Issues with seed databases, patch bundles and OJVM in 19c

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls JVM 4

I really rely on people telling me about issues they saw. And in this case, it happened twice within a few days. At OOW London, a customer came after my talk and told me about invalid objects and an incredible long recompilation time. In fact, he had to apply an OJVM patch in order to solve this. When I returned home, Jure commented on the blog about a very similar issue. I spent some time on the weekend to check it out. And I realized: There are issues with prebuilt seed databases and OJVM in 19c.

Issues with seed databases, patch bundles and OJVM in 19c

Photo by Max

Oracle Database 20c – The first CDB-only release

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle Database 20c 6

Do you remember? At OOW 2019 in San Francisco, we announced that Oracle Database 20c will be the first CDB-only database release. But at this time we didn’t present this in written form. We told you, once the Oracle Database 20c documentation is available, you will see it. Oracle Database 20c – The first CDB-only release.

Oracle Database 20c - The first CDB-only release

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Oracle 20c is the first CDB-only release

Typically you will find deprecation and desupport notes in the Database Upgrade Guide. And there you will see also this note:

Desupport of Non-CDB Oracle Databases

Starting with Oracle Database

Is Oracle Fail Safe 4.2.1 certified with Oracle Database 19c?

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Fail Safe 2

From time to time I get questions regarding the certification of Oracle Fail Safe. And just the other day, a customer asked: Is Oracle Fail Safe 4.2.1 certified with Oracle Database 19c? I briefly browsed my blog posts about Oracle Fail Safe from the past, and even though I mentioned that the certification for 4.2.1 on Oracle 12.2.0.1 may apply to later versions, I never updated it.

Is Oracle Fail Safe 4.2.1 certified with Oracle Database 19c?

Yes, it is. But you may want to know where you can read and find this information.

The latest version of Oracle Fail …

APEX is invalid after upgrading to 12.2 – ORA-20001

Posted on February 11, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich APEX Flaws and Pitfalls 0

We are running the AutoUpgrade-for-RAC beta test since last week. And the first issue one customer encountered … is neither an AutoUpgrade nor a RAC issue. It has to do with APEX and SPATIAL, and missing grants. APEX is invalid after upgrading to 12.2 – ORA-20001

APEX is invalid after upgrading to 12.2 - ORA-20001

Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash

What is happening?

You are doing an upgrade to Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. And you receive a number of errors during the component validation phase.

19:04:14 SQL> EXECUTE dbms_registry_sys.validate_components;
...(19:04:15) Starting validate_apex for APEX_180100
ORA-20001: MISSING GRANT: grant execute on "MDSYS"."SDO_DIM_ARRAY" to APEX_180100
ORA-20001: MISSING GRANT: grant execute on

Be aware when you use _ORACLE_SCRIPT in scripts

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice 2

Recently I came across this when I gave a Multitenant workshop at a German customer. As part of the workshop I explained the _ORACLE_SCRIPT statements you will find in almost all scripts in ?/rdbms/admin. And one of the DBAs gave me a bright smile. He mentioned: “We use it already everywhere to avoid strange errors”. But be aware when you use _ORACLE_SCRIPT in scripts. I will explain, why this can be dangerous.

Be aware when you use _ORACLE_SCRIPT in scripts

Photo by Justin Chrn on Unsplash

What does _ORACLE_SCRIPT do?

First of all, this is an underscore parameter. Hence, you won’t find it in the Oracle …

Oracle Multitenant: Be aware of the silent COMPATIBLE change

Posted on February 7, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 3

This topic is included in our Multitenant slides for a long time. But whenever I want to point somebody to the blog post, I realize that it’s not on the blog yet. Actually I discussed this topic recently during a customer visit again. It’s time to put it on the blog. When you use Oracle Multitenant: Be aware of the silent COMPATIBLE change.

