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

Project Team

  • 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

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