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

Windows Only: Upgrade to Oracle 18.10.0 fails with ORA-01722

Liron Amitzi reported this on his blog a few days ago already. And it is a very nasty tiny little issue happening with RUs where the second number of the release enters the two-digit-space, such as 18.10.0. At this point, on Windows Only: Upgrade to Oracle 18.10.0 fails with ORA-01722. This happens late in the upgrade phase.

Windows Only: Upgrade to Oracle 18.10.0 fails with ORA-01722

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What is the issue?

The problem here is a tiny little piece in %ORACLE_HOME\admin\catupstr.sql – a SUBSTR function is used in a way that it does not take into account a potential two-digit …

Transportable Tablespaces – Example and strange error with a PDB

Yesterday I was browsing around for a useful simple example to test Transportable Tablespaces. A colleague mailed with the other day with a strange error message. The attempt to import into a PDB in Oracle 19c failed. My first thought: Oh, this is simple. But I failed, too. And even worse, I couldn’t find a single useful note in MyOracle Support (MOS) for ORA-31640, ORA-27037, Linux-x86_64 Error: 2 with Additional information: 7. So I decided to summarize this in Transportable Tablespaces – Example and strange error with a PDB.

Transportable Tablespaces - Example and strange error with a PDB

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A simple Transportable Tablespace

Upgrade Webinars 2020 – Recap and Videos on-demand

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

Thank you for participating in our 4 Database Upgrade to Oracle 19c webinars in the past two weeks. There were over 800 questions during the webinars – and it was a good idea that we prerecorded them. This way, I could answer your questions as it was a more convenient time for me than for Roy. We enjoyed it a lot – and from the feedback I read, most of you enjoyed it, too. Now please read about Upgrade Webinars 2020 – Recap and Videos on-demand below.

Upgrade Webinars 2020 - Recap and Videos on-demand

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The Slides

I uploaded all 4 decks …

Collection of EBS upgrade information for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich E-Business Suite 0

This was the question I received the most often during the Virtual Classroom webinars last week: “Can you say something about EBS upgrades with 19c?”. And I promised to publish a blog post about it. But as I’m not an EBS expert, I can only share a Collection of EBS upgrade information for Oracle Database 19c. For all further inquiries, please open an SR or get in touch with your Oracle contact.

Collection of EBS upgrade information for Oracle Database 19c

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Recap – EBS and Oracle 19c

In September 2019, right before Oracle Open World, we announced the certification of EBS with …

Upgrade Webinars 1 and 2 – A quick recap, slides download and more

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice Workshop 2

Thank you for participating in the first two webinars. Roy and I did already the “Release and Patching Strategy” webinar on Tuesday, June 23. And today “AutoUpgrade to Oracle 19c”. So it time for Upgrade Webinars 1 and 2 – A quick recap, slides download and more.

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Slides Download

I uploaded the slides already to https://mikedietrichde.com/slides/#WEB2020. Of course, I will upload the other slide decks as well to the same location.

Webinar Recordings

As soon as the recordings page has been completed, we will send out an email. And I will post the links …

Special characters show junk in CLOB columns after upgrade to Oracle 19.7.0 with JDBC

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 21

When you’d copy & paste the above title into a search engine, you may come across a very similar sounding blog post I wrote two years ago. Today, my dear colleague Dirk asked me on behalf of a customer if it’s possible that this bug is back in 19.7.0. Of course, I said “No”, for sure not. Bug 26380097 was fixed in Oracle 18c already. Gladly, Dirk insisted. So I checked the SR his customer opened.

Special characters show junk in CLOB columns after upgrade to Oracle 19.7.0 with JDBC

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And now I can write an unplanned blog post about Special characters show junk in CLOB columns …

Oracle Long Term Support vs Innovation Releases

Posted on June 18, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 0

Earlier this week I wrote about the recent exciting news: Oracle Database 19c Premier Support extended by more than 1 year. But if you went to MOS 742060.1 to read the fine print, you may have spotted another change as well: A differentiation between Oracle Long Term Support vs Innovation Releases.

