upgrade

LAOUC 2026: Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich User Groups Workshop 0

In a week from now I should arrive in Asuncion, Paraguay, if all goes well. It it time for the Latin America Oracle User Group tour 2026 – and it has been started already going from north to south. I will participate in three stops at LAOUC 2026: Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay. And I am looking forward to see you soon.

Paraguay

🇵🇾 August 26 | Paraguay | Oracle Users Group Paraguay (OUGPY)

Yeah, you beat us Germans at the world cup, and luckily, I did not watch it since I was traveling abroad. Congratulations 🙂 In reverse, I …

Join us in Bengaluru and Hyderabad for SANGAM 2026

Posted on July 16, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Conference 0

Many of you may have seen the social media posts already. But just in case you were in doubt, please get your ticket asap and join us in Bengaluru and Hyderabad for SANGAM 2026 this weekend. AIOUG (All India Oracle User Group – or more modern, AI Oracle User Group) is organizing the biggest and best Oracle conference in the APAC region with world-class speakers.

Still not convinced yet?

I understand, it will be on Saturday and Sunday. Your weekend.

But guess what: It’s our weekend, too.

Don’t waste time relaxing on your sofa – join us, come by, …

Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events

Posted on July 15, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls Oracle AI Database 26ai Patch Recommendation 0

This issue is caused by an internal change, and we hit this now with two very large customer upgrades recently. Therefore, I would like to point to a fix, a workaround and the following RU in case you see your Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events.

Upgrade to 26ai may hang due to block checking events

Photo by Nareeta Martin on Unsplash

What would you see?

This issue can happen with cloning, PDB refreshable clones or just a copy or restore of your database for the subsequent upgrade to Oracle AI Database 26ai. It is not dependent on AutoUpgrade but since AutoUpgrade is the only …

CDB upgrades – explaining catctl_options

Posted on July 13, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade catctl.pl Oracle AI Database 26ai Oracle Database 19c Performance Tuning 0

When you upgrade your entire CDB with AutoUpgrade, there is a parameter which allows you some tuning or tweaking. And I often see some misunderstanding here. Therefore, for CDB upgrades – explaining catctl_options is my focus today.

CDB upgrades - explaining catctl_options

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

catctl_options – what it is meant for

This AutoUpgrade config file parameter allows you to set specific settings, mostly for tuning, but also to override some defaults. In the documentation you will find the whole list of options. You can set it in your AutoUpgrade config file, e.g.:

upg1.catctl_options=-T

catctl_options in CDB upgrades

Here, …

Upcoming in-person workshops in Düsseldorf, London, Vienna, Utrecht and Brussels

Posted on March 26, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

I am ready to take off for some vacation soon. But I’d like to share with you a list of the upcoming workshops we are offering. All those events are in-person events – except the Virtual Classroom Seminar I will list below. Therefore, you need to show up at the day of the event. Zero marketing, no duplication of content either. See you soon in one of the upcoming in-person workshops in Düsseldorf, London, Vienna, Utrecht and Brussels.

Upcoming in-person workshops in Düsseldorf, London, Vienna, Utrecht and Brussels

Workshops and Events in April / May 2026

It is very important to say that we aren’t duplicating content. This …

OCW 19.28 contains a tiny behavior change with DB_UNIQUE_NAME

Posted on March 18, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Behavior Change OCW 0

A colleague brought this to my attention the other week. And since the blog serves also as my partial memory, I wanted to put this out quickly. It is not a big deal, and most of you will never see this or be affected by it. Still, some may need to be aware that OCW 19.28 contains a tiny behavior change with DB_UNIQUE_NAME.

OCW 19.28 contains a tiny behavior change with DB_UNIQUE_NAME

Photo by Anton Ryazanov on Unsplash

What has happened?

In the Oracle Clusterware (OCW) Release Update (RU) 19.28 and onward you will find a fix for Bug 34966087 – AH: CRS: FAIL START ACTION IF DB …

Does AutoUpgrade support the MOVE option?

