AIX only runs on the IBM POWER architecture, which is big endian. That means in a multibyte representation of a number, the most significant byte comes first.
 

DEC 256 = HEX 0100

Unless they specify otherwise, all cloud VMs are going to be on the x86/amd64 architecture, which is little endian.

DEC 256 = HEX 0001

This is a huge difference that’s literally wired into the silicon, and it’s a far more significant difference than the change in the operating system itself.

As far as I know, RMAN doesn’t support conversions between different endianness. I believe Data Pump does, with the expdp and impdp commands, but I’ve never made such a conversion myself.

Hi @ProVivekD,

fully agree with @durette on the DB part. You would need to use Oracle datadump to get an export of the DB and re-import it to the new DB version running in Azure Windows platform. This however is an expected step in the upgrade so nothing new. Don't forget the Unicode conversion as well given that the App7 database will not be in Unicode which you need in the newer versions (apps8 and above).

Cheers.

You want your new database to be configured in Oracle’s AL32UTF8 character set, which pedantically is a subset of UTF-8.

UTF-8 is not the same as Unicode. Unicode defines a logical number for a particular character but does not specify the bits that represent that number.

Everyone should read The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!), written by the now-famous software developer Joel Spolsky, who served as a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel team, co-founded Stack Overflow, created Trello, and founded Fog Creek Software.