Receiving ORA-55940: An error occurred during execution of ktliIngestExternData

Posted on October 23, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing Flaws and Pitfalls 2

During my previous test with Unified Auditing Policies anomalies after upgrade to Oracle 19c, I also hit and error when I queried the unified audit trail. Hence, I make a reminder to myself and would like explain what to do in case you are Receiving ORA-55940: An error occurred during execution of ktliIngestExternData as well.

Receiving ORA-55940: An error occurred during execution of ktliIngestExternData

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What a strange error

I created a few policies by myself and did a database upgrade from Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle 19.8.0. And after upgrade, I wanted to check the records in my audit trail. But instead of …

Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 7

I have to confess: Time didn’t allow to rearrange my lab yet to have GI and ASM. Hence, this will be another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles with only non-RAC patching. But it is in the works …

Patching all my environments with the October 2020 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 when you provision a new home with OUI.

Security Alert

Check your Unified Auditing Policies after upgrading to Oracle 19c

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 19c 0

This may become a longer blog post. One of the customers I work with for many years contacted me a few weeks ago. After upgrade to 19c, it looked like as if some Unified Auditing Policies weren’t correct anymore. It started as a tiny issue, but thanks to the customer who analyzed down to the bones, it seems to be bigger than we thought at the beginning. So you may Check your Unified Auditing Policies after upgrading to Oracle 19c as well.

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Unified Auditing

Actually a lot of my customers use Unified Auditing these …

When Fixed Object Stats Gathering takes very long during upgrade …

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls 4

Over the past days I exchanged several emails with a very important customer regarding Fixed Objects Stats gathering in relation to database upgrade. The customer found out that it takes very long in their environment – over an hour to be precise. Relaxing on the weekend helped me a bit. And this morning, it dawned me that I’ve had two similar cases before already. Plus I didn’t blog about it yet. Now it’s time to tell you a little but about Unified Auditing and the situation when Fixed Object Stats Gathering takes very long during upgrade …

When Fixed Object Stats Gathering takes very long during upgrade ...

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Does Data Pump import only serially into PDBs?

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Data Pump 0

Daniel and I did Web Seminars this week. One of them was about the different migration strategies. We did talk a lot about Data Pump. One attendee mentioned that Data Pump Import does not work parallel into PDBs in Oracle 12.2.0.1 and Oracle 18c. We were skeptical, and today I tried out to check: Does Data Pump import only serially into PDBs?

Does Data Pump import only serially into PDBs?

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Very simple test setup

For this test, I take a schema export from an 11.2.0.4 database in our Hands-On Lab, the TPCC user HammerORA uses in the UPGR database.…

Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 certified on Oracle Linux 8 and RHEL8

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Operating System 6

The other day I received a question on Twitter regarding my experience with Oracle 12.1.0.2 on Linux 8. I first thought this may be an error. Why should Oracle 12.1.0.2 been certified on Linux 8. And I didn’t see anything internally about Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 certified on Oracle Linux 8 and RHEL8.

Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 certified on Oracle Linux 8 and RHEL8

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But it is true …

Thanks to Marian Bednar (Thanks a lot!!) who couldn’t find any information on my blog, now I know. Marian pointed me to the Release Notes Oracle Database 12.1.0.2. They’ve got updated in July 2020 already …

Which database version can be used with Grid Infrastructure 19c?

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI 5

This will be a very short blog post today. But a colleague asked me this question just a few minutes ago: Which database version can be used with Grid Infrastructure 19c? And I realized that I neither put it on the blog yet nor did I bookmark it. But I answered this question several times already.

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Which database version can be used with Grid Infrastructure 19c?

There are 4 sources I did check:

MOS Notes on MyOracle Support
Oracle Documentation
Certification Information on MyOracle Support
Database Upgrade Blog

At first, I answered with MOS …

Transportable Tablespaces: Keep tablespace files read-only

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Transportable 2

When you Transport Tablespaces, you may be aware of a change in behavior a long while ago. When your tablespace import has been finished, a tablespace will be taken read-write automatically. But there may be situations when you’d like the previous behavior. Now you can have this with Transportable Tablespaces: Keep tablespace files read-only.

Transportable Tablespaces: Keep tablespace files read-only

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Default Behavior

Since Oracle Database 12c a tablespace will be taken read-write once the meta data import has been completed automatically. This was different in previous database releases. We used the technique a long time ago for a telco provider …

Test Transportable Tablespaces without Read-Only Mode

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Transportable 0

From time to time I deal with Transportable Tablespaces as an upgrade and migration approach. But TTS has one major flaw, especially when databases get really really big in the 3-digit-terabyte sizes or more: You will need to switch your tablespaces into read-only mode. But since Oracle Database 19c, you can Test Transportable Tablespaces without Read-Only Mode.