Posted on March 17, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Single-/Multitenant 4

Sometimes you have different plans for the day. Or, in my case, the day just needs a few extra hours. Today, I received a very interesting question on the blog at first by a customer I know very well. Then we exchanged mails – and I was caught forgetting what I wrote on the blog a longer while ago. The core question is: Does AutoUpgrade support the MOVE option? But there was much more to discuss and figure out as you can read below.

Does AutoUpgrade support the MOVE option?

Photo by Arron Choi on Unsplash

Which options does AutoUpgrade offer?

The case here is …

Don’t use AI to build your AutoUpgrade config file, please!

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Oracle AI Database 26ai Oracle Database 19c Upgrade / Migration 4

Let me do a quick Friday rant. Many of you can easily ignore this. But regardless of whether you are a colleague, a friend, a customer, a partner or just exploring AutoUpgrade because it is the coolest small tiny little tool Oracle has to offer, don’t use AI to build your AutoUpgrade config file, please!

Don't use AI to build your AutoUpgrade config file, please!

Photo by Enchanted Tools on Unsplash

AI models are great … somehow …

No worries, I use AI tools as well, especially when I need to create some complex PL/SQL scripts. There is nothing wrong with it – unless you stay in control. I …

It’s there – Oracle AI Database 26ai is available for download

Posted on January 27, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle AI Database 26ai 33

This was a long wait – and finally, it’s there – Oracle AI Database 26ai is available for download on-prem. And as you may remember our announcement from Oracle AI World, Oracle AI Database 26ai replaced Oracle Database 23ai.

Photo by John Tuesday on Unsplash

What is available?

You can download now the Linux version of Oracle AI Database 26ai Enterprise Edition, 23.26.1.0.0, from the usual sources as a Gold Image include the RU or as a separate RU.

Besides the 23.26.1 database release, you …

Your chance: Full-day Upgrade to 26ai Workshop in Sydney on Jan 20, 2026

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 4

Happy New Year to all of you at first. And just at very short notice a quick announcement for next week in case you are in the Sydney area in Australia. This is Your chance: Full-day Upgrade to 26ai Workshop in Sydney on Jan 20, 2026 has still a few open seats, and you could join, I’d be happy to see and meet you there.

And of course, it will be 2026, and not 2025 … OMG … 🙂

Your chance: Full-day Upgrade to 26ai Workshop in Sydney on Jan 20, 2026

Photo by Arvin Wiyono on Unsplash

When, how and why?

Well, this is potentially the day (or a few hours …

Finally … Oracle AI Database 26ai is going to be available on non-Oracle hardware

Posted on December 3, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle AI Database 26ai 65

Many of you have read my blog post from October during Oracle AI World in Las Vegas about Oracle AI Database 26ai replacing Oracle Database 23ai. But the main question remained: When is it available on-prem on non-Oracle hardware? It’s December now, and Christmas is coming soon, it is time for presents. Yes, finally … Oracle AI Database 26ai is going to be available on non-Oracle hardware.

Finally ... Oracle AI Database 26ai is going to be available on non-Oracle hardware

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

When is it going to be released?

You still need to wait a few weeks, potentially until the 2nd half of January 2026. The CPU …

Oracle AI World 25: Upgrade to Oracle AI Database 26ai – let’s do it again

Posted on October 16, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich OOW Oracle AI Database 26ai 0

We’ll do it another time. This is your chance in case you missed our session on Tuesday:

Marco Polo 806, Level 1
Upgrade to Oracle AI Database 26ai: Best Practices and Customer Experience [LRN4241]

We collided with the delayed keynote of Larry Ellison, and obviously attending the keynote was way more important than our talk. Therefore, if you couldn’t show up but still want to learn about the replacement of Oracle Database 23ai with Oracle AI Database 26ai, then THIS is your final chance.