Oracle Multitenant: Be aware of the silent COMPATIBLE change

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

Mixed version environments

When you work with Oracle Multitenant, the sooner or later you will have mixed version environments. This may be CDBs with Oracle 12.1.0.2 or Oracle 12.2.0.1 together with …

The new Oracle 19c Hands-On Lab is available now for download

Posted on February 6, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Hands-On Lab 0

Wow, this took a long while. Thanks to my team mate, Data Pump Product Manager Bill Beauregard who went through the complex approval process, the new Oracle 19c Hands-On Lab is available now for download. And in addition, I adjusted the instructions on the blog as well.

The new Oracle 19c Hands-On Lab is available now for download

Photo by Kenrick Mills on Unsplash

What you’ll get …

At first, the download is huge. All together, you will download 13 files summing up to 25GB. When you unzip it, you will get an OVA file. Then you will need to import this appliance into Oracle VirtualBox. The lab will …

OOW London 2020 – Upgrade Talk and more

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich OOW 6

Since last year we organize regional Oracle Open World conferences. Not as big as the one in San Francisco (or in Las Vegas this and the following years), but still an exciting event. And for me, it will be the first time in a week to attend and speak at OOW London. Let me give you a very quick overview on our OOW London 2020 – Upgrade Talk and more.

Photo by James Padolsey on Unsplash

Upgrade Best Practices – Thursday, Feb 13 – 13:50-14:25h – Arena B – Zone 2

No idea who has cut down the tech …

Do you need to license Java for AutoUpgrade?

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 0

Actually this question came up internally. I did have no doubt that you don’t have to license Java in order to use AutoUpgrade. But a colleague had such doubts. So let’s clarify: Do you need to license Java for AutoUpgrade?

Do you need to license Java for AutoUpgrade?

Photo by nousnou iwasaki on Unsplash

Or phrased in a different way: “Since Java 8 requires a Java subscription now. Does autoupgrade come with a license?”

Do you?

Of course, No!

But where do the doubts come from? Actually this link here does not list the “Oracle Database” as a product. But there is this MOS Note …

Upgrade PDBs with RELOCATE – How does it work?

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant Upgrade / Migration 2

Today Roy and I received a question from a colleague about the RELOCATE feature in Multitenant. And I’d like to shed some light and this topic a bit more. Upgrade PDBs with RELOCATE – How does it work?

Upgrade PDBs with RELOCATE - How does it work?

Photo by Sebastian Pena Lambarri on Unsplash

RELOCATE and UPGRADE?

At first, it looks very promising to me. RELOCATE uses the HOT CLONE functionality of Multitenant but then relocates the PDB from one to another CDB. You need to fulfill a few important requirements, for instance:

Local Undo must be enabled in both CDBs
- This limits the technique to at least Oracle

Can you have more than 1 PDB with Standard Edition 2 (SE2)?

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich SE2 - Standard Edition 2 Single-/Multitenant 0

When we announced the 3-PDB-Support with Oracle Database 19c onward at OpenWorld 2019, I was very excited. According to the license documentation, this applies to Standard Edition 2 (SE2) as well. But does it work? Can you have more than 1 PDB with Standard Edition 2 (SE2)?

Can you have more than 1 PDB with Standard Edition 2 (SE2)?

Photo by Şahin Yeşilyaprak on Unsplash

The license documentation is pretty clear about 3 user-created PDBs:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/dblic/Licensing-Information.html#GUID-0F9EB85D-4610-4EDF-89C2-4916A0E7AC87

Check with Oracle Database 19.5.0 SE2

It’s been a while since I installed SE2 instead of EE. But everything goes smoothly. You just need to select “Standard Edition 2” in the OUI. The image you …

Do we offer patched Gold Images already?

Posted on January 28, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Installation 0

Internally we can use a Gold Image service at Oracle. I can download a zip with 19.6.0 included. But externally for you as customers, the download of 19.6.0 required that you download 19.3.0 at first, then apply 19.6.0 on top of it. But a day ago, a tweet by my Belgium friend Philippe Fierens caught my attention. Do we offer patched Gold Images already?

Do we offer patched Gold Images already?

Photo by Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash

What is a Gold Image?

