We are finally moving forward, I am in the process of upgrading beyond ArcSDE. I have maintained a love:hate relationship with ArcSDE for the last ten years. Moving past it takes faith. There are a ton of quirks I have grown used to dealing with, and so far I have found 10.3.1 has put them all to rest. I have been stuck at 10.1 sp1 as we experienced a wholesale bloodletting in the IT dept (retirements mostly). We are finally upgrading to Oracle 11g (been waiting on this since mid 2011) and with it a fresh batch of databases. I have convinced the DBA to allow me to turn all 9 into geodatabases. So I am modifying a ton of custom python scripts I wrote to manage data across one db and one gdb in oracle to handle all 9 new gdb’s. I am relieved to walk away from all the db links I have relied on for years. Now I can get access to tables the way I wanted to years ago… without all of the painful contortions.
Step 1 rewrite scripts to mange data on old and new databases simultaneously
Step 2 modify all map services (10.1) to point to new gdb’s
Step 3 mass deployment of oracle 11g r2 clients 32b & 64b (400 desktops)
Step 4 update a pile of layerfiles to point at new gdb’s
Step 5 upgrade servers from 10.1 to 10.3.1
Step 6 mass deployment of arcgis upgrade to 10.3.1 (400 desktops)
Step 7 change old gdb passwords
Step 8 drop all updates from scripts on old data locations
Step 9 go on extended vacation
I am confident in my abilities to accomplish everything but the oracle client deployments. I despise using the Oracle gui’s, but I have not tinkered with it enough to install from a command prompt. I wish it was as easy as the arcgis upgrade bat files I wrote. I have a little over a week to get it all done… if the DBA gets all the data migrated. I wish there was a way to connect to oracle using a dll call or something rather than all the client install BS. An ezconnection without a client installed would be super sweet. Having to install both 32 and 64 is a real momma dog. My one fellow developer tells me to only use the 32b, but then my 64b background gp behaves erratically and reminds me why I need both.
I will spend much of the next two weeks staring at text editors clutching a hydroflask full of black coffee… debugging, tweaking, tuning, and cussing, lots of cussing. I pity my kids and wife, maybe the vacation will work out and I can repay them for the grumpy hell they will soon live through. Once it starts there will be no turning back. Time to roll with the punches.
Update: many of the quirks ArcSDE command line tools had are now fixed, and ArcGIS seems to finally just work with Database objects (thank you God). You can upgrade server and desktop silently now (thank you God). I have not yet found any new gotchas with 10.3.1 (amen). Almost time to change the passwords on the old database and run like hell...this should be fun (hallelujah).
