AboutElliot Mak Expertise I can answer questions with regarding to Oracle DB (8i, 9i, 10g) installation, configuration, administration, Data Guard, SQL, and PL/SQL (Procedures, triggers, functions).
Experience I am an Oracle DBA, Senior PA, Project Manager, and Data Architect with 10 years of experience.
The software 'AAA' use the Oracle 9i as the database. Now we would like to use the Oracle 11g instead of Oracle 9i as the database. Could you help to analyze the risk, and which parts of the software should be test?
Thanks!
Huang Ning
Answer Good morning Ning,
I will assume that you are upgrading your Oracle 9i database to Oracle 11g database.
Here are the high level of items you need to pay attention to
1. Connectivity - Make sure that your application is still be able to connect
2. Software support from software vendor "AAA" - If "AAA" is a software vendor and it is not an in-house application, make sure that Oracle 11g is supported by the vendor, otherwise if you run into any application issue, you may have to fix is yourself
3. Performance - Between 9i and 11g, there's some changes to the optimizer, these changes may have performance impact to your application
4. Communication - Depending on the size of your database, there is nevertheless some downtime. Make sure that all your users are aware of it, and the business owner approved those downtime
5. Backout plan - In the event of a failed upgrade in Production, make sure that you have a backout plan, for example, how to restore the database and the binaries
6. Certify platform - Your Oracle 9i OS platform may not be certify with Oracle 11g.
7. Hardware - # of CPU, Memory, and storage need to be examined
All the above items will translate to risk as you start looking into it.
When you do a database upgrade, it is based to ensure all the existing functionality performs the same way. Therefore, all parts of the software that touches the database needs to be tested.
It is best for you to have a baseline testing result(functionality and performance timing) in 9i. Once the upgrade is completed, perform the same test again and compare the results.
You should consider to create a project plan as well.
