DBCA

Can I convert a non-CDB into a CDB?

Those of you who work with the Multitenant or CDB architecture for a longer time may find this blog post title strange. But as I learned the other week at the German Oracle User Group conference (DOAG 2024), others still have this question: Can I convert a non-CDB into a CDB?

Photo by Jeffery Ho on Unsplash

Can you convert?

Short answer: No.

End-of-blog-post.
Well, of course, not.
Let me explain this a bit more.

When you have a non-CDB database today, you can’t convert it into a CDB (Container Database). This path isn’t possible but there is another path. …

ORA-39405 with impdp when you have mixed time zone versions

Today, Gisela, a former team mate from CSS/ACS Support contacted me regarding an issue seen at a customer. She reported an ORA-39405 with impdp when you have mixed time zone versions. But how can this happen? And what are the potential workarounds? Since some of our hosted environments got into the same situation already, this may be worth a blog post and some explanation.

ORA-39405 with impdp when you have mixed time zone versions

Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash

Why does this happen?

You never cared about DST (Daylight Savings Time) files and versions of your database? This isn’t unusual, and in many environments actually not a problem …

Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Mike.Dietrich Auditing Flaws and Pitfalls 7

I wrote several times especially about Unified Auditing in the past. It is a very efficient and useful way to audit operations in the database. But you need to be a bit careful about what’s on, and what isn’t. Now we recently had a customer case where it was clearly proven that Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on. But how can this happen?

Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on

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Recapping Traditional Auditing

At first, I am neither a security not an auditing expert. But I played quite a bit with Unified Auditing over the …

Upgrading a non-CDB to Oracle Database 21c with AutoUpgrade

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Oracle Database 21c Upgrade / Migration 27

Yesterday I wrote about the installation of Oracle Database 21c on Linux. But today it is time for Upgrading to Oracle Database 21c with AutoUpgrade.

Photo by Arjun MJ on Unsplash

AutoUpgrade

You may have heard it already from us and other colleagues, but we can’t repeat it often enough: There is only one recommended tool to upgrade your databases – and this is AutoUpgrade.

In my 21c home, I’m checking the deployed version of AutoUpgrade at first:

[CDB3] oracle@hol:/u01/app/oracle/product/21/rdbms/admin
$ java -jar autoupgrade.jar -version
build.hash 57ab246
build.version 21.1.3
build.date 2021/04/21 13:32:13
build.max_target_version 21
build.supported_target_versions 12.2,18,19,21
build.type production

Now please …

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

Posted on August 10, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Optimizer Patch Recommendation 21

Today, Paul mailed me asking a question we internally discussed many times in the past weeks: Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE? And there is no easy simple answer. But I can give a recommendation based on my experience from many projects.

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

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DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – a quick recap

Just in case you haven’t dealt with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE recently, here is a quick recap.

With below procedure, you can list the available potentially behavior changing optimizer fixes in the current patch bundle – and you can turn them on or off at will:

SQL> set serveroutput on;

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

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls JVM 15

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

Be aware of database options selections for PDBs in DBCA

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 6

I did blog about several things-to-know with DBCA (Database Configuration Assistant) in the past. And one issue came up in our internal mailing list the other day. Be aware of database options selections for PDBs in DBCA. Missing one or the other “click” may bring you in trouble later on. I blogged about this already a while ago but this was only part of a larger post: Create Multitenant Databases with DBCA – Things to Know.

Be aware of database options selections for PDBs in DBCA

When you create a custom container database with DBCA you will see this …

Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database?

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA 4

Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database? Roberto Valsania asked this question once he read my blog post about whether you have to execute datapatch after creating a new 12c database: Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database?

I’d bet you all are aware that Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 will go out of Waived Extended Support by end of 2018. But that doesn’t answer the question. So I did a quick experiment and created a fresh 11.2.0.4 database to answer the question.

Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database?

First of all, let me clarify …

DBCA 12.2 does not update /etc/oratab in GI / RAC

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Behavior Change 12

Interesting things happen. And I learned (credits to Arun Gupta and others) that there is a change in Oracle Database 12.2 environments I wasn’t aware: The DBCA 12.2 does not update /etc/oratab in GI / RAC environments. Let me give you some extra information and hints on this topic as it may cause some strange situations.

DBCA 12.2 does not update /etc/oratab in GI / RAC

Arun Gupta commented on the blog:

Another case in point. DBCA fails to update the /etc/oratab file in 12.2 when a database is created. There is no documentation of this behavior. So, I opened

Create Multitenant databases with DBCA – Things to Know

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA Single-/Multitenant 2

When you create Multitenant databases with DBCA there are some Things to Know. And in Oracle Database 12.2.0.1’s Database Creation Assistant (DBCA) there is a common pitfall in the “Options” screen. It was grayed out in the previous release but when you choose to create a “custom” database you can select the options/components now. Be careful …

I did blog several times about the DBCA already:

And …

Use your own templates in DBCA to create databases

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA 6

Another advice regarding database creation:
Use your own templates in DBCA to create databases.

