Can you simply switch from SE2 to EE with Oracle Multitenant

Oracle MultitenantThis question is coming up from time to time – and currently not covered in the official Oracle documentation as far as I know: “Can you simply switch from SE2 to EE with Oracle Multitenant?”

Yes, you can!

First of all, the switch is possible and tested. But you’ll have to satisfy a few requirements:

  • Both database versions must be the same
  • Both databases must have the same character set (in Oracle Database 12.1)

That’s it. Simply unplug your Standard Edition 2 PDB and plug it into your Enterprise Edition CDB.

In addition you may have to run several component scripts in your PDB to have functionality there which is provided by the CDB already in Oracle Enterprise Edition.

Does unplug from EE and plugin into SE2 work as well?

Yes, it does. But now you’ll have to make sure that the (receiving) CDB you are plugging into does not have any options which are not present in SE2 generally. See MOS Note: 2001512.1 – Creating A Container Database (CDB) With A Subset Of Options for further details. And this makes it (quite) a bit harder. So technically the path “EE => SE2” is working fine when you’ll have the same database versions and in Oracle 12.1 the same character sets.

The devil is in the detail:
If your EE PDB has now more options than the target’s CDB (which has to have no options being present in SE2) you’ll have to remove them. And this is not trivial (please see the “REMOVE AND CLEANUP” series on this blog covering Oracle Multitenant as well). Therefore I’d highly recommend the traditional (and supported) approach of using Data Pump to export and import your data.

–Mike

Share this: