Oracle Database 11g: Get There With Less Effort, Less Risk, Less Infrastructure, and More Reliability Alan Levine Oracle Enterprise Architect, Oracle Consulting

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Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Summary

How Do Customers Get to Oracle Database 11g? New Oracle Database deployment Existing Oracle Database version upgrade such as to (same platform) Platform Migration – UNIX to Linux – Hardware refresh (same operating system) Combined version upgrade and platform migration Migration to Oracle Database 11g from a non-Oracle database

Common Goals for Database Upgrades, Migrations, and New Deployments Reduced Effort Lower Risk Less Infrastructure Greater Reliability

Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Infrastructure Optimization Summary

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Business Requirements Technical Requirements Prepare Alternatives Prepare Test Plans Business Requirements Technical Requirements Prepare Alternatives Prepare Test Plans Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Develop Upgrade Approach Validate Upgrade Approach Perfect Upgrade Approach Rollback Testing Develop Upgrade Approach Validate Upgrade Approach Perfect Upgrade Approach Rollback Testing Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Functional Testing Performance Testing Integration Testing Acceptance Testing Functional Testing Performance Testing Integration Testing Acceptance Testing Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Refresh Environments Re-Run Upgrade Refresh Environments Re-Run Upgrade Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Upgrade (Rollback) Upgrade (Rollback) Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Monitor Troubleshoot (Rollback) Monitor Troubleshoot (Rollback) Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Database Upgrade Lifecycle Monitor Troubleshoot Monitor Troubleshoot Pre Upgrade Upgrade Post Upgrade Upgrade Planning Upgrade Testing Dry Run Production Migration Break - Fix Normal Operations 11g Testing

Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Infrastructure Optimization Summary

Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Planning Strategies Business Requirements – Understand SLA’s – Determine available migration windows – Identify high risk business functions Technical Requirements – Availability of swing servers and storage – Certification of components for target platform – Availability of test environments, tools, and scripts

Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Planning Strategies (cont.) Prepare Alternatives – Develop strategies that meet business needs balanced by availability of supporting infrastructure – Include rollback planning – Validate key technical assumptions – Select go-forward approach Prepare 11g Test Plans – Develop in advance to avoid oversights Lower Risk Understand requirements Reduced Effort Avoid complexity Greater Reliability Testing as part of the process, not an afterthought Robust rollback strategy Lower Risk Understand requirements Reduced Effort Avoid complexity Greater Reliability Testing as part of the process, not an afterthought Robust rollback strategy

Selecting a Rollback Strategy Restore from backups Clone production, upgrade clone, use original production database for rollback Clone production, upgrade production, use clone for rollback Export/import to populate a new Oracle 11g database – Original source database can be used for rollback – Replication can be used to extend the rollback window beyond the production 11g cutover Data Guard – Upgrade primary, leave standby untouched until go-live; or, – Deploy 2 nd standby for rollback purposes, upgrade both primary and standby to avoid compromise of RTO / RPO during upgrade

Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Testing Strategies Develop Upgrade Approach (Upgrade Trial 1) – Perform full upgrade with documentation of all steps including timing Validate Upgrade Approach (Upgrade Trial 2) – Execute upgrade per the documented plan and update timing of all steps – Any deviations from the documented plan require an additional iteration – Significant time deviations between Trial 1 and Trial 2 require further investigation

Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Testing Strategies (cont.) Perfect Upgrade Approach (Upgrade Trials 3..n) – Execute upgrade per the documented plan – Validate timing of all steps – No deviations from the plan Rollback Testing – Test the rollback strategy at multiple points in time during the upgrade process Lower Risk Test your rollback strategy Greater Reliability Perform multiple iterations until the process is repeatable Lower Risk Test your rollback strategy Greater Reliability Perform multiple iterations until the process is repeatable

Pre Upgrade Phase Oracle Database 11g Testing Strategies Functional Testing – Leverage automated tools for a repeatable process – Insure complete coverage of all critical business functions and adequate coverage of lower priority modules Performance Testing – Test production sized workloads – Try and find the breaking points – Test real-world combinations of competing workloads – Deploy Oracle Real Application Testing (RAT) Test with true production workloads using Database Capture and Database Replay Leverage SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) performance regression testing

Oracle Real Application Testing Database Replay Replay actual production database workload in test environment Identify, analyze and fix potential instabilities before making changes to production Capture Workload in Production – Capture full production workload with real load, timing & concurrency characteristics – Move the captured workload to test system Replay Workload in Test – Make the desired changes in test system – Replay workload with full production characteristics – Honor commit ordering Analyze & Report – Errors – Data divergence – Performance divergence SQL Performance Analyzer Enables identification of SQL performance regressions before end-users can be impacted SPA can help with any change that impacts SQL execution plan – DB upgrades – Optimizer statistics refresh – New indexes, Materialized Views, Partitions, etc. Automates SQL performance tracking of hundreds of thousands of SQL statements – impossible to do manually Captures SQL workload with low overhead Integrated with SQL Tuning Advisor and SQL Plan Baselines for regression remediation

Pre Upgrade Phase Oracle Database 11g Testing Strategies (cont.) Integration Testing – Validate all upstream and downstream feeds – Batch jobs and utility scripts – Backup and recovery procedures – Data Guard Switchover and Failover User Acceptance Testing – Deploy the Grid Control Service Level Management Pack to run synthetic transactions and provide an objective view of user workloads – Deploy Oracle Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) for non-intrusive views into actual user performance Lower Risk Let testing results drive the go-live date, not vice-versa Reduced Effort Leverage DB Replay and SPA to automate testing efforts Less Infrastructure RAT can reduce database testing infrastructure needs without compromising testing coverage Greater Reliability Robust “real world” testing scenarios for a more reliable post-upgrade experience Lower Risk Let testing results drive the go-live date, not vice-versa Reduced Effort Leverage DB Replay and SPA to automate testing efforts Less Infrastructure RAT can reduce database testing infrastructure needs without compromising testing coverage Greater Reliability Robust “real world” testing scenarios for a more reliable post-upgrade experience

Pre Upgrade Mistakes to Avoid “We will achieve our go-live date no matter what!” “We upgraded four similar databases so we only needed to performance test one of them.” “We ran out of time for performance testing but we should have enough hardware capacity to mitigate the risk in production.” “We don’t have time for code remediation. We’ll add BIND VARIABLES later, after we are on 11g.” “We did all our development and testing on 10g but it should be OK to go-live on 11g.”

Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Infrastructure Optimization Summary

Upgrade Phase Dry Run Strategies Refresh Test Environments from Production – Provides a clean environment for validation of timing – Helps identify undocumented application changes Re-Run Upgrade – Should be able to replay the upgrade script exactly as documented – Timing of upgrade steps should match documented times – Don’t skip this step, it’s the last opportunity to catch an issue Lower Risk Perform a final dry-run immediately prior to go-live Greater Reliability You are more likely to have a successful production upgrade if you can complete the dry-run without incident Lower Risk Perform a final dry-run immediately prior to go-live Greater Reliability You are more likely to have a successful production upgrade if you can complete the dry-run without incident

Upgrade Phase Production Upgrade Strategies Upgrade – Don’t deviate from your documented procedures – Perform an appropriate application “smoke test” – Allow time for user validation (Rollback) – Don’t be afraid to rollback if needed When in doubt, you should back it out! Lower Risk Stick to the plan Reduced Effort It takes less effort to fix a problem prior to go-live vs. post go-live Greater Reliability Wishful thinking will not resolve a problem once you are in production, get the kinks out before then Lower Risk Stick to the plan Reduced Effort It takes less effort to fix a problem prior to go-live vs. post go-live Greater Reliability Wishful thinking will not resolve a problem once you are in production, get the kinks out before then

Upgrade Phase Mistakes to Avoid “We don’t need a dry-run. If we have an issue during the production upgrade we will rollback.” “We had a data integrity issue during the migration but decided we would just fix it after go-live.”

Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Infrastructure Optimization Summary

Post Upgrade Phase Break Fix Monitor – More focused monitoring needs to be in place for a full [week/month/quarter] – Measure both the user experience as well as resource utilization with tools such as Oracle Grid Control and Oracle RUEI – Establish new monitoring baselines for key performance metrics and resource utilization Troubleshoot – Use a major upgrade as an opportunity to modernize use of tools (Rollback) – Post go-live rollback strategies are usually complex and expensive to achieve Lower Risk Better testing up front reduces the need to consider a post upgrade rollback strategy Reduced Effort Leverage tools proactively and take advantage of automated monitoring and notification Greater Reliability Keep critical resources available for rapid resolution of issues Lower Risk Better testing up front reduces the need to consider a post upgrade rollback strategy Reduced Effort Leverage tools proactively and take advantage of automated monitoring and notification Greater Reliability Keep critical resources available for rapid resolution of issues

Post Go-Live Rollback Options Maintain two environments in parallel for as long as mandated – Feed data to two environments simultaneously – Increases both hardware and software footprint – Data divergence due to application changes reduces effectiveness over time Replicate changes from 11g production back to the pre-11g database environment – Requires additional pre-upgrade testing to validate the data replication process – Increases both hardware and software footprint Downgrade the database to the pre 11g version – Requires additional testing cycles – Executing a rollback can be time consuming and exceed SLA’s for database availability

Post Upgrade Phase Normal Operations Monitor – Continue to leverage tools such as Oracle Grid Control, the Service Level Management Pack, and Oracle RUEI – Fine tune notification thresholds for deviations from key performance baselines Troubleshoot – Add Oracle Grid Control tools to standard operating procedures for troubleshooting (Rollback) – No longer an option Less Risk Objective monitoring tools take the guesswork out of troubleshooting efforts Less Effort Automation can help proactively identify issues before users declare a problem exists Greater Reliability Maintain your testing environment for future upgrade and patch testing Less Risk Objective monitoring tools take the guesswork out of troubleshooting efforts Less Effort Automation can help proactively identify issues before users declare a problem exists Greater Reliability Maintain your testing environment for future upgrade and patch testing

Mitigating Subjective Performance Feedback Use Objective Means to Measure the User Experience Proactively monitoring the user experience helps to eliminate subjective performance measurements and avoids unnecessary troubleshooting efforts Oracle Grid Control Service Level Management Pack – Define, deploy, monitor, and report on transaction performance from multiple locations within your organization Oracle Real User Experience Insight (RUEI) – Monitor and analyze real user activity without needing to create synthetic transactions Typical day with impact of remote site bandwidth limitation Monitoring shows a ‘network event’ Impacting the remote site Remote Local

Post Upgrade Phase Mistakes to Avoid “We are too busy to sit around all day and watch the Oracle Grid Control GUI console.” “The upgrade went so smoothly that we decided to double our production workload the next week.”

Session Agenda Introduction Dissecting the Upgrade Lifecycle Pre Upgrade Phase Upgrade Phase Post Upgrade Phase Infrastructure Optimization Summary

Server Optimization Strategies Goals – Increase server utilization – Reduce server footprint Strategies – Use virtualization with OracleVM to increase server utilization – Share DR with non-production instances – Leverage Grid Architecture to consolidate databases on fewer servers

Storage Optimization Strategies Goals – Reduce amount of un-utilized storage – Reduce overall storage footprint – Reduce storage costs Strategies – Consolidate database storage with Oracle 11g Automatic Storage Management (ASM) – Deploy Oracle Advanced Compression Option to reduce database storage footprint – Leverage an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy to reduce costs

Disaster Recovery Optimization Strategies Goals – Obtain better return on investment from DR hardware investments Strategies – Co-locate Data Guard standby databases with development and test instances Consider OracleVM if isolation of production environments is important – Leverage Snapshot Standby database Avoids frequent production to test clones Reduces storage footprint – Use Active Data Guard Put DR server capacity to use offloading Read Only query activity from production

Infrastructure Optimization and Enterprise Architecture Incorporate Infrastructure Optimization as part of your Enterprise Architecture (EA) program to better align business needs with IT challenges Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework (OEAF) and Oracle Architecture Development Process (OADP) support a practical and iterative approach to EA that delivers “just enough architecture” based on customer’s needs

Summary Develop upgrade strategies that meet your business requirements Perform planning and testing proportional to the business impact of an outage Leverage tools appropriately both pre and post upgrade to reduce effort, risk, and cost Prepare and test your rollback strategy Incorporate regular patching and upgrades into your standard operating procedures to reduce risks of running on unsupported releases Use the potential benefits of Oracle 11g R2 and Infrastructure Optimization strategies to make the business case to upgrade

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