.1, I thought you have to install 8.1.7.2.1 to different Oracle home and migrate all of your databases to 8.1.7.2.1.0.0. I could be wrong, can you please give me the full instructions of how you upgrade your database successful ???

thanks in advance

[julian]

I did upgrade from 8.1.7.0.0 to 8.1.7.2.0, so I just ran the patch.

You are right about the different ORACLE_HOME.

[manjunathk]

Thanks Julian, for all the info.
About the compatible, if I set it to 8.1.7.2.1 and for some reason I want to comeback to 8.1.6 is it possible? Why exactly this parameter is set?
Manjunath

[julian]

It lets you use a new release and compatability with previous releases.

If you use the default setting you loose many of the features of the new release.