Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Exadata / ODA Oracle Database 19c 23

This will be a short but very important blog post for those of you with Exadata systems. Then you should Upgrade to Oracle 19c on Exadata with AutoUpgrade.

Why is this important?

Until a week ago, the database upgrade MyOracle Support (MOS) note showed the process using the DBUA. And we had plenty of customers asking us why AutoUpgrade isn’t mentioned there. Our team worked already with some of you, and we knew that AutoUpgrade works perfectly fine and takes over some manual actions.

But our MAA team wanted a perfect solution. They tested a lot, especially all the edge cases. And we learned that AutoUpgrade will need some improvements, especially when it comes to encryption. This was a great cross-team collaboration, and we need to thank Sebastian Alasino but also the entire MAA team for all the tests they have done.

So now it’s time to announce that MOS Note: 2542082.1 – 19c Grid Infrastructure and Database Upgrade steps for Exadata (Linux) has been changed significantly. Please use AutoUpgrade from now on for your upgrades to Oracle 19c on Exadata systems. It will make your upgrade experience much easier and smoother.

Some annotations

As the note states boldly, you please need to use at least AutoUpgrade 21.1.3.

The current version of AutoUpgrade while I’m writing this blog post is 21.1.4. You should always download the most recent version upfront from MOS Note: 2485457.1 and replace <Target Oracle Home>/rdbms/admin/autoupgrade.jar with the new version.

When you access MOS Note: 2542082.1 you need to make sure to follow the requirements such as (I’m copying from the note):

  1. Required Oracle Database version is one of the following: 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, or 18c.
  2. Required Oracle Grid Infrastructure version is one of the following: 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, or 18. Grid Infrastructure 11.2.0.4 upgrades directly to 19 require additional steps. Review Document 2700151.1 before proceeding.
  3. Exadata version must be 19 or higher.
  4. Always upgrade Database and Grid Infrastructure to the latest 19c Release Update. See Document 888828.1 for details.
  5. The source and target Grid Infrastructure home and Database home may need fixes installed to perform successful upgrade. See section “Required Grid Infrastructure and Database Patches” below for details.
  6. Additional fixes may be required or recommended in addition to those needed to perform the upgrade. Details are in Document 888828.1. Refer to the “Prepare the Existing Environment” section for details.

And then you can start – if you haven’t upgraded to Oracle 19c already.

Thanks, Sebas!!

ExaCS and ExaCC?

Please see the top paragraph of MOS Note: 2542082.1:

This note should not be used for Exadata Cloud Service or Exadata Cloud at Customer, instead, please refer to Document 2624992.1 and Document 2628228.1 for further information.

Further Links and Information

–Mike

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23 Responses

  1. Mohammed Ayaaz says:
    June 16, 2021 at 13:16

    Hi Mike , is this applicable to databases on OCI? Currently we are following – Upgrading Oracle Database 12c to Oracle Database 19c for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 on OCI Exadata DB Systems (Doc ID 2662718.1)

    Reply
    • Mohammed Ayaaz says:
      June 16, 2021 at 13:18

      Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) and AutoUpgrade – AutoUpgrade is not recommended for EBS customers at this time. Please see the E-Business Suite Product Information Center Index

      Reply
      • Mike.Dietrich says:
        June 16, 2021 at 13:47

        Hi Mohammed,

        the EBS team unfortunately often chooses paths which are not in alignment with other groups. In this particular case we offered from day 1 assistance regarding AU for EBS, especially since we knew that AU can plugin while old DBUA will never be able to do so. But the EBS team found an issue, and then put AU to the side. Since then we haven’t seen or heard of any attempts to certify AutoUpgrade for EBS.

        Well, at least SAP does certify AU within the next weeks. But I don’t known whether the EBS team runs an evaluation.

        Cheers,
        Mike

        Reply
  2. Michael Fontana says:
    June 16, 2021 at 14:31

    Great article! Impressed that you reference official Oracle support documents to support your directives!

    Reply
  3. Michael Fontana says:
    June 16, 2021 at 14:32

    You didn’t respond to the general question as to whether this new method is supported in OCI. Mohammed mentions it in the context of EBS. How about Cloud Exadata?