Oracle Long Term Support vs Innovation Releases

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What is a Long Term Support Release?

MOS 742060.1 explains:

Oracle Database Long Term Releases are ideal for use cases that benefit from less frequent upgrades to newer releases. Long Term Releases offer the highest level of stability and the l

Oracle Database 19c Premier Support extended by more than 1 year

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 0

Exciting news. And some of you may have spotted it already due to an update on the Single Source of Truth note, MOS 742060.1 last week: Oracle Database 19c Premier Support extended by more than 1 year.

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Oracle Database 19c Premier Support extended by more than 1 year

This is an important message some customers have already asked for. Originally, the Premier Support period for Oracle Database 19c was supposed to run until end of March 2023. Now you may relax in your chair as this seems unbelievably far away. But that’s only…

Upgrade to Oracle Database 19c – Virtual Classroom Series

Posted on June 16, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 20

Roy and I delivered a similar seminar already for the Australia and New Zealand region. And now it is time at a more convenient time zone setting for EMEA and India. So if you are not tired of webinars yet, please sign up for our Upgrade to Oracle Database 19c – Virtual Classroom Series.

Upgrade to Oracle Database 19c - Virtual Classroom Series

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4 Webinars – Going far beyond upgrades

The idea for this series of 4 webinars is to cover not only the database upgrade itself. You will get much more than technical upgrade information. And we will stay as technical …

Off Topic: How to outsmart KEF EGG’s auto power off mode

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Off Topic 0

At first, this blog post has nothing to do with Oracle databases. And not even with databases. Still, I’d like to post it here as I couldn’t find any useful solution anywhere – except a program which is not available to end-users. Hence, this is fully Off Topic: How to outsmart KEF EGG’s auto power off mode.

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KEF EGG

KEF EGG Desktop Speakers

Let me say at first that I’m not doing any advertising for any company here. I recently bough a pair of KEF EGG speakers for my office desk. Especially when crafting …

Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database’s?

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI 2

A long while ago I blogged about whether you should keep your patch versions between Grid Infrastructure and Databases Homes in synch, or not. And today, Daniel dropped me a note mentioning that this old blog post may need an update for 18c/19c. He’s right. And as I’ve had trouble finding my old blog post, I title this one a bit more obvious: Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database’s?

Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database's?

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Before Oracle Database 18c

Since Oracle 18c we move from a 5-number release schema to a 3-number one. …

AutoUpgrade in trouble when you are short on RAM

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 3

Actually I blog about this topic for the simple reason that currently you won’t find helpful information in MyOracle Support. And I’ve seen this issue now twice in a row at Enterprise customers. You may see AutoUpgrade in trouble when you are short on RAM. During one of the restarts AutoUpgrade initiates you may get an ORA-600.

AutoUpgrade in trouble when you are short on RAM

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What you may see

At first, the alert.log – and this is the strange pattern here – does not give you any indication about this ORA-600. You will find it only in the logs written by autoupgrade.jar:…

Oracle 12.2.0.1 – Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 4

A few weeks ago, you read the announcement of the availability of Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. But many of you had some questions right away. I could answer most of them easily. But it was clear to us that there was more information needed. Hence, we published more information for Oracle 12.2.0.1 – Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support.

Oracle 12.2.0.1 - Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support

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What has been announced in April 2020?

Just a few weeks ago we announced the availability of Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1 after November 2020. You could find …

Do you love unexpected surprises? SYS_AUTO_STS in Oracle 19.7.0

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Optimizer 26

Last week I recorded seminars – and I wanted to garnish the Performance part with demo recordings from our Hands-On Lab. I used the Hands-On Lab instructions we published. And while I edited a recording, I realized that there was something new I haven’t seen before. Do you love unexpected surprises? SYS_AUTO_STS in Oracle 19.7.0? Of course you do …!