Since Oracle 18c, the installation routine has changed to the better. You download zip file containing the Gold Image, you create a directory and …

Do you need to apply OJVM patches to Grid Infrastructure?

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Patch Recommendation 10

From time to time, when I discuss OJVM patching with customers, I hear the following question: Do you need to apply OJVM patches to Grid Infrastructure? I’m carrying around this topic since months actually.

Do you need to apply OJVM patches to Grid Infrastructure?

Photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash

A quick MOS check

Well, you’d assume this is something MOS does give you an answer within fractions of a second. But nope. I found a lot but unfortunately not what I was looking for. What I found instead where community discussions where applying OJVM patches to a 12.1.0.2 GI installation corrupted the inventory. Hence, there seems to be some …

Do you need STARTUP UPGRADE for OJVM?

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich JVM Patch Recommendation 5

Actually I carry around this topic with me since the October 2019 workshop in Dubai. We’ve had one of these OJVM Patching discussions I’d like to escape usually. Anyhow, during this session, it dawned me that the STARTUP UPGRADE requirement in the OJVM readme may be not correct anymore. So the question will be: Do you need STARTUP UPGRADE for OJVM?

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

A little bit of history

You will find a good amount of blog posts about OJVM here. OJVM stands for Oracle Java Virtual Machine. It is a very powerful thing and allows you …

Patching all my environments with the January 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 21

I was traveling last week and had not enough time to download and apply the January 2020 Release Updates and PSUs. Yes, I’m one week late. But nevertheless, I’d like to check whether patching my databases with the January 2020 RUs will work fine.

Patching all my environments with the January 2020 Patch Bundles

Wörthsee near Munich in January 2020 – Water temperature is 3.4°C

Security Alert January 2020

My usual approach is to start with the Security Alerts for January 2020. It leads me to the January 2020 Critical Patch Advisory. As I’m a database guy, this is the line I’m interested in: Oracle Database Server, versions 11.2.0.4, …

Canada rocks – and is really cold in winter

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 3

Last week I’ve had one of those travel weeks where I accumulate many working hours already by flying and having layovers and delays at lovely airports. Plus of course, I work in addition and deliver full-day workshops. And see customers. Still, I won’t complain as I like my job a lot. Especially meeting with customers and discussing various upgrade and migration topics can be really challenging sometimes. And I can confess, Canada rocks – and is really cold in winter. Seriously …

Canada rocks - and is really cold in winter

One of these weeks …

When you travel to Canada in winter, especially in a January, you can …

January 2020 AutoUpgrade is available for download

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 27

All of you upgrading your databases with AutoUpgrade or planning to do so can now download the newest version of our AutoUpgrade tool. We are offering the 20191220 version. If you ask yourself why we release the December version in January 2020, there’s a simple answer. We do extensive system testing with it before releasing it to the public.

January 2020 AutoUpgrade is available for download

Photo by pixel | visuals – Patrick Humm on Unsplash

Download 20191220 AutoUpgrade

You can always download the newest and some previous versions of the AutoUpgrade tool via this note:

MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

January 2020 AutoUpgrade is available for download

At the bottom of the …

GI Patch 28553832 may be needed before you upgrade to 19c

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Flaws and Pitfalls 0

Thanks to my colleague Sebastian Alasino who works in the MAA team out of the UK. Sebas highlighted this issue to. And I’d like to share it with you when you attempt to upgrade Grid Infrastructure to Oracle 19c. If you have the Docker RPM installed and you were lazy on patching, then GI Patch 28553832 may be needed before you upgrade to 19c.

GI Patch 28553832 may be needed before you upgrade to 19c

Photo by Daniel Frank on Unsplash

What is the issue?

If the Docker Engine RPM is installed and your GI version is 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1 or 18c below a certain patch level, the CSSD demon fails to …

Welcome onboard: Daniel Overby Hansen as Cloud Migration PM

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich General 0

I’m very happy to announce that as of January 1, 2020 a new decade begins. And Daniel Overby Hansen joins our group as new Cloud Migration Product Manager. I worked with Daniel on the customer side at SimCorp for many years. When we had a job opening in our group, we were very happy when Daniel applied for the opportunity.

