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.
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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.
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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 …
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...AutoUpgrade 2.0 has been released – and got reuploaded
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...Virtual Classroom Seminar 13 Data Pump – Slides, Video and QA
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.
The slides
As usual, you can …
Continue reading...Virtual Classroom Seminar 13: Data Pump Extreme – Deep Dive with Development
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.
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 …
Continue reading...What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?
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?
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Different components?
In a Multitenant environment you can choose various strategies for database components. When you …
Continue reading...Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home
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.
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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 …
Continue reading...Some additional information regarding the Oracle 19.14.0 RUs
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.
555.1 is one
… Continue reading...Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?
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, …
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