Overview

To rename a database, you need to change the header of the database file headers, the controlfiles and god knows what else :) Luckily for us, there is a tool by Oracle “NID” (New ID) which will do all that for us. Historically, I used to change the DB name manually, by: recreating the spfile, controlfile and opening with resetlogs.

So let's see how all that can be done

Using NID

First, we need to shutdown the database and start it in a mount state:

Startup in mount

Then we can use the NID tool to change the DB name as follows:

Change DB Name

Then we can change the pfile and startup the DB with reset logs:

Startup the DB (After changing the init file