Oh … it’s just a few weeks left until Oracle Cloud World 2022 will start on Oct 17, 2022 in Las Vegas. If you have some final doubts whether you should go or not, let me tell you that it’s like Oracle Open World just under a different name. And in a different place. But with the same cool people and many great talks. Take the chance to meet the developers, their managers and the product managers behind the features you daily use – or miss. We’ll be there – and this is YOUR chance now to sign up for …
Continue reading...Intel uses AutoUpgrade to upgrade from Oracle 11.2.0.4 to 19c
Funny, I was traveling recently with RAC PM Anil Nair – but he forgot to tell me that this cool story has been published just a few days before we took of for YATRA 2022 to India: Intel uses AutoUpgrade to upgrade from Oracle 11.2.0.4 to 19c.
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What’s the story?
Gagan Singh, Enterprise Architect at Intel, shared it with me last week. The goal was to upgrade from Oracle 11.2.0.4 to Oracle 19c with the least amount of downtime to minimize the impact on factory operations. Oracle ACS and the RAC PM team …
Continue reading...Why I love the German, Austrian and Swiss customers – a DOAG 2022 conference recap
Wow – this was a tough week in Nürnberg at DOAG 2022 Conference. It started with a lot of rain. And I mean RAIN. Luckily I packed my umbrella last minute before going to the train station. But before I tell you a bit about this week, and why it was so incredibly important to be at DOAG 2022, let me tell you at first why I love the German, Austrian and Swiss customers – a DOAG 2022 conference recap.
At first, a big THANK YOU
And before I write something about “my” week, let me give a …
Continue reading...Certifying an application on a specific RU-only is wrong
Well, there are still 80+ comments I need to answer and reply to on the blog. So please be patient – nothing gets deleted or ignored. But it happens that a topic crosses my inbox, and I need to blog about it right now. Today, it is a case where a customer asked me for advice, and mentioned on the side that they are going to 19.6.0 in OCI. In this relation I’d like to explain why Certifying an application on a specific RU- only is wrong.
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What’s the story?
At first, …
Continue reading...DOAG Conference 2022 is next week already
I’m scared – time flies so quickly. Yesterday evening I returned from vacation, and this morning I spoke to Daniel and we both realized: There is only one week to go since DOAG Conference 2022 is next week already. Yes, in September 2022. Not as usually in November – September it will be this year. And we hope to see you there next week in my hometown, Nürnberg for another great DOAG conference.
Tuesday
Tuesday will be a theme day this year – and we’ll have two talks there. We? Yes, Daniel and I will do all sessions together this …
Continue reading...OC YATRA Tour 2022 – It was a blast. Or: Why conferences are so important
For a change, this isn’t a Monday morning rant. Instead, it is the opposite. It’s a summary of my late July trip to India to OC YATRA Tour 2022 – It was a blast. Or: Why conferences are so important.
OC YATRA 2002 – India, Begaluru, Sunday, July 24, 2022
How did it start?
Months ago, Sai Penumuru and the AIOUG organizers asked whether I’d be willing to come to India for the 2022 Oracle Community YATRA tour. The last time it happened – before the world knew about Covid – Roy was traveling and doing part of the …
Continue reading...This is for a friend.
This is for a friend. A dear friend. A friend who disappeared way too early.
Today we’ve got together to say goodbye to a colleague and a dear friend. Last week when I was in Switzerland I received this call nobody wants to receive. You went to the other side. I was in shock. I’m still in shock. I can’t believe it. I know, that is life. We need to accept it. But I’m in tears. And I miss you, my dear friend.
Flashback
We first met in 2003 I think when you picked up my team mate Ulrike for …
Continue reading...Two recent issues you may need one-off patches for
Uh … my blog counter tells me I have 57 unanswered comments in the queue at the moment. Forgive me, but July and August so far were really very busy months with some travel activity as well. And another proof that I’m not used to travel anymore: Last week I forgot the power adapter for my Mac at home and just realized it when I pulled out my Mac to do emails. Anyhow, this is a short Monday-vacation-time-blog post about two recent issues you may need one-off patches for since you otherwise may get trapped by them as well. Both …
Continue reading...Virtual Patching – the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard about
It’s time for my Monday morning rant. I guess, I’m turning slowly into a grumpy old man. And today, it is about something which came on my radar some weeks ago. After understanding what it means, I declare Virtual Patching – the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard about.