Test Transportable Tablespaces without Read-Only Mode

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Transport Constraints

Transportable Tablespaces (TTS) is a very common technique, especially when you need to migrate databases across Endianness. Since Oracle 10g, TTS works even from Big Endianness to Little Endianness platforms, and vice versa. Only if …

Upgrade to Oracle 19c – Virtual Classroom Series – Parts 5 and 6

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

October will be a very busy month. Daniel and I are putting the slides together at the moment for the upcoming Upgrade to Oracle 19c – Virtual Classroom Series – Parts 5 and 6. We will speak about “Database Migration Techniques” and about “Move to the Cloud – For Techies Only“. No worries if you missed Parts 1-4 as you can watch all of them online on-demand. Find all links below.

Upgrade to Oracle 19c – Virtual Classroom Series - Parts 5 and 6

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Register for the Virtual Classroom Part 5 and Part 6 events

Find the overview for both events here …

User Group Seminars in October about Upgrade, Migration and Patching

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

I didn’t blog a lot in the past weeks. At the moment, most of my time is consumed either by customer web meetings and workshops, or the preparation for the User Group Seminars in October about Upgrade, Migration and Patching. Below I will list these – please feel free to sign up. #SupportUserGroups

User Group Seminars in October about Upgrade, Migration and Patching

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October 1 – Swiss Oracle User Group

October will start for me with a keynote for the Swiss Oracle User Group on Thursday, October 1 at 13:00h, about the Migration to Oracle Multitenant.

Registration: https://soug.ch/soug-day-september-21st-2020/
Date / Time:

KSAOUG – EMEA Groundbreakers – Database Patching – Welcome to the Jungle

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Sorry … posted by accident in the wrong category – this is the correct blog post:

User Group Seminars in October about Upgrade, Migration and Patching

–Mike…

Another surprise: DBMS_PDB in Oracle 11.2.0.4

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 2

I think I should start a blog post series of surprises. At least, this time it’s not harmful at all. But it still a surprise. And ACE Director Rodrigo Jorge reported about it and did ask me for more details. So yes, here we have Another surprise: DBMS_PDB in Oracle 11.2.0.4.

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DBMS_PDB

You use the package DBMS_PDB normally to create the so called XML manifest file which describes the physical layout of a PDB or future PDB. And it adds some markers. You can find the package since Oracle Database 12.1.0.1 …

ORA-1555 won’t get reported into alert.log anymore since 19.4.0

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change 6

Many thanks to a German customer for showing me this tiny behavior change with Oracle Database RU 19.4.0. From this RU on the well known ORA-1555 won’t get reported into alert.log anymore since 19.4.0. But if you still like to see the “snapshot too old” error, then you can use a workaround.

ORA-1555 won't get reported into alert.log anymore since 19.4.0

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Why has this been changed?

Actually this is something I don’t understand completely. It may be just a side effect. Unpublished fix bug 29424999 – DUMP MINIMAL DIAGNOSTICS BY DEFAULT IN CASE OF ORA-01555 IN ADW/ATP ENV has been …

Pitfall: ORA-1843 – NOT A VALID MONTH in Oracle 19.4 – 19.8

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 15

Today, I’d like to write about a tiny little issue – which can cause some real trouble in Oracle 19c. This blog post is about the Pitfall: ORA-1843 – NOT A VALID MONTH in Oracle 19.4 – 19.8.

Pitfall: ORA-1843 - NOT A VALID MONTH in Oracle 19.4 - 19.8

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The Testcase

My testcase is super-simple – and you can reproduce it even without any object in 2 seconds (one for “copy“, the other for “paste“). Simply execute this query:

select to_date('20191120','RRMMDD') from dual;

Or this one where I replace “RR” with the more common “YY”:

select to_date('20191120','YYMMDD') from dual;

MGA Issue – and it is fixed with Oracle 19.8.0 and newer

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Flaws and Pitfalls 4

Where do I start? One of the customer accounts I worked the longest time with recently upgraded to Oracle 19c on Exadata. They are an Exadata customer since 2009. After going live on 19c, a few days later they hit an MGA Issue – and it is fixed with Oracle 19.8.0 and newer. But question no.1 was: Why hasn’t Oracle warned us – and how could we have learned about it?

MGA Issue - and it is fixed with Oracle 19.8.0 and newer

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What is the MGA?

OK, I have heard of SGA and PGA. But MGA? The first two hits when I search with …

AutoUpgrade and the Partial Offline Backup Strategy

Posted on August 18, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls 1

In our Fallback talk we promote a backup strategy for large DWHs and database which are on purpose in NOARCHIVELOG mode. But last week I learned that there is something important to know about AutoUpgrade and the Partial Offline Backup Strategy. Otherwise you may hit a

AutoUpgrade and the Partial Offline Backup Strategy

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pitfall.

Partial Offline Backup Strategy?

I won’t explain in all details what this is. If you’d like to read more, please find all the necessary information on my blog post from July 17, 2018:

Fallback Strategy: Partial Offline Backup

with graphics included. In brief, you take …

LAOUC Web Seminar: Oracle Multitenant – 3 PDBs and many secrets

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

Just a few hours left until I’ll start my LAOUC Web Seminar: Oracle Multitenant – 3 PDBs and many secrets today, Aug 17, 2020. I’m really looking forward to it even though it is a bit sad this time. Usually in the past years I was traveling to Latin America. And I enjoyed the intense discussions in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil a lot. The local folks invest so much time in these yearly user group conferences. Hence, as for most other events as well, this year you’ll be able to participate virtually over multiple days.

