12.2.0.1

Should you attempt double-hop Oracle Database upgrades?

A long while ago I wrote a blog post about multiple-hop upgrades. And just recently I received many questions about whether one could skip Oracle Database 19c, and rather move into Oracle Database 23ai directly. So, the ask is: Should you attempt double-hop Oracle Database upgrades?

Should you attempt double-hop Oracle Database upgrades?

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What is a double-hop or multiple-hop upgrade?

Let me clarify the self-invented term here at first. In every Oracle database release we define the minimum database version you can directly upgrade from. With “upgrade” we refer to using the scripts or tools such as AutoUpgrade. Please …

Certifying an application on a specific RU-only is wrong

Posted on September 14, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Best Practice Patch Recommendation Release Schedule 15

Well, there are still 80+ comments I need to answer and reply to on the blog. So please be patient – nothing gets deleted or ignored. But it happens that a topic crosses my inbox, and I need to blog about it right now. Today, it is a case where a customer asked me for advice, and mentioned on the side that they are going to 19.6.0 in OCI. In this relation I’d like to explain why Certifying an application on a specific RU- only is wrong.

Certifying an application on a specific RU only is wrong

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What’s the story?

At first, …

Why you simply can’t upgrade from Oracle 11g or 12c to Oracle 23c

Posted on August 1, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 5

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.

Why you simply can't upgrade from Oracle 11g or 12c to Oracle 23c

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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 …

Virtual Classroom Seminar #14: AutoUpgrade 2.0 on May 5, 2022

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 4

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.

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

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 1

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.

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 …

Why you can’t stay on Oracle Database 11g forever

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 24

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?

Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 60

It’s patching time. When I checked an SR and had a quick discussion with a customer yesterday, Peter reminded me that it’s patching day. And at about 20:00h CET the new patch bundles appeared on MOS. So let me show you again Patching all my environments with the January 2022 Patch Bundles for 11.2.0.4, 12.2.0.1, 19c and 21c.

Patching all my environments with the January 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 …

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 20

My calendar has no error or NLS conversion issue – I was just way to busy the past two months with seminars. But today a colleague asked me whether my 21.4 install reports a 21.3 Build Label in the trace files. And this reminded me that I should now finally apply the patch bundles from October 2021 to our Hands-On Lab environment. So again, another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles.

Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

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As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you …

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Operating System 4

No worries, this isn’t a blog post from the vault. And I haven’t accidentally published something from the past just today. It is real. Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8.

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 and GI are certified on OL8 and RHEL8

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What has been certified?

Thanks to my colleagues and a large customer in the UK, I received an email asking whether I have seen this information already on MOS. I haven’t. I knew that there were discussions but I had no actual date for the 12.2.0.1 certification on OL8 on my radar.

So in brief, these Linux 8 releases …

Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 49

It’s patching day again. Hurray! Or not. I realize that at patching day, the 19c bundles are all missing. So wrote this blog post a bit after the usual release day. In my case this will include Oracle 19.12.0 RU and the July 2021 RU for Oracle 12.2.0.1. Please find the details about Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles below.

Patching all my environments with the July 2021 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 …

Where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 2

I know, I didn’t blog for a while due to seminar preparations and holidays. But as I’m going through the open comments on the blog trying to answer them, I came across a question regarding the strange UPG error codes, AutoUpgrade is printing sometimes. And of course, where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

Where are AutoUpgrade error codes documented?

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The UPG errors

Once AutoUpgrade hits an error condition, it prints an error code such as UPG-1400 or UPG-1303. And often, this error code is not very meaningful. In the comments section, somebody asked where to fine more information about these …

No RURs for 12.2.0.1 – and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation Release Schedule 0

Last week I blogged about the quarterly patching fun when applying the Release Updates to my environments. But I completely forget to mention and explain a few things. There are No RURs for 12.2.0.1 – and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support.

No RURs for 12.2.0.1 - and Oracle 11.2.0.4 left Extended Support

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No Release Update Revisions for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Thanks to my friend Rodrigo Jorge who messaged me on the weekend. He goes way deeper with applying the quarterly patches and highlights the differences. And he recognized and blogged already about the fact that there are no RURs available for Oracle 12.2.0.1.

