Chapter 5 Upgrading Oracle VM

You can upgrade to Oracle VM Release 3.4.5 or earlier from Oracle VM Release 3.2.10, or a later version, such as Release 3.2.11 or Release 3.3.x, without performing incremental upgrades.

However, beginning with Release 3.4.6, upgrades from Oracle VM Server for x86 at Release 3.2.10 or 3.2.11 and Oracle VM Agent for SPARC at Release 3.3.1 are not supported. Users on these older server releases must first upgrade to a supported version (e.g. 3.4.5) before upgrading to a later version.

Release 3.2.10 is the minimum supported version to upgrade to Release 3.4.x. If your Oracle VM version is earlier than Release 3.2.10, you must first upgrade to Release 3.2.10, Release 3.2.11, or Release 3.3.x before you can upgrade to Release 3.4.x.

Oracle VM Release 3.x is not backward compatible with Oracle VM Release 2.x. If you are using Oracle VM Release 2.x you cannot upgrade to Release 3.x. You must reinstall your Oracle VM Servers and Oracle VM Manager.

You can, however, reuse your virtual machine templates from Oracle VM Release 2.x by importing them into Oracle VM Release 3.x.

For information on repository migration from Oracle VM Release 2 to Oracle VM Release 3, see the My Oracle Support website at: https://support.oracle.com/oip/faces/secure/km/DocumentDisplay.jspx?id=1366216.1

There is no provision for upgrading releases where an Oracle Database XE has been used as a back-end repository for Oracle VM Manager. Oracle VM Manager no longer supports Oracle Database XE as a back-end repository and there is no way to migrate to the MySQL database back end supported in Oracle VM Release 3.4. If you are using Oracle VM Release 3.2 with a supported Oracle Database such as Oracle Database SE or Oracle Database EE, you should be aware that Oracle VM Release 3.4 no longer supports these databases to store Oracle VM configuration data. Instead, Oracle VM Release 3.4 uses its own bundled MySQL database for this purpose. The upgrade process includes a facility to help migrate Oracle VM configuration data from a previously supported Oracle Database into the bundled MySQL database.

As of Oracle VM Release 3.4.2, Oracle VM Manager supports current and previous Oracle VM Server releases. For example, you can use Oracle VM Manager 3.4.2 to manage Oracle VM Server Release 3.4.x, 3.3.x, 3.2.10, or 3.2.11.

See the Oracle VM Release Notes for more information about Oracle VM Manager support for previous Oracle VM Server releases, as well as known issues and caveats that you should be aware of.