LAOUC Web Seminar: Oracle Multitenant - 3 PDBs and many secrets

Oracle Multitenant – 3 PDBs

Cloud Migrations: The New Kid on the Blog – DOHDATABASE.com

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Cloud 0

You may have realized that you will find mostly on-prem database upgrade and migration topics covered on my blog. Which doesn’t mean that you can’t use most of these techniques to migrate to the cloud either. But it’s really hard to write about everything in full detail. Hence, today I’d like to introduce you to Cloud Migrations: The New Kid on the Blog – DOHDATABASE.com. And no, I was never a fan of this American boyband from the 80s and 90s 😉

Cloud Migrations: The New Kid on the Blog - DOHDATABASE.com

Find Daniel’s blog at: https://dohdatabase.com

DOHDATABASE … huh?

Daniel Overby Hansen

As you may have read a …

Oracle AutoUpgrade between two servers – and Plugin?

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 4

In my previous blog post I demonstrated how you can upgrade with AutoUpgrade between two servers. This a very typical scenario where you get new server, often also with a newer operating system version installed. But I was wondering if you can use Oracle AutoUpgrade between two servers – and Plugin?

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AutoUpgrade between two servers

Please see my previous blog post about all the details:

Oracle AutoUpgrade between two servers – Aug 3, 2020

Upgrade and Plugin?

At the end of it, I was curious if I couldn’t just plugin afterwards. But I …

Oracle AutoUpgrade between two servers

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 18

I try to catch up with missing AutoUpgrade posts. And I should have written this one a while earlier ideally. Just yesterday a colleague asked me about it. So it’s time now to describe how to use Oracle AutoUpgrade between two servers.

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Documentation

The Oracle Database 19c Upgrade Guide has this section about the scenario:

AutoUpgrade with Source and Target Database Homes on Different Servers

And you see that it consists of 5 steps:

Run the -mode analyze step on source server
Run the -mode fixups step on source server
Shutdown and

AutoUpgrade with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade TDE - Transparent Database Encryption 4

I knew, one fine day I will have to dig into TDE. Resistance is futile. There were so many questions regarding AutoUpgrade with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) in the past weeks and months. And the team is still working hard on a solution to make the non-CDB to PDB plugin flawless and automated for such cases. But I won’t cover the latter in this post here. I will solely focus on the database upgrade itself.

AutoUpgrade with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

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TDE?

Almost everybody of you reading this blog post may have more knowledge of Transparent Data Encryption than I. …

Install and Patch in one single action with OUI

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Installation Patch Recommendation 18

This is such a common case: You want to install a new Oracle Home and you’d like to apply the most recent patch bundle to it as well. But as we don’t officially offer Gold Images to download where the RU is included already, you have to do three tasks instead of one. But you can avoid this and Install and Patch in one single action with OUI.

Install and Patch in one single action with OUI

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Recommendation and 3 standard actions

We always recommend that you apply the most recent RU. Hence, usually you will download Oracle Database 19.3.0 from …

Web Seminar MEA – Recap, Slides, Recording and Answers

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 2

A few weeks ago, on June 29, 2020, I delivered an Upgrade Web Seminar for the MEA region. Thanks a lot if your participated. And today I’d like to share with you for this Web Seminar MEA – Recap, Slides, Recording and Answers.

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Recap

Thanks to those who found the time to participate. I enjoyed the hour a lot. And thanks also to my colleagues from Oracle Dubai who set up the session and handled the registration and the logistics.

Slides

You can download the slides for this session as usual from the Slides …

How to skip a Fixup in AutoUpgrade

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 4

In this blog post I’d like to demonstrate how to skip a fixup in AutoUpgrade. This can be very useful in cases where you know that an issue may happen. Recently we saw several cases with unexpected long runtime for the gathering of fixed objects stats.

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Analyze Mode

During the analyze phase, AutoUpgrade creates a <SID>_checklist.cfg file. You will find it in your job’s prechecks subdirectory, e.g.

/home/oracle/logs/DB12/100/prechecks

My SID is DB12, and 100 is the job number.

This is how the db12_checklist.cfg looks in my example:

[SID]          [DB12]
==========================================
[container]          [DB12]

What a strange error

Security Alert

Unified Auditing

Very simple test setup

But it is true …

Which database version can be used with Grid Infrastructure 19c?

Default Behavior

Transport Constraints

Register for the Virtual Classroom Part 5 and Part 6 events

October 1 – Swiss Oracle User Group

DBMS_PDB

Why has this been changed?

The Testcase

What is the MGA?

Partial Offline Backup Strategy?

Oracle Multitenant – 3 PDBs

DOHDATABASE … huh?

AutoUpgrade between two servers

Upgrade and Plugin?

Documentation

TDE?

Recommendation and 3 standard actions

Recap

Slides

Analyze Mode

Archives

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