Welcome onboard: Daniel Overby Hansen as Cloud Migration PM

Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash

Who is Daniel?

Daniel Overby Hansen – Senior Principal Product Manager – Cloud Migrations – Oracle

Daniel has many years of experience in building enterprise-grade software from the Danish global provider of financial software, …

“My” best records for 2019 – and some other thoughts

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Off Topic 2

Oh well, the older I get the faster years seem to pass by. I think this is natural. And a while ago I read a very good and reasonable explanation for this. But I can’t complain actually. Life is not boring at all – and I learn something new almost every day. As you know, one of the main reasons for this blog is to share parts of my learning experience with you, the good, the bad – and the patches 🙂

But there’s a life apart from Oracle (at least sometimes). And as some of you may know, music …

Happy New Year 2020!

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Off Topic 0

Hi everybody,

let me start the new year 2020 (for techies: 11111100100) with a loud HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!
I wish you all the best! Peace, health, fun, joy, love and whatever you desire. And of course, no ORA-600 or patching errors or wrong results 😉

Picture kindly borrowed from my cousin Harald 🙂

Have a great start into 2020!

–Mike…

Mobiliar Insurance consolidates over 350 PDBs to new Exadatas

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Customer Success 0

The year is almost over and many of you will take off in your well-deserved holidays. At this point it’s not time yet for a 2019 summary or my “Best Records of 2019” list, but to highlight a great success story from Swiss Mobiliar Insurance’s Oracle team.

Mobiliar Insurance consolidates over 350 PDBs to new Exadatas

Photo by Melina Kiefer on Unsplash

Mobiliar Insurance – never heard about them?

There are actually two typical situations when you’ve never heard about Mobiliar Insurance (“Die Mobiliar“) before. You either don’t live in Switzerland and you never visited one of our workshops nor any of the talks Alain Fuhrer and …

ORA-1722 when upgrading to 19.4.0 or 19.5.0 on Windows

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls 6

Oh boy – I try to avoid blogging about errors on a specific platform. But as this topic was brought to my attention now 3x in 2 weeks, I think I’ll send it out. And I hope you won’t hit this ORA-1722 when upgrading to 19.4.0 or 19.5.0 on Windows.

ORA-1722 when upgrading to 19.4.0 or 19.5.0 on Windows

What is failing?

The database upgrade only on the MS Windows platform fails when you attempt to upgrade to 19.4.0 or 19.5.0. This means, you downloaded and installed 19.3.0. And then you followed our advice and applied one of the most recent Release Update – ideally 19.5.0, the October 2019 …

Extended Support for Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 extended

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 3

These are good new in case you plan to use Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 longer in production. Just last week we extended the Extended Support for Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 by one additional year.

Extended Support for Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 extended

Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

Extended Support Extension for Oracle 12.1.0.2

Before, the Extended Support for Oracle 12.1.0.2 ended end of July 2021. Now you can purchase it until end of July 2022. For those of you who have it included in your contract anyway (for instance if you have a ULA or PULA), these are great news.

Please see:

MOS Note: 742060.1 – Release Schedule of

Oracle 20c is the first CDB-only release

Oracle Database 20c – Documentation and Cloud availability

Is Oracle Fail Safe 4.2.1 certified with Oracle Database 19c?

What is happening?

What does _ORACLE_SCRIPT do?

Mixed version environments

What you’ll get …

Upgrade Best Practices – Thursday, Feb 13 – 13:50-14:25h – Arena B – Zone 2

Do you?

RELOCATE and UPGRADE?

Check with Oracle Database 19.5.0 SE2

What is a Gold Image?

A quick MOS check

A little bit of history

Security Alert January 2020

One of these weeks …

Download 20191220 AutoUpgrade

What is the issue?

Who is Daniel?

Mobiliar Insurance – never heard about them?

What is failing?

Extended Support Extension for Oracle 12.1.0.2

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