Oracle RAC Upgrade Checklist

Review this checklist to prepare your Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) databases for upgrade.

Table 1-4 Oracle RAC Upgrade Checklist

Check	Task
Review Existing Oracle Installations and Upgrade Plans	To install Oracle RAC 19c, you must have Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM) 19c installed on your cluster. The Oracle Clusterware version must be equal to or greater than the Oracle RAC version that you plan to install. See Also: Oracle Database Upgrade Guide Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide
Ensure that Oracle RAC Databases You are Installing are Compatible with Existing Databases	If you have Oracle Clusterware installed, and different releases of other Oracle software installed, then the Oracle Clusterware release must be later than or equal to the Oracle Database software release. Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM are both upgraded to 19c when you perform an Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c installation. If you have an existing Oracle home, then you can create a new Oracle home and install Oracle Database 19c into the new Oracle home. Ensure that Oracle Clusterware is in a separate Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. Oracle Grid Infrastructure for cluster installations cannot be installed in the Oracle home directory for Oracle Database.
Migrate files from RAW devices to Supported Storage	If you have any database data stored on RAW devices, then before you start Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC installation, you must use RMAN to copy that data to Oracle ASM or to another supported file system.
Prepare to upgrade all existing nodes	The Oracle RAC database instance is running on the same nodes that you intend to make members of the new cluster installation. For example, if you have an existing Oracle RAC database running on a three-node cluster, then you must upgrade all three nodes. You cannot upgrade only two nodes of the cluster, removing the third instance in the upgrade.
Ensure that Oracle RAC database version is equal to or older than the version of Oracle Clusterware	You can have multiple Oracle homes for Oracle databases on your cluster. However, the Oracle RAC database software in these homes must be from a version that is equal to or before the version of Oracle Clusterware that is installed. For example: If your servers use Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c, then you can have an Oracle Database 19c single-instance database running on one node, and separate Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2), Oracle RAC 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle RAC 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle RAC 18c, or Oracle RAC 19c databases also running on the cluster. You cannot have Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g Release 2 (11.2) installed on your cluster, and install Oracle RAC 12c Release 1 (12.1).