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Connor McDonald

Thanks for the question, Sahathevan.

Asked: August 03, 2021 - 1:34 am UTC

Last updated: August 03, 2021 - 4:37 am UTC

Version: 19c

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You Asked

Hey guys, a basic question, still a newbie with Oracle ;)

Can multiple databases with different version exist in the same machine?

I have an existing 12c Oracle DB in my Linux. I have to install 19c in the same machine.
I did some digging and I think it can? Do they share the same Oracle_base, _home environment variable?

How about the ORACLE_SID variable?


and Connor said...

Yes definitely and its common to do so.

Most commonly you will have a single ORACLE_BASE under which you can have multiple ORACLE_HOME. (You can even have multiple homes with the same version - which is sometimes done to test patching etc).

Each software installation will have a different ORACLE_HOME, so you might end up with (say)

/u01/app/oracle/product/12.1/dbhome
/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2/dbhome
/u01/app/oracle/product/19/dbhome

etc

Each database you create will have an entry in /etc/oratab which indicates which ORACLE_HOME it will belong. Then when you run "oraenv" it will set the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID accordingly.

Hope this helps.


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