Cloning / Staging Oracle 10g Application Server

This post is useful for those who are using 10g Application Server and want
to clone 10g Application Server (Portal, BI or Forms and Reports) from
Production to Test or Vice Versa.

For cloning Oracle Applications 11i / E-Business Suite check Clone Apps 11i Instance

Key points for cloning 10g Application Server (as of 19 August 2007)

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-You can clone middle tier installation of 10g AS (J2EE & Webcache,
Portal & Wireless and BI & Forms)

-You CANNOT clone

—-i)Infrastructure Tier (MR & IM)

—-ii)OAS Integration, BPEL Process Anaytics or BPEL process manager

—-iii) Developer kit and SDK

—-iv) Installation that includes workflow

There is manual method to create replica of source instance in to target instance; called as Staging source infrastructure instance to target infrastructure instance.

– Middle tier cloned instance must have different Instance Name than source instance name.

– You can clone MT (Middle Tier) that is member of OracleAS Cluster or Farm but you must remove instance from OracleAS Cluster before beginning cloning operation.

– Middle tier Cloning process does not configure Load Balancer. If you use one, you have to configure it manually including invalidation port

– If in source instance, webcache is member of cache cluster, then target webcahe should be manually added in to cache cluster (or delete other cache cluster member info manually if you don’t wish to target cloned instance as cache cluster)

-During 10g AS middle tier cloning, source ORACLE_HOME is copied to destination ORACLE_HOME , then a set of scripts is used to update information in key configuration files of oracle application server middle tier (like hostname).

Oracle 10g AS Middle Tier cloning process

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i) On source instance run prepare_clone.pl (in $OH/clone/bin) (This script parses files, create archives using DCM, backs up required files, and run wireless clone assistant if wireless is enabled)

ii) Copy ORACLE_HOME to destination location

iii) On target instance run clone.pl (this step invokes OUI which repeats all actions done during source instance installation)

iv) In post clone phase, clone.pl also does following post clone steps to make target cloned instance to a working state. These are

—a) setting new ORACLE_HOME in DCM

—b) update configuration file

—c) calls chgiphost command to change hostname and IP address in cloned instance

—d) If source instance was connected to OID (Portal/BI) then add information about clone in OID

v) After cloning and starting services on target instance on unix you have to run root.sh (from root user)

I hope by now its clear to you that cloning of middle tier on 10g Application Server is still not as mature as cloning Apps/E-Business Suite (11i or R12).

In coming post I’ll cover creating replica or staging 10g Application Server (Portal or BI) production instance to test instance so that users/groups, portal, BI, SSO and DAS data can be migrated from source instance to target instance for as close as possible copy of production instance.

Cloning / Staging Oracle 10g Application Server

About the Author Masroof Ahmad

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