There are probably many approaches you can take to achieve what you're wanting to do. The complexity depends on your data model, in my opinion. In general, I think the following options might work for you:
Create a new Oracle 11g database, use the Create Enterprise Geodatabase tool, use the Enable Enterprise Geodatabase tool, manually perform a copy/paste in ArcCatalog of all data (making sure to be connected using the correct schema owners for each object class).
Create a new Oracle 11g database, use the Create Enterprise Geodatabase tool, use the Enable Enterprise Geodatabase tool, connect to your Oracle 9i geodatabase using the 10.1 client (if it works) and export an XML schema file, connect to your new 10.1 geodatabase and import the XML schema document, use Simple Data Loader in ArcCatalog or Load Objects tool in ArcMap to bring your data in (has to be done per feature class and per table).
Create a new Oracle 11g database, use the Create Enterprise Geodatabase tool, use the Enable Enterprise Geodatabase tool, connect to your Oracle 9i geodatabase using the 10.1 client (if it works) and export an XML file with data option checked, connect to your new 10.1 geodatabase and import the XML file.
Upgrade your Oracle 9i database to an 11g database following upgrade documentation from Oracle, upgrade from 9.1 to a currently supported release (I think that's 10.0 now), use the 10.1 Upgrade Geodatabase tool to upgrade a second time to get it to a 10.1 GDB.
There may be other paths to get where you need to go, but these paths pop out at me as the first ones to look at. Some are better than others and some are more risky. Your choice may depend on how much data you have, if you have a versioned GDB or not, if you have geometric networks or topologies or not, and how comfortable you are with Oracle upgrades.
Option 1 might be the most straight forward and the cleanest method. Option 2 might not work if a 10.1 client can't connect to an older 9i database; not to mention it's tedious to load everything manually at separate times. Option 3 might fail if you have too much data; XML files with data aren't always the most reliable method of data migration. Option 4 could be terrifying; I've done a few Oracle upgrades and they are painful. Equally as painful is the Upgrade Geodatabase tool... which won't actually tell you if the GDB will upgrade or not until it actually tries (the pre-req check doesn't behave well). ArcSDE 9.x allows some geometry issues to persist in your data that 10.1 might otherwise complain about; the upgrade may fail and you'll be left holding the bag.
Once you're done getting your data migrated or upgraded, you'll of course need to address things like permissions for users and roles. The SDE user will need specific permissions too; upgrading tends to require more system permissions. There is documentation about all of this on the ArcGIS Resource Center website.
Caveat to all options listed or not listed: Take a good backup of your database first!
Thanks for the information above. A question for you...
Once the appropriate environments are set up, as you suggest above. In your opinion what method(s) would be best to test the newly ported layers in the 10.1 environment? The objective of the testing is to conclude that the porting did not introduce any errors / inconsistencies with the spatial layers.
Any suggestions such as tools, etc would be greatly appreciated