Do you love unexpected surprises? SYS_AUTO_STS in Oracle 19.7.0

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What happened?

In my environment I run load against my database, I collect statements from AWR and from Cursor Cache into two separate SQL Tuning Sets (STS). And then I upgrade my …

DBMS_JOB one-off patch needed for Oracle 19.3.0 – 19.7.0

Posted on May 21, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change Patch Recommendation 10

A while ago I blogged already about this behavior change for DBMS_JOB in Oracle Database 19c. Many of you are aware of this. But today I learned something new about it. Kudos to Alexey Makhmutov for bringing this to my attention. There is a very important fix you will need on top in 19c to avoid performance issues. If you rely on jobs with the old job interface, take note: DBMS_JOB one-off patch needed for Oracle 19.3.0 – 19.7.0

DBMS_JOB one-off patch needed for Oracle 19.3.0 - 19.7.0

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What is the problem?

As you can read from there is a internal …

AutoUpgrade and Plug In to a CDB – with a single command (and video)

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Single-/Multitenant 28

I have to confess, this feature is out and available for quite a while. But only unofficially. AutoUpgrade can upgrade and plug in a non-CDB into a CDB. But it lacked flexibility. And we didn’t test it a lot. Hence, you could find it documented in our Hands-On Lab instructions. And we did this exercise with you already in our sold-out labs at OOW 2019 as well. But since a week and a bit, it is officially supported: AutoUpgrade and Plug In to a CDB – with a single command (and video).

AutoUpgrade and Plug In to a CDB - with a single command (and video)

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Create

Of course, Oracle Clusterware is certified on OL8/RHEL8 as well

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Operating System 5

To be very honest, when I posted a few days ago, Oracle Database 19c is certified on OL8/RHEL8 I didn’t check for the Oracle Clusterware (OCW) certification. I blindly assumed that this is the case. But from comments and discussions on twitter, I realized it may be necessary to point this out explicitly to avoid confusion. Even though my fellow mate, RAC Product Manager Anil Nair has pointed it out already many times: Of course, Oracle Clusterware is certified on OL8/RHEL8 as well.

Of course, Oracle Clusterware is certified on OL8/RHEL8 as well

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Find it on MOS

Your source for certification information …

Oracle Database 19c is certified on OL8 and RHEL8

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Operating System 34

Oh … I’d say this was the question I’ve got asked the second most often in the past months (after a potential extension for Oracle 12.2.0.1 support): When will Oracle certify OL8 and RHEL8? And I read this question internally even more often. Now thanks to my team mate Daniel Overby Hansen who spotted it on Twitter on the weekend, we can tell you that … finally … drum roll … Oracle Database 19c is certified on OL8 and RHEL8.

Oracle Database 19c is certified on OL8 and RHEL8

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How do you get the information?

Go to MyOracle Support and hit …

4+1 Webinars: Upgrade, Migrate, Consolidate to 19c – not only for Australia

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 6

Actually this weekend Roy and I would have flown from Australia to New Zealand. We planned at least 5 seminars. And we’ll do them in person as soon as conditions allow. If you are not tired yet of all these webinars offered to you, then we have the right offering for you.

4+1 Webinars: Upgrade, Migrate, Consolidate to 19c - not only for Australia

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And not only for those of you based in Australia and New Zealand. Singapore, Japan, Korea and other countries in this part of the globe. Roy and I will run for 4+1 Webinars: Upgrade, Migrate, Consolidate to 19c – not only for …

Can you connect as SYSDBA without password into a PDB directly?

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 22

I’m happy when I learn something new every day. And today, right before I wanted to turn my computer into “sleep”, I learned something which surprises me a lot. Have you ever asked the question: Can you connect as SYSDBA without password into a PDB directly? Of course with the usual way of “sqlplus / as sysdba”.

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Can you?

