Oracle has recently released new version of its rapid application development tool better known as Application Express (APEX). Version number is 3.2 and its main features include security enhancements and Oracle Forms Migration. The late mentioned was a great interest for me. I did not have access to the database server on which we have APEX installed but for test purposes I used another server I had with Oracle Database 10g R2 on it. So I installed APEX 3.1 on it and after carefully reading upgrade instructions I started the upgrade. Here are the simple steps.
Backup is always good. So I backed up my current installation. To backup your APEX installation all you need to do is to backup three schemas and images directory located in HTTP Server home. As I used Export Data Pump for backup so I needed to create an Oracle directory.
SQL> create directory backup as ‘e:\oracle\backup’;
SQL> exit;
C :\> expdp backup/***@ORCL directory=backup dumpfile=apex_bkp.dmp schemas=(‘FLOWS_030000’,’FLOWS_FILES’,’APEX_PUBLIC_USER’)
Next I backed up the images directory (Location = $Oracle HTTP SERVER HOME/Apache/Apache/images). Don’t remove it to another place, just rename it to something else than images. Backup is complete.
To upgrade APEX set your current working directory to where you have extracted the APEX 3.2 zip file and start SQL*PLUS. Enter the following command.
SQL> @apexins apex30 apex30 temp /i/ ORCL
This is same as fresh install. Remember in APEX 3.2 you don’t have to specify the admin user password while running the installation script. It will take some time to upgrade and during that all you need to do is to sit back and watch (better start reading something). After it is completed it will create a new user and will update APEX metadata to 3.2. There a will be crystal look in interface of APEX which will distinguish it from previous release. Also if you want to make sure that you have done what you were planning to do then go and create a migration project. If you are given a choice between FORMS and ACCESS then it means you are successful and if there is only ACESS in drop down menu than you have done something wrong.
