Oh … it’s just a few weeks left until Oracle Cloud World 2022 will start on Oct 17, 2022 in Las Vegas. If you have some final doubts whether you should go or not, let me tell you that it’s like Oracle Open World just under a different name. And in a different place. But with the same cool people and many great talks. Take the chance to meet the developers, their managers and the product managers behind the features you daily use – or miss. We’ll be there – and this is YOUR chance now to sign up for …
Continue reading...Database Upgrade
Welcome onboard at Oracle: Rodrigo Jorge
We are thrilled to announce that as of June 7, 2021 we have a new member in our Product Management team: Rodrigo Jorge joins our group as Product Manager for Database Cloud Migrations, Upgrade and Patching. Many of you may know Rodrigo already. He “was” an Oracle ACE Director until June 6, presented at many conferences and user group events – and he has an excellent technical blog. We are really excited to welcome Rodrigo at Oracle.

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Who is Rodrigo?

Virtual Classroom Episode 8: Upgrade Internals and so much more
This is your final chance to sign up within the next hours to our Virtual Classroom Episode 8: Upgrade Internals and so much more We will run this session on Wednesday Feb 10 at 10:00h CET tomorrow. And in case you don’t know yet what to do on a ice-cold winter Wednesday morning, this is what you should do.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Upgrades (But Were Afraid to Ask)
You see the agenda in the picture above. We will cover not only internals but also diagnosability, monitoring, troubleshooting, tipps, tricks, secrets, workarounds, gothas, dos and don’ts – …
Continue reading...Upgrade Seminars 2020 – Recap and Videos on-demand
Thank you for participating in our 4 Database Upgrade to Oracle 19c seminars in the past two weeks. There were over 800 questions during the seminars – and it was a good idea that we prerecorded them. This way, I could answer your questions as it was a more convenient time for me than for Roy. We enjoyed it a lot – and from the feedback I read, most of you enjoyed it, too. Now please read about Upgrade Seminars 2020 – Recap and Videos on-demand below.

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The Slides
I uploaded all 4 decks …
Continue reading...Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory
The title of this post sounds a bit weird: Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory. Just a few weeks ago, I posted about How long will my upgrade take … revisited. And Daniel adds a very useful piece to the upgrade speed topic. Read about his tests below.

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Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory
by Daniel Overby Hansen, Senior Principal Product Manager,
Oracle Database Upgrades and Cloud Migrations

Daniel Overby Hansen
Mike and I had a talk with a customer the other …
Continue reading...Oracle Database Upgrade – Quick Start Guide available
If you don’t deal with databases upgrades every day but just want to see a short and good overview about how to do a successful database upgrade, then this is for you. A few days ago we’ve made the Oracle Database Upgrade – Quick Start Guide available for download.

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Why a Quick Start Guide?
If database upgrades are your daily topic, you won’t need our quick start guide. But if you need a short overview about the right steps to approach an upgrade, this guide is for you. Thanks to my PM colleague, …
Continue reading...How long will my database upgrade take? Revisited …
I received this question twice within a few days. And I remember that a tiny little while ago I wrote something on the blog about it. But as this “while” is 11 years ago, I came to conclusion to refresh this topic – and write something about How long will my database upgrade take? Revisited …

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Is there a query?
At first, before I go into details, an important fact upfront: There is neither any query nor any tool giving you a rough estimate or precise figure of how long your upgrade will …
Continue reading...January 2020 AutoUpgrade is available for download
All of you upgrading your databases with AutoUpgrade or planning to do so can now download the newest version of our AutoUpgrade tool. We are offering the 20191220 version. If you ask yourself why we release the December version in January 2020, there’s a simple answer. We do extensive system testing with it before releasing it to the public.