Oracle AI World 25: Upgrade to Oracle AI Database 26ai - let's do it again

We will show you the new release numbering schema, clarify whether you need to …

Oracle AI Database 26ai replaces Oracle Database 23ai

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle AI Database 26ai 51

Larry Ellison announced Oracle AI Database 26ai today in his keynote at Oracle AI World conference in Las Vegas. And I am pretty certain you may want some clarification on what this means exactly. Therefore, let me clarify the details, and why Oracle AI Database 26ai replaces Oracle Database 23ai.

Oracle AI Database 26ai replaces Oracle Database 23ai

What did Larry Ellison announce?

Larry gave a spoiler already in the Q1 earnings call where he referred to Oracle AI Database instead of Oracle Database. He was clearly emphasizing the AI capabilities of our flagship product. From now on, it will be known as Oracle AI Database…

Oracle AI World 2025: Your guide to Upgrade, Migration and Patching Sessions

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich OOW 0

Oracle OpenWorld had been renamed to Oracle CloudWorld, and it got rebranded to Oracle AI World this year. And we PMs, Alex, Daniel, Rodrigo and myself look forward to see you there. It’s a perfect opportunity to touch base, discuss your migration challenges, your patching fun – and upgrades certainly, too. You not only can grab a sticker for your laptop lid but we’d love to hear about your experiences, wishes and pain points (if there are any) first hand.

Oracle AI World 2025: Your guide to Upgrade, Migration and Patching Sessions

And of course, we want you to come to our sessions. As usual, we’ll bring real stuff making …

Full Day Upgrade / Migration / Patching Workshop in Prague on September 17, 2025

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Upgrade / Migration Workshop 0

Summer season is almost over. And in between Oracle AI World in Las Vegas in October and now, there is one chance to meet us for a Full Day Upgrade / Migration / Patching Workshop in Prague on September 17, 2025. There are still some seats open, so please find the details below.

Full Day Upgrade / Migration / Patching Workshop in Prague on September 17, 2025

Photo by Ryan Lum on Unsplash

When and why should you attend?

September 17, 2025 – 9:30h-16:30h.

This is a full package of marketing-free technical content – we share not only slides but also information from our projects, lots of customer experience, gotchas, tips and …

The August 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.4) is available

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 10

This time the AutoUpgrade team did magic and included so many great new features and useful enhancements into the new version of AutoUpgrade. So, please note: The August 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.4) is available for download. You should refresh your current versions, especially when you use it for patching, and especially if you attempt to do in an RAC (Real Application Clusters) environment. But read more below.

The August 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.4) is available

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

How to download it?

As usual, that’s very simple. You either download it via the well-known

MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

or you fetch …

OCW25 – Pre-Event Training: Mastering Oracle 23ai Upgrades

Posted on July 15, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich OCW OOW Workshop 0

Time flies so quickly. Soon we’ll get together again in Las Vegas for Oracle Cloud World 2025. This year, it will be in October where hopefully it’s a few degrees colder (or less hot) than in early September last year. And as in the past years, we’ll do at OCW25 – Pre-Event Training: Mastering Oracle 23ai Upgrades.

OCW25 - Pre-Event Training: Mastering Oracle 23ai Upgrades

Photo by Heather Gill on Unsplash

Will our pre-event training be different this year?

Of course, we won’t do the same training as we did in 2024. It will be a different training set with plenty of different exercises. …

AutoUpgrade migration to Oracle 23ai Exascale with Refreshable Clones

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 0

Those of you who have been to our workshops in the past 3 years know that we promote one feature as the ultimate killer feature for moving to Oracle Database 19c and 23ai: Refreshable Clones. These work not only from PDB to PDB, but magically also with a non-CDB. And our teams works with a good number of customers using exactly this technique to Oracle 23ai. Now, we talked about it. And we blogged about it (see below). But there is a brand-new MOS note out there showcasing an AutoUpgrade migration to Oracle 23ai Exascale with Refreshable Clones.

