We are currently running a Tech Challange Workshop with 25 Oracle consultants and support folks from all over EMEA. We call it Tech Challange because we seperate these experts having between 5 and 20 years of Oracle experience into 5 groups - and each group has to complete their special challange such as moving a database from 10.2 to Exadata V2 or upgrading from single instance 10.2 to Real Application Clusters 11.2 with the new Grid Infrastructure.

Actually we start this training with a bit presentation pieces about upgrades, Real Application Testing and Golden Gate. And one topic I always point out:

Keep your database tidy before the upgrade!!! Clean up all invalid objects - especially in SYS and SYSTEM user schema BEFORE you upgrade.

• Use utlrp.sql to recompile invalid objects.


• Use Note:753041.1 to diagnose and fix invalid components.

Do this always BEFORE you start the upgrade. Even if it may take some time. Otherwise your upgrade could fails or significant parts of the database packages could be invalid after the upgrade as well.

I just came across this today as one group had ~240 invalid objects in the database - and due to the fact that the original system was still there could proof that the objects had been invalid before. Good job, BUT ... :-)