15 Migrating Columns to SecureFile LOBs
Oracle recommends that you migrate your existing columns that use the LONG or LONG RAW datatype or BasicFile LOB storage to the SecureFile LOB storage. This chapter covers various techniques to help with this migration.
All forms of
LONG
data types (LONG
,
LONG RAW
, LONG VARCHAR
,
LONG VARRAW
) were deprecated in Oracle8i
Release 8.1.6. For succeeding releases, the LONG
data type was provided for backward compatibility with existing
applications. In new applications developed with later releases,
Oracle strongly recommends that you use CLOB
and
NCLOB
data types for large amounts of
character data.
Note:
All discussions in this chapter are valid for migrating the LONG
datatype to CLOB
or NCLOB
, and the LONG
RAW
datatype to BLOB
. Most of the text in this chapter
talks just about the LONG
datatype for brevity.
- Migration Considerations
This section discusses various factors to be considered while migrating LOB data types or storage. - Migration Methods
This section describes various methods you can use to migrate LONG or BasicFile LOB data to SecureFile storage. - Other Considerations While Migrating LONG Columns to LOBs
This section describes some more considerations when migrating LONG columns to LOBs.