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Should you enable _fix_controls with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE?

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.

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;
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You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

It’s been a while since I blogged about the DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – and to me, the package is still sort of a mystery. Ideally you can least and enable or disable behavior changing optimizer fixes per RU. And in Oracle 19.10.0, you will find a new surprise. So You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0.

You may need a one-off for DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE in 19.10.0

Photo by Jonas Denil on Unsplash

Quick Recap

Just in case you haven’t dealt with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE yet or for a while, a quick recap.

With this procedure, you can list the available patches to turn on or off at will:

SQL> set serveroutput 
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Automatic Maintenance Jobs are enabled after upgrade

This is a strange behavior – but it seems as automatic maintenance jobs are enabled after upgrade. A customer (thanks Naveen!!) sent me an email the other week asking if there’s a flag in DBUA to prevent this enabling as on some of their databases the automatic maintenance jobs are disabled on purpose.

Automatic Maintenance Jobs are enabled after upgrade

It sounded kind of strange to me – and my first test was to use the catctl.pl instead of the DBUA.

First of all I did check the status of the Automatic Maintenance Jobs in my 11.2.0.4 database:

SELECT client_name, 
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When you upgrade, disable the Data Guard Broker

A customer of mine hit an issue recently when upgrading to Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. They did everything correctly but received a ton of issues from the Data Guard Broker. A rule says: When you upgrade, disable the Data Guard Broker. But I can’t blame the customer as this “rule” is well hidden in the documentation.

When you upgrade, disable the Data Guard Broker

First of all, the Data Guard Broker is required if you would like to administer your databases in Oracle Cloud Control. Otherwise you can’t switchover or failover within Enterprise Manager. But once you approach a database upgrade …

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DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE – only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2 – or not?

DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE - only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2The DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE package got introduced with the April 2014 Exadata 11.2.0.4 Bundle Patch. And it got introduced for all Oracle 12.1.0.2 databases with the April 2017 Bundle Patch (BP). DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE is only available in Oracle 12.1.0.2.

Addition March 6, 2018:
See the updated blog post about DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE available in Oracle 12.2 and 18c onwards.
https://mikedietrichde.com/2018/03/08/dbms_optim_bundle-package-oracle-12-2-18c/

For more information on this package on Exadata in Oracle 11.2.0.4 you may look at:

Purpose of DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE package in Oracle 12.1.0.2

The package got introduced to enable module bug fixes which …

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