1. Administering Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service (OCI-C)
  2. Migrating Oracle Databases to Exadata Cloud Service
  3. Migration Methods
  4. Plugging in a Non-CDB

Plugging in a Non-CDB

You can use this method only if the source platform is little endian, and the database character set is AL32UTF8 or a compatible subset. It uses the multitenant architecture in Oracle Database 12c, or later, and provides a way to consolidate several non-CDBs into a multitenant database on Exadata Cloud Service.

You can migrate a non-CDB to Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service by plugging the non-CDB into a CDB on Exadata Cloud Service. This method is similar to unplugging and plugging a PDB, and has similar requirements and restrictions:

  • The source database must be version is 12.1 or later.

  • The source and target platform must have the same endian format, which is little-endian for Exadata Cloud Service.

  • Ideally, the source and target CDBs must use the same character set, which is AL32UTF8 for Exadata Cloud Service. Alternatively, the PDB character set must by a multibyte character set that is a binary subset of AL32UTF8, such as UTF8 for example; however, complications may arise if the different character sets have different maximum character widths.

To migrate to Exadata Cloud Service by plugging in a non-CDB, you perform these tasks:

  1. On the source database host, invoke SQL*Plus, connect to the source database as a user with the SYSDBA or SYSOPER administrative privilege, and:

    1. Set the source database to read-only mode.

    2. Execute the DBMS_PDB.DESCRIBE procedure to generate an XML file that describes the database files of the non-CDB.

    3. Shut down the source database.

  2. Transfer the XML file and the source database data files to an Exadata Cloud Service compute node.

  3. On the Exadata Cloud Service compute node, connect to the root container of the target CDB as a user with the SYSDBA or SYSOPER administrative privilege, and execute the CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE command to plug in the source database.

  4. Connect to the target PDB as a SYSDBA user and execute the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/noncdb_to_pdb.sql script to delete unnecessary metadata from the SYSTEM tablespace of the new PDB.

  5. Open the target PDB in read-write mode by executing the ALTER PLUGGABLE DATABASE ... OPEN READ WRITE command.

See Creating a PDB Using a Non-CDB in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for Release 18, 12.2, or 12.1.