Upgrading ORACLE RESTART from 11.2 to 12.1

First of all, Oracle Restart is deprecated in Oracle Database 12c. Deprecation means the product is still supported, you can open SRs, you’ll get bug fixes – but we won’t do further development of the product or feature.

• See MOS Note 1584742.1 Support Impact of the Deprecation Announcement of Oracle Restart with Oracle Database 12c
  for a clear description what “Deprecation” means in relation to Oracle Restart!

But a customer (Thanks to Jaco de Graaf for bringing this to my attention!) had a question via the blog about the best approach to upgrade his Oracle Restart configuration from Oracle 11.2.0.3 to Oracle 12.1.0.2 – and apply the October PSU as well.

What is Oracle Restart?
Please find an overview here in the doc. .

How to upgrade your Oracle Restart configuration?
The standard way is simple: Choose “Upgrade” in the starting page of the Grid Infrastructure’s OUI screen.

You won’t see anything saying “Upgrade Stand Alone Installation” or “Upgrade Oracle Restart” – but the general “Upgrade …” option will cover this topic as well.
.

Upgrade Oracle Restart and include a PSU (Patch Set Update)?
This is a bit more tricky and as far as I see not documented entirely. But Jaco did open an SR and Support could help.

1. Install 12.1 GI ‘software only’
2. Patch that software set to the latest PSU (using: opatch apply ….-local)
3. Remove the Oracle Restart configuration (using the ‘old’ 11.2 GRID_HOME)
   Please find a description on the excellent blog of my support colleague, Helmut Hutzler:
   http://www.hhutzler.de/blog/reconfigure-12-1-0-2-has-stack-running-11-2-0-4-database/
   or in MOS Note:986740.1
   It is important to mention that you need to use the ‘old’ GI Home to remove the Restart configuration – the MOS Note doesn’t say this explicitlely.
4. Reconfigure the Oracle Restart configuration (using the ‘new’ 12.1 GRID_HOME)
5. Add all required items back to the Oracle Restart stack (ASM, Listener, databases).

Steps 3, 4, and 5 will require a bit of downtime..

–Mike

—

Added
MOS Note 1584742.1: Support Impact of the Deprecation Announcement of Oracle Restart with Oracle Database 12c on Feb 22, 2015
MOS Note 1410202.1:How to Apply a Grid Infrastructure Patch Before root script (root.sh or
rootupgrade.sh) is Executed? on Feb 8, 2017