    Reply
    • Mike.Dietrich says:
      June 16, 2021 at 18:55

      Hi Michael,

      true – sorry for that 🙂

      But when you access the note, it tells you right in the top paragraph:

      ” This note should not be used for Exadata Cloud Service or Exadata Cloud at Customer, instead, please refer to Document 2624992.1 and Document 2628228.1 for further information.”

      I will add it to the article to avoid confusion.

      Cheers,
      Mike

      Reply
  4. Mark Britton says:
    June 16, 2021 at 15:47

    Hi Mike, Would this apply to Exadata Cloud at Customer as well?

    Reply
  5. pewu78 says:
    June 17, 2021 at 07:26

    Currently available version in MOS Note: 2485457.1 is still 21.1.3 build 20210421.

    Reply
  6. Sebastian Alasino says:
    June 22, 2021 at 17:03

    Hi Mike, thanks for your words and you are right, most of the problems were related to TDE. In the cloud, it is easy to automate the update when TDE is deployed because we only have one standard, for on-prem installations it was very challengin for the development team to deal with multiple scenarios regarding the location of sqlnet.ora and keys. Autoupgrade can automate the conversion from SQLNET.ENCRYPTION_WALLET_LOCATION (deprecated since 18c) to WALLET_ROOT, with this we fixed all the problems. The conversion to WALLET_ROOT is mandatory and it will facilitate the next upgrade or out-of-place patching. Happy upgrade

    Reply
  7. Holger Kalinowski says:
    July 21, 2021 at 10:23

    Hi Mike,
    I auto-upgraded successfully a couple of RAC databases from 12.1.0.2 to 19.10 on Exadata. That worked absolutely fine.
    Question now is: how would autoupgrade handle Data Guard Environments?
    I faintly remember having read somewhere this was also planned for autoupgrade but couldn’t find a current statement of this.
    What I’d like to do is autoupgrading RAC+DG environments.

    Thanks & Best Regards from Hamburg
    Holger

    Reply
  8. Aman says:
    July 29, 2021 at 19:46

    Hi Mike,

    I am trying to upgrade 12c to 19c on exadata machine, while I am trying to dbca to create empty container on 19c, the dbca is getting hang, all I can see in the dbca log is “invalid SDP protocol”, are there any prerequisite we need to consider for exadata machine

    Reply
  9. Ajay says:
    August 21, 2021 at 03:38

    Currently, We are in EBS Application 12.2.8 & Database 12.1.0.2 version. Planning to upgrade EBS Database from 12.1.0.2 (3 node RAC) to 19c ( Multi-Tenant).
    EBS application will be in 12.2.8 remains same. we will disturb the EBS application.

    Please suggest your approaches to upgrade Database 12.1.0.2 (3 Node RAC) to 19c (Multi-Tenant)?

    Reply
  10. Ajay G says:
    November 10, 2022 at 19:38

    Hi Mike,

    Currently, We are in Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 version. Planning to upgrade Oracle Database from 12.2.0.1 (Non RAC) to 19c ( Multi-Tenant).
    Front end application using Xstore (Xoffice/Xadmin) will be remains same.

    Reference document followed and implemented in development environment.

    https://oracle-base.com/articles/19c/upgrading-to-19c

    Please suggest your approaches to upgrade Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 to 19c (Multi-Tenant) and also Troubleshooting performance issue after 19c (multi-Tenant) Eg: Long running queries running longer in 19c than 12c database. Please suggest how to handle performance issues after upgrade to 19c

    Reply
    • Mike.Dietrich says:
      November 14, 2022 at 15:42

      Hi Ajay,

      I can’t comment on Tim’s blog post – but I think he knows that he is a bit behind with it by not using AutoUpgrade, especially since other Oracle ACE Directors heavily promote AutoUpgrade already by first hand experience and success.

      Please use our slides and virtual classroom seminars – especially Episode 2 and 3 but also 4 are the ones you are looking for:
      https://mikedietrichde.com/videos/

      Click on the pictures for the slides-only.

      And check Episode 14 for the Refreshable Clones which are the coolest way in case your source is already 12.2.0.1 (which is the case according to your message).

      See also our OCW22 slides for AutoUpgrade 2.0 for the refreshable clones:
      https://mikedietrichde.com/slides/#OCW2022

      Cheers
      Mike

      Reply

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Mike Dietrich
Oracle Senior Director of Product Manager for Database Upgrade, Migrations and Patching writing just another blog.

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