This way you can configure not only the options and components to create but also redo log layout, your set of parameters and much more. And it is less error prone than a “create database” script.

Use your own template in DBCA

Creating your own template in DBCA (Database Configuration Assistant) is quite easy and straight forward. In DBCA select “Manage Templates”:

Use your own templates in DBCA to create databases

DBCA – Choose “Manage Templates” to create a new template

and create a new template:

DBCA – Specify a name for your new templateDBCA-Templates

Always create databases as CUSTOM databases

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA 9

I’m giving this advice to customers for many years:
When you create a fresh Oracle database ALWAYS create databases as CUSTOM databases. Via template or not doesn’t matter.

Always create CUSTOMER databases In the DBCA better use your own and wisely configured template rather than the prebuilt (we used to call them: seed) databases. The seed databases for “Data Warehouse” and “General Purpose or Transaction Processing” have all options and components included. I use them for testing from time to time.

As the upgrade duration mainly depends on the number of installed components I’d recommend to choose the components to install, and …

Does DBCA execute “datapatch” in Oracle 12.2?

Posted on May 25, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 3

Does the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) execute “datapatch -verbose” in Oracle 12.2 when you create a new database?

Does DBCA in Oracle 12.2 execute datapatch when you create new database? I was curious if this misbehavior from the previous release has been fixed. Good news: It got fixed with Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. The DBCA does execute “datapatch -verbose” automatically now when you create a new database. In the previous release this did not happen – you had to execute it manually after creating a new database.

DBCA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

Quick Test Scenario

I …

No OS Authentication? datapatch will fail in every upgrade

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 4

Thanks to Daniel from SimCorp for bringing this to my attention: Patch

Actually, command line upgrades are affected as well, if you do not use OS authentication.
Apparently, datapatch is not able to execute in non-OS authentication mode.
See MOS note 1635007.1.

Symptom:

You are doing a command line upgrade to Oracle Database 12c with catctl.pl – and you don’t use OS authentication allowing connections with “/ as sysdba” then datapatch.pl won’t be able to execute the SPU/PSU/BP related SQL commands as it will fail to connect to your database with an ORA-1017 (invalid username/password) error.

Solution:

Bug 18361221 …

DBCA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich DBCA Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle Database 12c Patch Recommendation 26

A few weeks ago I did blog about the DBUA (Database Upgrade Assistant) not executing ‘datapatch’ (i.e. not applying the SQL changes involved with a SPU/PSU/BP) automatically:

DBUA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

For DBUA, please note that this behavior DOES NOT APPLY to command line upgrades done with catctl.pl – as you can see from this somewhat disturbing messages during the upgrade in phase 65 and phase 69 (which are not errors but just informational messages for datapatch’s execution):

Datapatch phases command line upgrade catctl.pl

But afterwards I have learned that things are worse.
The same behavior is true when you create

Create Container Databases (CDB) with less options – it’s now supported in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Single-/Multitenant 22

When Oracle Multitenant was launched Roy and I amongst many other people always mentioned that the requirement of having all options in a Container Database (CDB$ROOT), and therefore also for the PDB$SEED with the immediate result that all PDBs provisioned from the PDB$SEED will have all options as well, will hinder customer adoption significantly. But this has been changed now. You can create Container Databases (CDB) with less options – it’s now supported in Oracle 12.1.0.2.

Create Container Databases (CDB) with less options – it’s now supported in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Almost all customers I have talked to in the …

DBCA

Can I convert a non-CDB into a CDB?

Can you convert?

ORA-39405 with impdp when you have mixed time zone versions

Why does this happen?

Datapatch may be slower when Traditional and Unified Auditing are on

Recapping Traditional Auditing

Upgrading a non-CDB to Oracle Database 21c with AutoUpgrade

AutoUpgrade

Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – a quick recap

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

Be aware of database options selections for PDBs in DBCA

Be aware of database options selections for PDBs in DBCA

Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database?

Do you have to execute catbundle.sql when you create a new 11g database?

DBCA 12.2 does not update /etc/oratab in GI / RAC

DBCA 12.2 does not update /etc/oratab in GI / RAC

Create Multitenant databases with DBCA – Things to Know

Previous posts

Use your own templates in DBCA to create databases

Use your own template in DBCA

Always create databases as CUSTOM databases

Does DBCA execute “datapatch” in Oracle 12.2?

Does the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) execute “datapatch -verbose” in Oracle 12.2 when you create a new database?

Quick Test Scenario

No OS Authentication? datapatch will fail in every upgrade

Symptom:

Solution:

DBCA 12c and “datapatch.pl” – things to know

Create Container Databases (CDB) with less options – it’s now supported in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Create Container Databases (CDB) with less options – it’s now supported in Oracle 12.1.0.2

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