opatch

Patching process changes with MRPs

Posted on May 22, 2023 by Patch Recommendation 10

I blogged about the Monthly Recommended Patches (MRP) several times before. And due to the feedback you and we had given, a few things got changed. The main change is from having the MRP bundled as a system patch making opatchauto a requirement. See below what Patching process changes with MRPs were implemented recently.

Before …

As you could read already in:

the introduction of the MRPs added one major flaw: They’ve been built as system patches which made …

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Cleaning up older patch artifacts – improving opatch performance

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Patch Recommendation 26

This blog post is about a feature not only I but you did ask for actually for a long time. Cleaning up older patch artifacts – improving opatch performance. Both in one opatch release. And opatch 12.2.0.1.37 from April 2023 has it.

A little bit of history

One of the longest journey I had ever done in my long time in Oracle was helping customers to find a voice for patch cleanup. Oracle 19c is a long term support release. Many customers upgraded to it already. And you apply patches on a regular …

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Virtual Classroom Seminar 16: Release and Patching Strategy for Oracle 19c and 23c

Posted on May 8, 2023 by Patch Recommendation Release Schedule Workshop 9

There are just two days left to sign up for our Virtual Classroom Seminar 16: Release and Patching Strategy for Oracle 19c and 23c. We’ll talk to you on Wednesday, May 10 at 16:00h CET.

What’s the topic?

We’ll try to cover everything for your best release and patching strategy with Oracle Database 19c of course, but also moving forward to Oracle Database 23c. Our big focus will be several aspects of patching. You’ll hear us talking not only about standard database patching but especially about patching in RAC environments.

We’ll put together a …

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MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 9

You may have read my previous blog posts about MRPs (Monthly Recommended Patches). And today I did a quick check with Rodrigo. We both were a bit surprised to have the MRP3 for 19.17.0 add a lot of fixes to a standard RDBMS installation. So we were investigating a bit further. As a teaser, read on to see that MRP3 for Oracle 19.17.0 adds an interesting surprise.

 

How did we find out?

The MRP3 for Oracle Database 19.17.0 got released just a week ago. You can navigate to it via MOS …

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Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Patch Recommendation 30

Mid-of January. It’s patching time again. So let me show you the quarterly exercise of Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches. Let’s see this time if I will have to remove my Data Pump Bundle Patch and the 19.17.0 MRP2 at first when I patch in-place.

Patching my environments with the January 2023 Bundle Patches

Photo by karokrasinska on Unsplash

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 RU directly when you provision a new home with OUI…

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Applying the MRP from December 2022 to Oracle 19c

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 16

Well, couldn’t there be a nicer pre-Christmas present than the December 2022 Monthly Recommended Patches (MRP)? You know, I’m just kidding. But since I received the first questions from customers – and before I send an email internally – I wanted to try out Applying the MRP from December 2022 to Oracle 19c.

 

Download the December MRP

Actually you need to access MOS Note: 888.1 -Primary Note for Database Proactive Patch Program since the link is not in MOS Note: 555.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-Off Patches even though it …

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Apply the Data Pump Bundle Patch – non-rolling but online?

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Data Pump Patch Recommendation 19

Yesterday I have blogged about an issue with the highly recommended Data Pump Bundle Patches. And today I would like to shed some light on how to Apply the Data Pump Bundle Patch – non-rolling but online?

 

Download the Data Pump Bundle Patch

You can download the correct Data Pump Bundle Patch from MOS Note: 2819284.1 – Data Pump Recommended Proactive Patches For 19.10 and Above. It’s just a few MB, and it is a generic patch with a separate download for the Windows platform. So far so good.

 …

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Patching all my environments with the October 2022 Bundle Patches

Posted on November 9, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 55

Oh yes, it is patching time (again). And this time I somehow missed the slot since the quarterly critical patch updates got released right during Oracle Cloud World. Since I didn’t want to stretch the hotel WiFi too much – and since I wouldn’t have had enough time to install and write-up this blog post, I do it now with a week of delay. So as usual every quarter, follow me for patching all my environments with the October 2022 Bundle Patches.

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to …

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Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Bundle Patches

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 42

It’s brutally hot out there. It must be July. And I sit in my cool basement office and start my quarterly patching journey hoping that you can enjoy the sun and the sea somewhere. It is time to do my usual exercise, this time Patching most of my environments with the July 2022 Patch Bundles.

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 RU directly …

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Binary patching is slow because of the inventory

Posted on May 10, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 52

The headline of this blog post may sound a bit cryptic: Binary patching is slow because of the inventory. But actually this seems to be one of the main causes when your binary patching gets slower and slower with every patch you apply.

The more you patch, the worse it gets

Well, this is a tough headline. But you may have read my blog posts about my quarterly patching experience. It actually started with the July 2021 RU in my 19c environment when I wrote:

At least in my environment, both checks with the

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How to speed up your database and GI patching

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 12

Several of you mailed me already and commented. And I know that I promised this blog post for weeks, if not longer. So let me try to explain How to speed up your database and GI patching. Since this blog post has a longer history, I’d say far over 6 months, it will be a bit longer than the usual posts. At when I started writing it, I decided to split it up into several pieces to make it more digestible but also to allow easier finding of certain topics. I hope it may help easing some recent patching …

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What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 10

The last weeks, literally weeks, I have spent a lot of time with several patching topics. And in order to clean up my inbox a bit I will dump the learning into several blog posts. This one today will be about an interesting case I came across when a customer ran into problems with the runtime of datapatch in an ExaCC environment. Hence, today’s topic will be: What does datapatch do when you have different components in PDBs?

