Understanding Non-CDB to PDB Upgrades with AutoUpgrade

You can upgrade and convert a non-CDB to a PDB in a new CDB in a single operation, or upgrade and then convert a Non-CDB database to a PDB in a pre-existing CDB.

Oracle Database 19c is the terminal release in which non-CDB Oracle Database architecture is supported. Oracle strongly recommends that you move to using pluggable databases (PDBs). When you migrate your database from the non-CDB architecture to PDBs in Oracle Database 19c, you obtain up to three user-configurable PDBs in a container database (CDB), without requiring a multitenant license. If you choose to configure four or more PDBs, then a multitenant license is required.

The non-CDB to PDB feature of the AutoUpgrade utility provides you flexible options to control how you upgrade your existing Oracle Database when you upgrade and convert an earlier release non-CDB architecture Oracle Database to a multitenant architecture database. You can perform this upgrade and conversion in a single operation.

Caution:

Before you run AutoUpgrade to complete the conversion and upgrade. Oracle strongly recommends that you create a full backup of your source database, and complete thorough testing of the upgrade. There is no option to roll back to the non-CDB Oracle Database state after AutoUpgrade starts this procedure.

Figure 3-2 Converting and Upgrading a Non-CDB Using AutoUpgrade

Description of "Figure 3-2 Converting and Upgrading a Non-CDB Using AutoUpgrade"

Example 3-3 AutoUpgrade Configuration File for Non-CDB to PDB Conversion

To use the non-CDB to PDB option, you must set the parameters target_cdb in the AutoUpgrade configuration file. The target_cdb parameter value defines the Oracle system identifier (SID) of the container database into which you are plugging the non-CDB Oracle Database. For example:

global.autoupg_log_dir=/home/oracle/autoupg
upg1.sid=s12201
upg1.source_home=/u01/product/12.2.0/dbhome_1
upg1.log_dir=/home/oracle/autoupg
upg1.target_home=/u01/product/19.1.0/dbhome_1
upg1.target_base=/u01
upg1.target_version=19.1.0
upg1.target_cdb=cdb19x

You can see a more detailed example of a non-CDB to PDB upgrade from Oracle Database 12c (12.2) to Oracle Database 19c using the multitenant architecture in the blog post "Unplug / Plug / Upgrade with AutoUpgrade," in Mike Dietrich's Blog, Upgrade Your Database Now!