Our answer always was: No. You can’t. There is no bequeath connection available.

Today somebody asked a similar question internally. And the answer caught Roy, Daniel, Bill and myself by surprise. There is an …

Upgrade Testing with a Refreshable PDB – does this work?

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 2

Yesterday, Daniel pinged me to discuss an upgrade testing scenario I had evaluated briefly by myself a while ago. I can’t remember why I gave up. But Daniel had some great ideas and tried already a lot in our OCI cloud. We want to use a refreshable PDB. And keep it up to date, then upgrade it. The idea of this approach: Whereas a CLONE or RELOCATE uses the initial command as the marker, a REFRESH would allow me to be way more in synch. So the question is: Upgrade Testing with a Refreshable PDB – does this work?

Upgrade Testing with a Refreshable PDB - does this work?

Photo

3 Live Webinars: Multitenant Webinar 3 Questions answered

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

This is the third and final QA blog post for the webinars we did in the last week of April 2020. Thank you for your attendance. I will publish the replay recordings as soon as they are available and link them as well. For now, please find here 3 Live Webinars: Multitenant Webinar 3 Questions answered.

3 Live Webinars: Multitenant Webinar 3 Questions answered

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Your Questions, our Answers for Webinar 3: Multitenant

103	We are in the process of migrating to Oracle Cloud using the xtts method for cross platform migration and we seem to be encountering an issue with it

3 Live Webinars: Upgrade and Performance Webinar 2 Questions answered

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

Thanks a lot to all of you who participated also in our second Webinar. Below you find now 3 Live Webinars: Upgrade and Performance Webinar 2 Questions answered.

3 Live Webinars: Upgrade and Performance Webinar 2 Questions answered

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Your Questions, our Answers for Webinar 2: Upgrade and Performance

I this blog post I answer all questions from the second seminar about AutoUpgrade to Oracle 19c and Performance Stability. Please find the links to the other QAs for Webinar 1 (Release Strategy, Patching and Cool Features) and Webinar 3 (Migration to Multitenant) below in the Links section of this blog post.

We need

3 Live Webinars: Slides Download and Questions Webinar 1 answered

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Thanks a lot to all of you who participated this week in the 3 live Webinars about Database Upgrade, Performance Stability and Multitenant. We were just overwhelmed but so many tuning in. And I hope you’ve enjoyed it. As promised here you’ll get more. So find here for all 3 Live Webinars: Slides Download and Questions Webinar 1 answered. Once the recordings are published, I will tell you via the blog of course as well.

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Slides Download

Thanks again also to Laura Garcia Villareal from Oracle University. If you have more questions regarding …

Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice 7

The title of this post sounds a bit weird: Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory. Just a few weeks ago, I posted about How long will my upgrade take … revisited. And Daniel adds a very useful piece to the upgrade speed topic. Read about his tests below.

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Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory

by Daniel Overby Hansen, Senior Principal Product Manager,
Oracle Database Upgrades and Cloud Migrations

Daniel Overby Hansen

Mike and I had a talk with a customer the other …

What is the issue?

A simple Transportable Tablespace

The Slides

Recap – EBS and Oracle 19c

Slides Download

Webinar Recordings

What is a Long Term Support Release?

Oracle Database 19c Premier Support extended by more than 1 year

4 Webinars – Going far beyond upgrades

KEF EGG

Before Oracle Database 18c

What you may see

What has been announced in April 2020?

What happened?

What is the problem?

Create

Find it on MOS

How do you get the information?

Can you?

Your Questions, our Answers for Webinar 3: Multitenant

Your Questions, our Answers for Webinar 2: Upgrade and Performance

Slides Download

Less is more – faster Oracle database upgrades with less memory

by Daniel Overby Hansen, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle Database Upgrades and Cloud Migrations

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by Daniel Overby Hansen, Senior Principal Product Manager,
Oracle Database Upgrades and Cloud Migrations