Cloning a PDB from Oracle 12.1 to Oracle 12.2

Is cloning a PDB from Oracle 12.1 to Oracle 12.2 possible?

A colleague raised this question recently. And a customer did ask me the same question a few days before at a user group conference. There are several ways to move a PDB from Oracle 12.1. to 12.2. But the documentation does not say explicitly if you can do a cloning operation between Oracle 12.1 and 12.2.

Please see also: Upgrade Testing – Online Clone a PDB to Oracle 19c

Cloning a PDB from Oracle 12.1 to Oracle 12.2

You can clone a non-CDB and make it a PDB but you need to run noncdb_to_pdb.sql afterwards. When I wrote this blog post, Oracle 12.2 was not available yet. Now, as it is available, I will clone a PDB between different Oracle versions.

You can redo the same steps by yourself with our Hands-On Lab environment if you have no Multitenant environment to play with.

Clone a PDB from Oracle 12.1.0.2 (CDB1) to Oracle 12.2.0.1 (CDB2)

Requirements and Prerequisites

Please see the description in the documentation:
https://docs.oracle.com/database/122/ADMIN/creating-and-removing-pdbs-with-sql-plus.htm#ADMIN13593

The important topic to mention is whether the source CDB has local undo on or not. When cloning from an Oracle 12.1.0.2 database there’s no local undo – and therefore the source PDB has to remain in read-only mode during the entire operations.

Step by Step

At first, you must prepare the source PDB for the cloning.

Oracle 12.1.0.2 – CDB1

1. Login as SYS as SYSDBA to the CDB$ROOT container

   sqlplus / as sysdba

2. Create a test PDB first, then open it:

   create pluggable database pdb1
   admin user adm identified by adm
   file_name_convert=('/u02/oradata/CDB1/pdbseed', '/u02/oradata/CDB1/pdb1');
   alter pluggable database PDB1 open;

3. Switch into the new PDB and prepare a cloning user.
   Afterwards the PDB has to be set into read-only mode due to the non-existence of local undo in Oracle 12.1.0.2.:

   alter session set container=PDB1;
   create user hugo identified by hugo;
   
   grant create session, create pluggable database to hugo;
   
   alter pluggable database PDB1 close;
   
   alter pluggable database pdb1 open read only;

Oracle 12.2.0.1 – CDB2

1. Make sure you’ll have TNS setup correctly so PDB1 is visible and reachable. Then create a database link from the destination CDB into the source PDB1 and initiate the cloning operation.

   create database link sourcedblink
   connect to hugo identified by hugo using 'PDB1';
   
   create pluggable database CDB2_PDB1 from pdb1@sourcedblink
   file_name_convert=('/u02/oradata/CDB1/pdb1', '/u02/oradata/CDB2/pdb1');
   
   alter pluggable database CDB2_PDB1 open;

2. At this point you’ll see that the PDB1 will open but signal the following error:
   Warning: PDB altered with errors.
   Query PDB_PLUG_IN_VIOLATIONS to learn more about the error:

   column name format a9
   column cause format a20
   column message format a50
   column action format a36
   set line 200
   set pages 1000
   
   select name, cause, message, action from PDB_PLUG_IN_VIOLATIONS
    where status<>'RESOLVED' and CON_ID=3
    order by time;

   This will result in the following output:

   NAME       CAUSE               MESSAGE                                            ACTION
   ---------- ------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------
   CDB2_PDB1  VSN not match       PDB's version does not match CDB's version: PDB's  Either upgrade the PDB or reload the
                                  version 12.1.0.2.0. CDB's version 12.2.0.1.0.      components in the PDB.

3. You need to upgrade the CDB2_PDB1 now. In case you haven’t run preupgrade.jar before cloning the PDB you should now switch PDB1 in CDB1 into read-write mode again and execute preupgrade.jar within the source environment against it:

   java -jar $OH12/rdbms/admin/preupgrade.jar -c "PDB1" TEXT TERMINAL

   Fix potential issues and execute the preupgrade_fixups.sql in the destination environment.
   Afterwards you can initiate the upgrade of the pluggable database.

   cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin
   $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl catctl.pl -c "CDB2_PDB1" -l /home/oracle catupgrd.sql

   Run the postupgrade_fixups.sql once the upgrade is completed.
   For further details on how to upgrade a PDB please see Upgrade PDBs – One at a time.
   And finally, I don’t know what the ACTION “… or reload the components in the PDB” means.

OMF – ORA-1276

In case you try out any of the examples in ASM, please be aware that you can’t use FILE_NAME_CONVERT but instead need to control the destination via the init.ora parameter DB_CREATE_FILE_DEST.

See MOS Note: 1912436.1 – ORA-01276 Errors Reported in PDB for additional advice.

Further Information and Links

• Upgrade Testing – Online Clone a PDB into Oracle 19c
• MOS Note: 1912436.1 – ORA-01276 Errors Reported in PDB

–Mike