Hello.
I'm trying to figure out the best ways for database administrators to migrate databases to another OS, without upgrading the database.
Source: Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, running on VMware ESXi
Target: Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, running on VMware ESXi
So the idea is basically to switch the (virtual) hardware and OS, and not to upgrade anything about database. RHEL in-place upgrade from 7 to 8 unfortunately isn't possible for us.
The databases have anywhere between 2 to 4 RAC nodes. The nodes are sharing multi-writer oracleasm-disks (DATA, GRID, OCR, etc.)
I thought I could just attach the current ASM disks from vSphere to the new RHEL8 virtual computers, add the RHEL8 computers as RAC nodes and then delete the RHEL7 machines as RAC nodes, but apparently this isn't supported; "Use the same operating system kernel and packages on each cluster member node." https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/cwlin/operating-system-checklist-for-oracle-grid-infrastructure-and-oracle-rac.html
From what I know, the migrations have been previously done only when a new major Oracle version has became available and then by creating entirely new clusters and disks. And finally doing the migration and upgrade by using Oracle Data Pump.
Any ideas on how to proceed? Because creating a new cluster and ASM-disks, and then doing import/export just to upgrade an OS sounds needlessly complicated - especially when the ASM disks can be just attached to new virtual machines and even the DB version wouldn't be changing.
Thanks!