AutoUpgrade migration to Oracle 23ai Exascale with Refreshable Clones

Photo by

People do super-cool stuff … AutoUpgrade Composer

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 2

I am jealous, and so happy. There are so happy about the fact that we have such skilled minds in the industry. One of them is Marcus Vinicius, an Oracle ACE Pro from Brazil who lives in Dallas, TX in the US. And besides being a real wizard he is also a super-nice guy. No idea where all these Brazilian Oracle experts “grow” but I am very proud to have two of the best in the world in our team. But back to Marcus. People do super-cool stuff … AutoUpgrade Composer is something Marcus put out in the wild.

AutoUpgrade

The May 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.3) is available

Posted on May 22, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade 11

Many of you know it and downloaded it already. But just in case you are not aware yet, let me give you a quick summary since the May 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.3) is available for download.

The May 2025 version of AutoUpgrade (25.3) is available

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

How to download it?

That’s very simple. You either download it via the well-known

MOS Note: 2485457.1 – AutoUpgrade Tool

or you fetch it directly from oracle.com with curl, wget or by just clicking on the big button.

What’s new?

Well, 25.3 is a one-fix-only release, the real change was in 25.2 released a week …

Utrecht in Spring is beautiful – and we’ll be there on May 6

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 0

No worries, I don’t start writing a travel blog. Or, maybe one day I will. But not for now. Daniel and I will be on the road again next week for a full day workshop in Utrecht on May 6 and in Brussels on May 7. Brussels is sold out already, the registration is closed. But in Utrecht we still have a few seats open due to the superb conference auditorium space in the Oracle office. Clearly, Utrecht in Spring is beautiful – and we’ll be there on May 6. And it is very close to Brussels in …

ORA-12850 when you run AutoUpgrade?

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Flaws and Pitfalls 1

Nicola made a comment the other day informing me that they hit an issue on some of their databases when upgrading. But is there a general issue with ORA-12850 when you run AutoUpgrade? Or is this error just the reflection of another issue? Let’s see, I will explain this and include a workaround as well.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

What is the problem?

Nicola traced it down mostly already. During the upgrade of their CDBs, this error happened in some runs:

with segments as (select /*+ MATERIALIZE PARALLEL(2) */ tablespace_name, inuse from( select ds.tablespace_name, row_number() over (partition by

Upgrade 19c and 23ai Workshop in London on April 9, 2025

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich Workshop 5

London calling! Your chance to attend our first full-day Upgrade 19c and 23ai Workshop in London on April 9, 2025 in a decade. Yes, you read correctly. We’ve run such a workshop the last time in 2014. This was when you used an iPhone 6 at best case. Most importantly, this is an in-person only event. No streaming will be available.

Photo by Lachlan Gowen on Unsplash

How do you register?

Simple. No extra cost. Zero marketing. Just tech!! But be aware that you should free up your seat in case you can’t make it since we are really …

The 25.1 version of AutoUpgrade is available for download

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Mike.Dietrich AutoUpgrade Patch Recommendation 53

It’s time for a new version of AutoUpgrade. The 25.1 version of AutoUpgrade is available for download. And you should refresh your existing versions quickly since we added plenty of new and long awaited features but we of course fixed also known bugs.

Photo by John Rodenn Castillo on Unsplash

How to download AutoUpgrade 25.1

Not only can you download the newest AutoUpgrade and its previous versions from MOS Note:2485457.1 – Download AutoUpgrade. But for many of you it may be easier to just fetch it with wget or curl directly from:

Download AutoUpgrade directly from oracle.com

You …

Should you attempt double-hop Oracle Database upgrades?

Posted on December 13, 2024 by Mike.Dietrich Lifetime Support Policy Oracle Database 19c Oracle Database 23ai Release Schedule 6

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?

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

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 …

upgrade

Paraguay

Still not convinced yet?

What would you see?

catctl_options – what it is meant for

catctl_options in CDB upgrades

Workshops and Events in April / May 2026

What has happened?

Which options does AutoUpgrade offer?

AI models are great … somehow …

What is available?

When, how and why?

When is it going to be released?

What did Larry Ellison announce?

When and why should you attend?

How to download it?

Will our pre-event training be different this year?

How to download it?

What’s new?

What is the problem?

How do you register?

How to download AutoUpgrade 25.1

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

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