upgrade SDE & move to new server

[SteveSalas]

Existing geodatabase:  ArcSDE 9.3sp2 / Oracle 10.2 / Win2003 (32 bit)
Target:  ArcSDE 10 / Oracle 11.2 / Win2008 (64 bit)

Our current need to is to test this upgrade/move process before we perform this task for real in a few weeks.

Documentation says we need to run the geodatabase upgrade tool on the existing geodatabase prior to moving it... the problem here is that existing geodatabase is in production at 9.3 so upgrading it now (for this test) is not really any option.  Ideally we would move this to another Win2003 32-bit server and doing the upgrade there before moving it to the Win2008 server - no such luck, no spares available.  Is there any way to perform this SDE upgrade on the Win2008 64-bit server without taking the existing production server down for upgrade and then restoring the pre-upgrade backup?  DBA informs me those steps would require several hours of downtime for our production environment...

In the meantime, I was able to do the full compress on the production server required by the documentation and my DBA was able to transfer the database to a 64-bit server.  I can direct-connect to it with ArcGIS 10.  Tried the pre-requisite check in the upgrade tool and the only significant warning was:

Connected RDBMS instance is not setup for ST_GEOMETRY configuration.
[Unable to determine current version of ST_SHAPELIB
The latest ST_GEOMETRY and dependent libraries need
to be copied to the correct software location.
Please consult ArcSDE for Oracle Installation Guide
for further details.]

Any hope of not needing to tell my production geodatabase users to take a day or two off just for this test?

Thanks!

[VinceAngelo]

Which documentation says you need to upgrade first?

There are many possible paths for any upgrade.  Finding a process that works for your
particular set of tables can be a challenge, especially if you want to change storage
methodologies.  Given that your ArcSDE configuration (9.3.1sp2) is supported in both
32-bit and 64-bit at 10.2 and 11.2, this is less challenging than many other upgrades
discussed in these Forums.

- V

[SteveSalas]

Both of these list the upgrade step prior to moving the database to the new server:
http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/geodatabase/pdf/install_gd_oracle64.pdf
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Migrating_to_ArcSDE_64_bit_on_Windows_...

Our SDE is 9.3, not 9.3.1 and it appears that is not supported on 64-bit Windows 2008.

Should the warning from the upgrade tool about the ST_Geometry library be of great concern?  This SDE instance is an upgrade from a version that predates ST_Geometry... none of the feature classes utilize ST_Geometry storage.

Thanks for the response.
-S.

[VinceAngelo]

9.3 did not have an SP2 release (9.3.1 was released instead).

If you don't have any ST_GEOMETRY layers, then I don't think you have to worry about pre-upgrade
(I'm not really sure why that is even a requirement, even with ST_GEOMETRY).

If you do want to shift to ST_GEOMETRY, then there are multiple paths to get there, including
a "drag and drop" copy.

There isn't any reason to sweat the ST_GEOMETRY listener warning until you actually need to
use ST_GEOMETRY outside ArcGIS.

- Vince