Upgrade your Database - NOW! – Mike Dietrich's Blog About Oracle Database Upgrades... Mostly

Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs

Some of you may remember my blog post from April 22, 2021 about issues I saw with the unattended installation using applyRU and applyOneOffs switches. The installation failed with a strange jox error when I passed on the OJVM bundle to my installation queue. But there is relief – finally, after almost one year. So let me give you some background, and of course show you the workaround for the Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs.

Simple database installation with applyRU and applyOneOffs

Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash

What has happened?

A longer while ago, we introduced the very convenient ability to install patches …

A new version of AutoUpgrade has been released

Posted on May 16, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 1

Yes, we did it again. A new version of AutoUpgrade has been released. With important fixes.

A new version of AutoUpgrade has been released

Download the May 2022 version

So it is time to update your AutoUpgrade and download the most recent version.

MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

Changes / Fixes / Enhancements

As usual, we document the changes and fixes as well as the enhancements in the change log you’ll find in MOS.

At first, this is the new build:

build.version 22.3.220503
build.date 2022/05/03 11:55:20 -0400
build.hash 9e84e228
build.hash_date 2022/05/03 11:37:00 -0400
build.supported_target_versions 12.2,18,19,21
build.type production
20 bug fixes since v22.2 release
Tag: V22.3
Description:

Binary patching is slow because of the inventory

Posted on May 10, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 23

The headline of this blog post may sound a bit cryptic: Binary patching is slow because of the inventory. But actually this seems to be one of the main causes when your binary patching gets slower and slower with every patch you apply.

Photo by Valdemaras D. on Unsplash

The more you patch, the worse it gets

Well, this is a tough headline. But you may have read my blog posts about my quarterly patching experience. It actually started with the July 2021 RU in my 19c environment when I wrote:

At least in my environment, both checks with the

How to speed up your database and GI patching

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 4

Several of you mailed me already and commented. And I know that I promised this blog post for weeks, if not longer. So let me try to explain How to speed up your database and GI patching. Since this blog post has a longer history, I’d say far over 6 months, it will be a bit longer than the usual posts. At when I started writing it, I decided to split it up into several pieces to make it more digestible but also to allow easier finding of certain topics. I hope it may help easing some recent patching …

Virtual Classroom Seminar #14: AutoUpgrade 2.0 on May 5, 2022

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 4

If you finally want to see all the cool new features of AutoUpgrade 2.0 (the 2.0 is just a marker we use to say: We improved it significantly!), the please sign up to Virtual Classroom Seminar #14: AutoUpgrade 2.0 on May 5, 2022.

Virtual Classroom Seminar #14: AutoUpgrade 2.0 on May 5, 2022

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

What are we going to talk about?

The development team invested a lot of resources to implement some of the most wanted features in AutoUpgrade. Spoiler: One feature is still missing but will be released very soon. In this Thursday’s Virtual Classroom Seminar we will talk about:

PDB and non-CDB

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 – End of Support and Patch Bundles

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 1

This will be a short blog post but since I received a number of messages yesterday after I published my usual Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles blog post I need to clarify a few things regarding Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 – End of Support and Patch Bundles.

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 - End of Support and Patch Bundles

Photo by Samuel Scrimshaw on Unsplash

Premier Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

If you remember this, the Premier Support period for Oracle 12.2.0.1 ended on November 30, 2020.

Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Since many of you were still on Oracle 12.2.0.1 when the end of Premier Support …

Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 25, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 33

Easter time is patching time. And since I was hiking and biking every day the last week up in the Northern Italian mountains, this blog post is coming with a slight delay. But better late than never. Time to show you my usual exercise, this time Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles.

Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home. Please see this blog post about how to apply the RU …

Migrating Flashback Data Archive (FDA) tables

Posted on April 8, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Export - Import 2

This morning I received an email question from a customer asking whether there is support for the Migrating Flashback Data Archive (FDA) tables in Oracle 19c. And since this is not the first time I received this question, I thought it may be good to have a blog post about it.

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

What is Flashback Data Archive (FDA)?

Well, google it. Actually I was looking for a link in our documentation but to my surprise I found the usual suspects such as Tim Hall’s excellent oracle-base page – but not much in our own doc …

Why you can’t stay on Oracle Database 11g forever

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 16

Oracle Database 11g? In 2022? Yes, I know – and you know too – there are Oracle 11g databases out there in production. And blindly I’d say: Too many. Of course, we are the “upgrade guys” trying to convince you to move to Oracle Database 19c. And I bet, for each of your 11g databases there’s a valid and legit reason why they haven’t upgraded yet. But there is one often neglected technical reason Why you can’t stay on Oracle Database 11g forever. So let me explain this below.

