Upgrade your JDBC and JDK before Upgrade your Database to 12c Version!

Ok, now it’s everyone upgrading to 12c, right? Thanks God, this version was released in 2013!

But there is some things to be aware when planning an upgrade, specially regarding old applications and legacy. But pay attention! Not all of the requirements are necessary inside database. It’s the case os JDBC version requirement.

The database 12c documentation explicit mentions that JDBC versions 11.1.x and below are not supported anymore. It doesn’t mean that they don’t work, it’s only unsupported and you’ll have no assistance from MOS if you need. It’s better to avoid, right?

Anyway, if you check the JDBC support matrix, if you are in version 11.2 or below you are not supported since August/2015. So the Database 12c is helping you, that don’t have patching policy, to keep on right way. Thanks to Database 12c!

If this is your situation, I highly recommend you to upgrade the directly to JDBC version 7, the last available by now. See JDBC matrix version as:

captura-de-tela-2016-10-22-as-16-59-57

But test! Test in you dev/test/QA environments before upgrading in Production environment!

Why? Because JDBC also have his compatibility matrix. JDBC 7, for example, demands your JDK to be at least in version 7 (released in 2011!). So, it’s needed to be at least in JDK version 6, as you can see below.

(Click in the image to access the link)