Upgrading a large database is unnecessarily slow - Alter column type

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 5.1 EE SP3 (5.1.6), 5.2 EE SP1 (5.2.5)
• Fix Version/s: 5.1 EE SP4 (5.1.7), 5.2 EE SP2 (5.2.6)
• Component/s: Core Infrastructure > Upgrade Framework, Environments > Databases, Performance
• Labels:
  • 5.2_release_notes
• Environment: Oracle Database, SQL Server

Upgrading a large Oracle database or or SQL Server database is unnecessarily slow because Liferay assumes these two databases do not allow altering a column type. However, it is possible to alter the column type under certain situations. So, to improve performance and reduce the time it takes to perform an upgrade, the upgrade process will now always attempt to alter the column type before re-creating the table (the always allowed, but slower process).