Oracle Upgrade – Using DBUA from 12.0.0.1 to 12.0.0.2

exp and expdp are OS command-line programs. That's why SQL*Plus doesn't recognise them. You need to fire up a console (shell) window.

Note that you can run these wherever makes more sense, your local PC or on the database server itself, provided the Oracle client software is installed.

There is an in-database API for Datapump. It's the PL/SQL package, DBMS_DATAPUMP. Find out more. However, for what your want to do, expdp makes more sense.

" i'm quite amazazed that nowhere in the command i have specified anything regarding oracle databse" (sic)

Welcome to the magic of paths and scope. Oracle exp is the first program of that name your computer found in your current direction or by traversing the command path. So that's what it executed.

exp is an Oracle proprietary utility for exporting data from an Oracle database. It is never going to export anything else. You didn't have to specify a target database because your environment is XE with only one in scope. In an enterprise environment you would probably have to specify a database name in the connection string, because there could be several databases on your network.

There are multiple solutions to this problem but the driving issues are cost, allowable downtime and complexity.

• Golden Gate could be purchased with a one year license and will do a zero downtime upgrade from Oracle 8i to 12. You still have to upgrade from 8.05 to 8i.
• Your life could be simplified by using VmWare P2V to convert the machine to a virtual machine without any downtime. This method allows you to:
  • get your production database on better hardware which should improve the speed of most operations
  • allows you to make a copy of the machine, put it on a different subnet and start testing various strategies
• I have imported schemas from our Oracle 8i database directly into Oracle 11.2 without issues. Your mileage may vary depending on character sets, licensed features and any unorthodox strategies your programmers have in the PL/SQL code.

One method that could be easily tested:

• buy a new server with some serious hardware like 32GB RAM, install VMWare Esxi
• convert your old machine to a virtual
• create a development copy of the Oracle 8.05
• install another virtual machine with Oracle 12
• install another virtual machine with Oracle 10XE or 11XE
• take snapshots of all the machines with no changes
• take an export of the 8.05 development, import into Oracle 10XE or 11XE, test and verify
• data pump to the 12 database
• verify the data on 12 and offline the 8.05 and oracle 10XE or 11XE

This method needs downtime. A weekend should be more than adequate and only costs you a new server, Oracle 12 licence and some VMWare software licenses. Keep in mind that testing and verification can take more time than importing the data.