And …

Cool Features not only for DBAs – Virtual Classroom Series No.7

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you are all well. After an heavily active 2020 with more virtual seminars than ever before it’s time to start in 2021 with Cool Features not only for DBAs – Virtual Classroom Series No.7 on Jan 14, 2021.

Cool Features not only for DBAs - Virtual Classroom Series No.7

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Why Cool Features for DBAs?

Actually the idea is not new. And we’ve included some slides into our workshops already for quite a while. But there are simply too many cool features. Our focus is in features which usually don’t make it into advertising or …

When Fixed Object Stats Gathering takes very long during upgrade …

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls 12

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 7

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 12

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 …

Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database’s?

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI 5

A long while ago I blogged about whether you should keep your patch versions between Grid Infrastructure and Databases Homes in synch, or not. And today, Daniel dropped me a note mentioning that this old blog post may need an update for 18c/19c. He’s right. And as I’ve had trouble finding my old blog post, I title this one a bit more obvious: Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database’s?

Does your GI RU/RUR patch level has to match your database's?

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Before Oracle Database 18c

Since Oracle 18c we move from a 5-number release schema to a 3-number one. …

Oracle 12.2.0.1 – Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 4

A few weeks ago, you read the announcement of the availability of Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. But many of you had some questions right away. I could answer most of them easily. But it was clear to us that there was more information needed. Hence, we published more information for Oracle 12.2.0.1 – Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support.

Oracle 12.2.0.1 - Clarification for Limited Error Correction Support

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What has been announced in April 2020?

Just a few weeks ago we announced the availability of Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1 after November 2020. You could find …

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

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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

Oracle Multitenant: Be aware of the silent COMPATIBLE change

Posted on February 7, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 5

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

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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 …

Upgrade PDBs with RELOCATE – How does it work?

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant Upgrade / Migration 16

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?

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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

Do we offer patched Gold Images already?

Posted on January 28, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Installation 13

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?

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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 …

Extended Support for Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 extended

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Release Schedule 13

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

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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

AutoUpgrade and Data Guard, RAC, Restart and non-CDB to PDB

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 53

I need to bring this blog post forward about AutoUpgrade and Data Guard, RAC, Restart and non-CDB to PDB. Initially I planned to write this a bit later. But some of you had questions or were wondering why AutoUpgrade hasn’t done certain tasks. Hence, I’d like to clarify what AutoUpgrade can do, what it can’t and what you’ll have to do at the moment.

I refer to the AutoUpgrade tool as of July 2019. In later versions, one or the other restriction may be lifted. I will blog about it then as well.

AutoUpgrade and Data Guard, RAC, Restart and non-CDB to PDB

AutoUpgrade – Step-by-step

The new AutoUpgrade

Please download the new July 2019 (20190715) AutoUpgrade

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 7

Since last night, the new version of the AutoUpgrade utility is available. Please download the new July 2019 (20190715) AutoUpgrade and exchange your previous version in your destination $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin with this one.

Download

Please download the tool from: MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

When you copied the new tool, call it for a version check to make sure you are using the most recent one:

$ java -jar $OH19/rdbms/admin/autoupgrade.jar -version
build.version 20190715
build.date 2019/07/15 12:45:48

Please notice that the tool allows you to upgrade to Oracle 12.2.0.1 and Oracle 18c as well:

Please download the new July 2019 (20190715) AutoUpgrade

The listed releases are the minimum …

12.2.0.1

What is a double-hop or multiple-hop upgrade?

What’s the story?

What is the intention?

What are we going to talk about?

Premier Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Limited Error Correction Support for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Oracle Database 11g?

What has been certified?

The UPG errors

No Release Update Revisions for Oracle 12.2.0.1

Why Cool Features for DBAs?

Very simple test setup

But it is true …

Before Oracle Database 18c

What has been announced in April 2020?

What is happening?

Mixed version environments

RELOCATE and UPGRADE?

What is a Gold Image?

Extended Support Extension for Oracle 12.1.0.2

AutoUpgrade – Step-by-step

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