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Download 20191220 AutoUpgrade
You can always download the newest and some previous versions of the AutoUpgrade tool via this note:
At the bottom of the …
Continue reading...The September 2019 AutoUpgrade – and the AutoUpgrade Video
My team mates work really hard. And I’m really proud on all of them. We try to fix upcoming issues or requirements with the new AutoUpgrade tool as quickly as possible and still maintain very high quality standards. And here it is, the September 2019 AutoUpgrade – and the AutoUpgrade video as a bonus in addition. Just in case you haven’t seen it in action and can’t join us at OOW 2019.
Download the September 2019 AutoUpgrade Tool
You can simply download the tool from MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool.
Watch the AutoUpgrade Video
I just uploaded …
Continue reading...AutoUpgrade: Where do you find all the logfiles?
In the previous blog posts you could read about how to create the configuration file, adjust it and tweak the init parameters for the AutoUpgrade tool. And then I described the different modes of it. In this blog post I’d like to give you some insights into AutoUpgrade: Where do you find all the logfiles?
AutoUpgrade – Step-by-step
- The new AutoUpgrade Utility – Download, documentation and supported versions
- Create and adjust the config file for AutoUpgrade
- Config file for AutoUpgrade – Advanced options
- Config file for AutoUpgrade – Tweaking init parameters
- AutoUpgrade: ANALYZE, FIXUPS, UPGRADE and DEPLOY modes
- AutoUpgrade:
DOAG Datenbank 2019: Roy Swonger will be there!
The last DOAG 2018 conference happened half a year ago – time flies! And if you are eagerly waiting for a lot of cool presentation by very experienced speakers, then visit DOAG Datenbank 2019: Roy will be there!
Upgrade Talks
Roy will deliver two talks. Be aware, the first one is currently not in the web agenda as it was on standby.
DBMS_JOB – Behavior Change in Oracle 19c during upgrade
Actually I missed to blog about this change but luckily a colleague did ask a question the other week about the migration of jobs when you upgrade to Oracle 19c. Let me shed some light on DBMS_JOB – Behavior Change in Oracle 19c.
DBMS_JOB vs DBMS_SCHEDULER
Back in the 10g days, we introduced a new interface to run and monitor jobs in the database: The scheduler. The scheduler with DBMS_SCHEDULER
is way more powerful than the old job interface. And we use it internally a lot as well. But as things appear in the real world. the introduction …
Post-Conference Blues – or 5 days after POUG2018
Have you ever had a post-conference blues? This is the mood which makes you feel like sitting in a dark cage surrounded just by nothing as silence. And I’m still in post-conference blues – or 5 days after POUG2018.
Worst post-conference blues ever?
Actually my worst post-conference blues wasn’t after POUG2018. It was after OOW15 where I had so many talks, hands-on labs, booth duty hours, customer meetings for breakfast, customer meetings for lunch, customer meetings for dinner, customer meetings for drinks after dinner, user group invitations, company event invitations … on Thursday afternoon I was sitting on …
Continue reading...Multiple Hops – Which should be the intermediate release?
This is a topic which doesn’t come up very often. But if it does come up from time to time, and the documentation may give you advice – but as I realized – it does not always give the best advice. When you have to do multiple hops – which should be your intermediate release?
I posted something about this topic a while back:
What are Multiple Hops?
We speak of multiple hops in relation to database upgrades when your source release does not allow you to upgrade directly …
Continue reading...Minimum Supported Version for Database Upgrades
This question comes up very often: What is the minimum supported version for database upgrades? Or a question I received today: “I have an Oracle 10.2.0.4 database, can I upgrade directly to Oracle 11.2.0.4?”
Usually I have to dig into my old slides from the past to give a definite answer. And of course, the Database Upgrade Guide of each version has the same information somewhere as well. Therefore I’d like to summarize the releases supported for direct database upgrades since Oracle 11.2.0.4 below.
Upgrade?
When I speak about database upgrades, I mean you’ll use either the command line …
Continue reading...Hands-On Lab available: Upgrade to Oracle Database 12.2.0.1
Thanks to Roy – our Hands-On Lab “Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate to Oracle Database 12.2” is now available for download from OTN.
- Download Hands-On Lab “Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate to Oracle Database 12.2”
- Download the Hands-On Lab Instructions as PDF
Instructions and technical requirements are clearly documented on the OTN page as well. The lab is based on Virtual Box and can be easily imported upon download and unzip.
You can always access the lab via the blog’s top menu as well:

Hands-On Lab – Access via the Blog
Inside the lab you’ll find :
- UPGR – an Oracle 11.2.0.4