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Virtual Patching??
If you read this term for the first time, you may scratch your eyes at first as I did weeks ago when I read “Virtual Patching” in a brochure from a company offering Oracle services. I did ask the person …
Continue reading...Why you simply can’t upgrade from Oracle 11g or 12c to Oracle 23c
It’s time for a Monday morning rant. I receive more and more questions which all start similar. “My customer is on Oracle 11g and/or 12c, and want to know whether the next long term support release …“. Now let me clarify Why you simply can’t upgrade from Oracle 11g or 12c to Oracle 23c. And why you MUST upgrade to Oracle Database 19c.
What is the intention?
After a lot of discussions across many regions, especially in JAPAC during the past weeks I realized that there is a reason for all …
Continue reading...Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Bundle Patches
It’s brutally hot out there. It must be July. And I sit in my cool basement office and start my quarterly patching journey hoping that you can enjoy the sun and the sea somewhere. It is time to do my usual exercise, this time Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Patch Bundles.
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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 directly …
Continue reading...OC YATRA 2022 visiting 6 cities in India in July 2022
Yes, you read correctly in my blog post’s title: OC YATRA 2022 visiting 6 cities in India in July 2022. And it is already July. Just a few days to sign up – if you haven’t already. So please register here: https://www.aioug.org/ocyatra-2022
Just pick one of the six cities from the agenda page:
- 23 July 2022, Saturday – Chennai
- 24 July 2022, Sunday – Bengaluru
- 26 July 2022, Tuesday – Mumbai
- 28 July 2022, Thursday – Pune
- 30 July 2022, Saturday – Delhi
- 31 July 2022, Sunday – Hyderabad
And register yourself.
Please check out the awesome agenda with …
Continue reading...Upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 19c with Label Security Policies
I remember, I have a blog. Forgive me that I don’t write a lot at the moment even though I still have a long queue of “future posts to write”. It is just too busy, and I was away for almost two full weeks in June as well. But let me briefly drop information on an issue I learned about recently. It just affects your when Upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 19c with Label Security Policies. All other readers may simply ignore this blog post.
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What happens?
You are using Oracle Label Security, and …
Continue reading...How to speed up datapatch – and much more information
Ok, I promised to write more about patching speed. And this blog post will be just the root post targeting datapatch speed. I will link also to blog posts I’ve written before but also share knowledge which may not be obvious at first stage. The overall topic will be How to speed up datapatch – and much more information.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
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What is datapatch
Let me start at the ground level and explain what datapatch is and why it exists.
When you are still on Oracle Database 11g, you may wonder what datapatch …
Continue reading...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.
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What has happened?
A longer while ago, we introduced the very convenient ability to install patches …
Continue reading...A new version of AutoUpgrade has been released
Yes, we did it again. A new version of AutoUpgrade has been released. With important fixes.
Download the May 2022 version
So it is time to update your AutoUpgrade and download the most recent version.
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:… Continue reading...
Binary patching is slow because of the inventory
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.
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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:
… Continue reading...At least in my environment, both checks with the
How to speed up your database and GI patching
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 …
Continue reading...Virtual Classroom Seminar #14: AutoUpgrade 2.0 on May 5, 2022
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.
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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
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...Patching all my environments with the April 2022 Patch Bundles
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.
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 …
Continue reading...Migrating Flashback Data Archive (FDA) tables
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...Why you can’t stay on Oracle Database 11g forever
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.
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Oracle Database 11g?
… Continue reading...Oracle Fail Safe is desupported in Oracle Database 21c
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...We are hiring … Developers and a Product Manager
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...
