Hi all,

I know it sounds weird but a customer wishes that I install 8.1.7.4
again in a different directory of a Solaris 7 machine, both the binaries
and the data. He thinks that something went wrong when I upgraded from
8.1.7.0 to 8.1.7.4.

Where are the pitfalls?

- Do I need a 2nd oratab and do I have to change that in the dbstart
procedure? I don't want the 2nd Oracle to change the 1st Oracle's data.

- Should I use another OS userid for the 2nd Oracle? That would add some
extra security, so the 2nd Oracle could not get write access to the
1st Oracle's datafiles.

- Should I use a 2nd listener?

- Other hints or pointers to docs?

Hi,

from what I know you can not run two Oracle dbs with the same SID on the
same machine, since there is only one oratab for one machine and there
cannot be the same SID twice in there.

If there is a possibility to do it, I would also be interested to know.

Roman

On 29 Jan 2004 13:51:32 GMT, Holger Marzen <holger@marzen.de> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I know it sounds weird but a customer wishes that I install 8.1.7.4
>again in a different directory of a Solaris 7 machine, both the binaries
>and the data. He thinks that something went wrong when I upgraded from
>8.1.7.0 to 8.1.7.4.
>
>Where are the pitfalls?
>
>- Do I need a 2nd oratab and do I have to change that in the dbstart
> procedure? I don't want the 2nd Oracle to change the 1st Oracle's data.
>
>- Should I use another OS userid for the 2nd Oracle? That would add some
> extra security, so the 2nd Oracle could not get write access to the
> 1st Oracle's datafiles.
>
>- Should I use a 2nd listener?
>
>- Other hints or pointers to docs?

It is completely daft and a recipe for trouble.
You can't have a second oratab, you'll need to change the sid of the
database (and the database name), which is by the way quite easy

check out 'create controlfile set database '<database name>' in your
documentation, there is also a note on Metalink which describes the
procedure in detail.


--
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:20:53 +0100, Roman Klesel <rupa@firemail.de>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>from what I know you can not run two Oracle dbs with the same SID on the
>same machine, since there is only one oratab for one machine and there
>cannot be the same SID twice in there.
>
>If there is a possibility to do it, I would also be interested to know.
>
>Roman

If there is a possibility, it is accomplished by hacking and it won't
be supported by Oracle.
The idea to install identical sw multiple times on the same server is
completely daft.


--
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

* On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:41:54 +0100, Sybrand Bakker wrote:

> On 29 Jan 2004 13:51:32 GMT, Holger Marzen <holger@marzen.de> wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I know it sounds weird but a customer wishes that I install 8.1.7.4
>>again in a different directory of a Solaris 7 machine, both the binaries
>>and the data. He thinks that something went wrong when I upgraded from
>>8.1.7.0 to 8.1.7.4.
>>
>>Where are the pitfalls?
>>
>>- Do I need a 2nd oratab and do I have to change that in the dbstart
>> procedure? I don't want the 2nd Oracle to change the 1st Oracle's data.
>>
>>- Should I use another OS userid for the 2nd Oracle? That would add some
>> extra security, so the 2nd Oracle could not get write access to the
>> 1st Oracle's datafiles.
>>
>>- Should I use a 2nd listener?
>>
>>- Other hints or pointers to docs?
>
> It is completely daft and a recipe for trouble.

I know. But the customer's developers insists in that.

> You can't have a second oratab, you'll need to change the sid of the
> database (and the database name), which is by the way quite easy

That's no problem. The new instance may have another name. It seems that
I need more information about how oratab is processed. So maybe the
"old" dbstart starts the new binaries if the ORACLE_HOME part in
oratab's lines is different.

Any suggested readings.

> check out 'create controlfile set database '<database name>' in your
> documentation, there is also a note on Metalink which describes the
> procedure in detail.

Thanks for that.

Comments in-line.

Holger Marzen wrote:

>>It is completely daft and a recipe for trouble.
>
>
> I know. But the customer's developers insists in that.

That doesn't mean you have to do it. Give the customer a letter to sign
stating that you have advised them against it and that they accept full
responsibility for any finanical or business losses caused by "their"
decision.

People often decide they don't want something so badly when forced to
accept responsibility for it.

> Any suggested readings.

A book on how to say "No" without creating enemies. ;-)

--
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/e...ad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/e...oa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

On 30 Jan 2004 09:29:52 GMT, Holger Marzen <holger@marzen.de> wrote:

>Any suggested readings.

Just open the Solaris specific installation documentation for the
first time and read about OFA and oratab


--
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

* On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:34:56 -0800, Daniel Morgan wrote:

> Comments in-line.
>
> Holger Marzen wrote:
>
>>>It is completely daft and a recipe for trouble.
>>
>>
>> I know. But the customer's developers insists in that.
>
> That doesn't mean you have to do it. Give the customer a letter to sign
> stating that you have advised them against it and that they accept full
> responsibility for any finanical or business losses caused by "their"
> decision.

But sooner or later we have to upgrade to Oracle 9 or later. Support for
Oracle 8 will stop 12/2004. Then we have a similar setup if they want to
run both versions. Or do you see a big difference between running 2 sets
of the same version and Oracle 8 and 9 on the same machine?

* On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:29:47 +0100, Sybrand Bakker wrote:

> On 30 Jan 2004 09:29:52 GMT, Holger Marzen <holger@marzen.de> wrote:
>
>>Any suggested readings.
>
> Just open the Solaris specific installation documentation for the
> first time and read about OFA and oratab

Analyzing the dbstart shell script helped, too.

On 31 Jan 2004 09:00:56 GMT, Holger Marzen <holger@marzen.de> wrote:

> Or do you see a big difference between running 2 sets
>of the same version and Oracle 8 and 9 on the same machine?

Of course.
The latter is upgrading to a major release.
The former is just plain daft as 'something went wrong' is
unspecified, and the customer probably doesn't even have anything else
than vague suspicions.
Other than that, I know running two copies of the same version of
Oracle is just a plain PITA, one customer is forcing us to do that.
The server is such a plain utter mess (it has 8.1.6 installed three
times, and 8.0.6 installed three times), that the only sensible thing
to do is to scratch it, and install everything all over again, make
sure you don't end this time with thousands of scripts with hardcoded
Oracle_homes in it. (I'm definitely NOT joking)
We wouldn't have done it this way, but this drama is enforced upon us
by having three different installations of Oracle Financials on one
server.


--
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA