Oracle promises smooth path to 11g

07.11.2006
Users of Oracle 9i and 10g database products have been promised a pain-free upgrade to the next generation, 11g, due for release in the second half of 2007.

Oracle's vice president of database product management and server technologies, Mark Townsend, said there are few ways customers can upgrade to 11g by using testing and development infrastructure.

"If you have a production environment you probably have a test and development environment, so you can upgrade to 11g, which can capture workloads, on that," Townsend said. "Having verified no major problems from the upgrade you can switch production environments over."

For mission-critical environments, Townsend said, the two databases can run in parallel and when the user is ready switch to 11g it can be done with "only a few seconds downtime".

Upgrading part of a 10g cluster to 11g is not an option, however.

Townsend, a 15-year veteran of Oracle responsible for the development of the 9i, 10g, and 11g products, said a key area of concern today is about ILM and compliance.