ESTI Consulting Services - STF Oracle 10g Release 2 Upgrade

STF Oracle 10g Release 2 Upgrade

In June of 2006, the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) successfully completed a 2 month project to upgrade their production database systems to Oracle 10g Release 2.

ESTI is pleased to announce the successful completion of this database upgrade project that was undertaken jointly by the STF and ESTI. The STF database server was being cycled out of production and the decision was made to jump ahead from Oracle 8i to Oracle 10g Release 2. Oracle 10g Release 2 is claimed to be the most stable and easy to use database server product ever released from Oracle Corporation.

Dwight Beech - IT Manager, STF, Patrick Lo - IT Summer Student, STF

The project was initiated with the purchase of new database server hardware. The STF decided on an HP Proliant DL380 with an external drive enclosure for expanded storage capacity. The hardware is x64 compatible, leaving the STF with an upgrade path to Microsoft and Oracle x64 technology.

Once the database server was configured with Windows 2003 Enterprise server, the database upgrade commenced. Oracle 10g was installed in a test environment and ESTI Consulting Services performed a test migration. ESTI then recompiled all of the existing Oracle 6i forms and reports against the 10g test environment to ensure application compatibility. These forms and reports were put through extensive user acceptance testing and signed off by each department at the STF. The project culminated with the production migration on the weekend of June 10, 2006.

Lawrence Cheng - ESTI Analyst, Jeff Banow - ESTI Senior Analyst

A number of major in-house systems, which are hosted by the STF, were positively impacted by this upgrade through feature and performance enhancements. These include a number of pension and benefits systems, Long Term Disability and Life Insurance applications, and the Green File imaging system. Online web applications were also impacted including a member information system and web remittance system.

Below is a list of the new features contained in Oracle 10g Release 2:

Ease of Use
A new easy-to-use Enterprise Manager console
Automatic management of memory parameters
Oracle dynamically sets memory parameters based on database performance in real-time, freeing up resources to concentrate on service delivery
Performance
Oracle claims 10g performs better than any previous database version
Features
Flash Recovery Area
Oracle can restore tables to a point in time
When tables are deleted, they are stored in a recycle bin and can be restored online without going to tape
Better Tablespace Management
Automatic Workload Repository
Used to collect database statistics and derive performance metrics
The top 20 new features of Oracle 10g for DBA's can be seen at:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/10gdba/index.html

Congratulations to the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation on successfully completing this database upgrade, keeping them in the forefront of database technology to improve the delivery of services for its members across Saskatchewan.

ESTI Consulting Services provided end-to-end services for Oracle 10g Release 2 upgrade project including:

Requirements Gathering
System Analysis
Hardware and Software Recommendations
Project Management
Reporting
Documentation
Database Configuration and Administration
Recompile of Oracle 6i Forms and Reports
System Testing
Data Verification
Operating System Configuration
Backup software and configuration

Dwight Beech, IT Manager, STF
Collin Seebach, Systems Support Specialist, STF
Joel Schmaltz, Project Manager, ESTI
James Bohn, Technical Lead, ESTI
Jeff Banow, Senior Analyst, ESTI
Ryan Chan, Analyst, ESTI
Lawrence Cheng, Analyst, ESTI