Annotation

If you are on 19.16.0 or higher, than you can safely ignore this blog post …

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Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Patch Recommendation 10

Actually I planned for a different blog post this morning. But since I have a backlog of unanswered comments accumulated I came across this interesting question from Pedro. He wanted to know how he can patch the OCW component in his database home. So I thought I will show you the process of Adding the Oracle 19.14.0 OCW / GI bundle patch to my database home.

Is this necessary?

That’s a good question for a Monday morning. I think: No, that isn’t necessary for a “Database only” home where you don’t have or …

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Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Best Practice Patch Recommendation 36

Today I will step on mined territory. Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?  Or can I just wipe out the old ones? That is a question which will bring people with temper quickly close to explosion. But let me start step by step, especially for those of you who aren’t familiar with this topic.

Can I cleanup the previous Patch Bundles with opatch?

The secret directories

You  L O V E  secrets, don’t you? No? Well … then let me start with a secret which isn’t a secret to most people making it even more obscure.

When you install a patch with opatch or opatchauto, …

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Patching all my environments with the October 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on December 16, 2021 by 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

Photo by NCI on Unsplash

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

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Patching all my environments with the July 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 27, 2021 by 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.

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 …

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Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Patch Recommendation 18

It took a while – but now you can find a new MyOracle Support (MOS) Note with a list of Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c. It is actually a must-read, regardless whether you are upgrading or migration to 19c, or in case you are already on 19c.

What do you get?

Please check MOS Note: 2720807.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches. It gives you a list of important fixes for Oracle Database 19c. In the initial version of the note you could select for each available Release …

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Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Patch Recommendation 40

Groundhog day on the upgrade blog. It’s time for my quaterly Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles blog post. And still no RAC and ASM. Sorry for that … too many virtual events and other tasks since months unfortunately.

Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles

Photo by Bofu Shaw on Unsplash

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 RU directly when you provision a new home with OUI.

Security Alert January 2021

Find …

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Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0?

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Flaws and Pitfalls Installation Patch Recommendation 0

I received two emails from different customers within a week – and both asked the same thing: Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0? In one case, it was more like “We are wondering” but in the other case it caused issues during patching.

Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0?

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

What happens?

Due to a packaging issue most likely, there is a lib32 directory appearing after you patch your homes to either 19.8.0 or 19.9.0. With the next RU, 19.10.0, this should not be the case anymore.

Why does this sound strage?

The first customer who …

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Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Patch Recommendation 25

I have to confess: Time didn’t allow to rearrange my lab yet to have GI and ASM. Hence, this will be another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles with only non-RAC patching. But it is in the works …

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 RU directly when you provision a new home with OUI.

Security Alert

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datapatch and OPatch documentation and MOS note

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Patch Recommendation 2

Did you ever ask yourself whether there is documentation available for OPatch and for datapatch? It is not easy to find. And you won’t find it under “Database” in the Oracle Bookshelf. So today I would like to guide you in this short blog post to the datapatch and OPatch documentation and MOS note.

OPatch? Datapatch?

Just to recap: You use OPatch (or opatchauto) to apply the binaries to an Oracle installation. As a result, you change the second or the third number of the release from Oracle 19.5.0 to Oracle 19.8.0. But …

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Patching all my environments with the July 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Patch Recommendation 26

Quarterly routine: When the new security alert get published, then it is patching time again. I’ll show you as usual how Patching all my environments with the July 2020 Patch Bundles works. And I heard your comments – in the next round in October, I will do this for GI and OJVM most likely, too. If not earlier …

And just 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.

Security Alert July 2020

This is the Security Alert for …

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JDK patching happens with every RU since January 2020

Posted on April 22, 2020 by Patch Recommendation 27

A while ago, a customer asked me whether he needs to apply JDK patches separately. He discovered that the JDK in the $ORACLE_HOME is quite outdated. But there was no clear answer available. And the MOS Note he pointed me to, seemed to be quite incomplete. But times have changed. And JDK patching happens with every RU since January 2020.

JDK patching happens with every RU now

Photo by David Billings on Unsplash

JDK who?

JDK stands for Java Development Toolkit. As the Wikipedia article explains, “the JDK includes a private JVM and a few other resources to finish the development of a Java Application”. …

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OPatch Alert: Be aware of cleanup issues – and the JDK version

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 8

This is just a quick alert blog post for Friday with an OPatch Alert: Be aware of cleanup issues – and the JDK version. And thanks to several people who either commented or mailed me directly and asked if I could alert others as well.

OPatch Alert: Be aware of cleanup issues - and the JDK version

Photo by Hugo Jehanne on Unsplash

OPatch cleanup issue

At first, you may have read earlier this week my article about patching my environments with the April 2020 bundle patches. For my patch activity, I’ve had to exchange my OPatch versions for 11.2.0.4, 12.2.0.1 and 19.7.0. And I guess, I would have had …

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Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Patch Recommendation 54

My quarterly routine happens when the new security alerts get published. And it is time again. I’ll show you as usual how Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles works.

Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles

Photo by Kristin Brown on Unsplash

Security Alert April 2020

Let’s start with the Security Alerts for April 2020. It leads me to the April 2020 Critical Patch Advisory. I’m a database guy, so I’m interested in: Oracle Database Server, versions 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, 18c, 19c. And this link brings me directly to the Risk Matrix for the database products.

You will spot three …

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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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