Photo by Kristoffer Darj on Unsplash

Oracle Database 11g?

Oracle Fail Safe is desupported in Oracle Database 21c

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Fail Safe 0

You may wonder about this message out of the blue. I wrote a blog post about Oracle Fail Safe being deprecated in Oracle 19c a while ago. But a customer recently pointed me to the fact that I didn’t blog about the fact that Oracle Fail Safe is desupported in Oracle Database 21c.

Oracle Fail Safe is desupported in Oracle Database 21c

Photo by Thanos Pal on Unsplash

Deprecated? Desupported?

A very quick recap about what deprecated and desupported mean. In short, deprecated means “we don’t develop something further but it is still fully supported”. Whereas desupported means “it may still work or may be gone, and you …

We are hiring … Developers and a Product Manager

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Job Offering 0

Our team is growing – not only the Upgrade team but also the Data Pump team. And we have a challenging new project where we search developers for. So yes, We are hiring … Developers and a Product Manager.

We are hiring ... Developers and a Product Manager

Photo by Ashley de Lotz on Unsplash

Software Developer – Cloud Migration Analyzer

At first, we are looking mostly for skilled developers. We have a new challenging and interesting project which our VP, Roy Swonger, owns. And there we look at first for developers with either very good APEX skills but also database knowledge or people who are good in programming …

AutoUpgrade 2.0 has been released – and got reuploaded

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 18

Many of you have used AutoUpgrade for your database upgrades already. Just a few days ago I received some almost enthusiastic comments which made me very very happy. And if you thought it can’t get any better, no worries: AutoUpgrade 2.0 has been released – and got reuploaded.

AutoUpgrade 2.0 has been released - and got reuploaded

Photo by Graham Pengelly on Unsplash

Why AutoUpgrade 2.0?

As you know, we don’t do marketing but just talk tech. But you may have also recognized that we slowed down in our agile release cycle for AutoUpgrade. The simple reason for this long period of silence was that we’ve had a …

Virtual Classroom Seminar 13 Data Pump – Slides, Video and QA

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Video / Viewlet Workshop 4

Thanks a lot to everybody who tuned in last week to our Virtual Classroom Seminar #13: Data Pump Extreme – Deep Dive with Development. We’ve had almost 600 attendees, and many of you stayed for the two full hours. And let me tell you that this is just awesome since there are enough people who think that a session has to be just 30 minutes or less. And of course, no it is time to share: Virtual Classroom Seminar 13 Data Pump – Slides, Video and QA.

Virtual Classroom Seminar 13 Data Pump - Slides, Video and QA

Photo by Pim Chu on Unsplash

The slides

As usual, you can …

Virtual Classroom Seminar 13: Data Pump Extreme – Deep Dive with Development

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 10

We worked very hard in the past weeks to compile our newest Virtual Classroom Seminar 13: Data Pump Extreme – Deep Dive with Development for you. Now it’s time to sign up for Thursday, March 3, 2022.

Virtual Classroom Seminar 13: Data Pump Extreme - Deep Dive with Development

When will it happen?

Our 13th Virtual Classroom Seminar will happen this Thursday, March 3, 2022 at a hopefully convenient time for you:

14:00h CET – 13:00 BST – 10 a.m. EST – 7 a.m. PST – 20:00h IST

As usual, we will be available to all your Data Pump questions throughout the entire seminar. Just use the QA option of the zoom …

What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 8

The last weeks, literally weeks, I have spent a lot of time with several patching topics. And in order to clean up my inbox a bit I will dump the learning into several blog posts. This one today will be about an interesting case I came across when a customer ran into problems with the runtime of datapatch in an ExaCC environment. Hence, today’s topic will be: What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

Photo by Alexander Kirov on Unsplash

Different components?

In a Multitenant environment you can choose various strategies for database components. When you …

Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 8

Actually I planned for a different blog post this morning. But since I have a backlog of unanswered comments accumulated I came across this interesting question from Pedro. He wanted to know how he can patch the OCW component in his database home. So I thought I will show you the process of Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home.

Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home

Photo by Barthelemy de Mazenod on Unsplash

Is this necessary?

That’s a good question for a Monday morning. I think: No, that isn’t necessary for a “Database only” home where you don’t have or …

Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 23

You may have read my previous blog post about patching all my environments to the January 2022 patch bundles. But since I do this in a very simple non-RAC, non-GI environment, I may not see issues you may have encountered. Some people commented – and I would like to share Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs . Still, please, this is NOT a collection of all open issues. I just see this blog post as a summary of the issues I have seen and/or heard about so far.

Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

555.1 is one

Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice Patch Recommendation 22

Today I will step on mined territory. Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch? Or can I just wipe out the old ones? That is a question which will bring people with temper quickly close to explosion. But let me start step by step, especially for those of you who aren’t familiar with this topic.

The secret directories

You L O V E secrets, don’t you? No? Well … then let me start with a secret which isn’t a secret to most people making it even more obscure.

When you install a patch with opatch or opatchauto, …

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 56

It’s patching time. When I checked an SR and had a quick discussion with a customer yesterday, Peter reminded me that it’s patching day. And at about 20:00h CET the new patch bundles appeared on MOS. So let me show you again Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles for 11.2.0.4, 12.2.0.1, 19c and 21c.

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz on Unsplash

How to get access to download older Oracle versions?

Posted on January 13, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 6

Today a friend asked me whether I know where to download Oracle 10g. Not a typo where I mixed 9 and 0 on my keyboard. So what if … How to get access to download older Oracle versions?

How to get access to download older Oracle versions?

Photo by Cenk Batuhan Özaltun on Unsplash

What’s on oracle.com and eDelivery

In the Software Delivery Cloud (formerly known as eDelivery) you will find the following base releases of the Oracle database:

How to get access to download older Oracle versions?

And the other source for downloads is oracle.com. But there you currently will be able to download Oracle Database 19c and Oracle Database 21c.

But there is no sight …

Goodbye 2021, welcome 2022 – and some thoughts

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Off Topic 8

The second pandemic year is ending – and a new year starts. It’s time to say Goodbye 2021, welcome 2022 – and some thoughts …

Photo by Jonny Caspari on Unsplash

Goodbye 2021

This was kind of a strange year, wasn’t it? It least for me it was. As for many of you, a lot of things were quite similar to 2020 when the pandemic took off. For me this meant zero business related travel. Which was not very amusing on one side since I really miss customers, colleagues, my team – and those Oracle nerds out there. I’ve got …

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 16

My calendar has no error or NLS conversion issue – I was just way to busy the past two months with seminars. But today a colleague asked me whether my 21.4 install reports a 21.3 Build Label in the trace files. And this reminded me that I should now finally apply the patch bundles from October 2021 to our Hands-On Lab environment. So again, another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles.

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

Photo by NCI on Unsplash

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you …

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Operating System 4

No worries, this isn’t a blog post from the vault. And I haven’t accidentally published something from the past just today. It is real. Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8.

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8

Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash

What has been certified?

Thanks to my colleagues and a large customer in the UK, I received an email asking whether I have seen this information already on MOS. I haven’t. I knew that there were discussions but I had no actual date for the 12.2.0.1 certification on OL8 on my radar.

So in brief, these Linux 8 releases …

Virtual Classroom Seminars 10-12: Videos and Slides are available

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Thanks to all of you for participating in our last 3 web seminar session. And since some of you had to leave earlier in one of the Virtual Classroom Seminars 10-12: Videos and Slides are available for download and on-demand viewing.

Virtual Classrom Seminar - Migrating Large Databases

No registration is required – you can watch all of our seminars anytime.

And as usual, our workshops are free of buzz words and explain only technical topics. The presenters Roy Swonger, Daniel Overby Hansen, Rodrigo Jorge, Bill Beauregard and myself, we all love to talk about technical topics, show and share demos and put …

Virtual Classroom Seminar 12: Migrating Very Large Databases on Dec 9, 2021

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

It looks to me that every possible event in 2021 happens in October/November/December 2021. No complaint from my side – but just in case you wonder about so little update activity on our blogs since weeks. We are just so busy in delivering virtual seminars. Which is good – but it requires lots of effort on our side as we want to deliver decent quality and real tech content. And now, since the year is almost at its end, it is time for our final Virtual Classroom Seminar 12: Migrating Very Large Databases on Dec 9, 2021 this year.

Virtual Classroom Seminar 12: Migrating Very Large Databases on Dec 9, 2021

Photo

What has happened?

Download the May 2022 version

Changes / Fixes / Enhancements

The more you patch, the worse it gets

What are we going to talk about?

Premier Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

What is Flashback Data Archive (FDA)?

Oracle Database 11g?

Deprecated? Desupported?

Software Developer – Cloud Migration Analyzer

Why AutoUpgrade 2.0?

The slides

When will it happen?

Different components?

Is this necessary?

555.1 is one

The secret directories

What’s on oracle.com and eDelivery

Goodbye 2021

What has been certified?

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