11.4 Restrictions and Guidelines for Oracle Grid Infrastructure Upgrades

Review the restrictions and changes for upgrades to Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations, which consists of Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM).

• Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrades are always out-of-place upgrades. You cannot perform an in-place upgrade of Oracle Grid Infrastructure to existing homes.

• You must use an Administrator user to perform the Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2)upgrade.

• Oracle ASM and Oracle Clusterware both run in the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

• When you upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2), you upgrade to an Oracle Flex Cluster configuration.

• Do not delete directories in the Grid home. For example, do not delete Grid_home\Opatch. If you delete the directory, then the Oracle Installation User for Oracle Grid Infrastructure cannot use Opatch to patch the Grid home, and Opatch displays the error "checkdir error: cannot create Grid_home\OPatch"

• To upgrade existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2), you must first verify if you need to apply any mandatory patches for upgrade to succeed. You can use CVU to perform this check.

• To upgrade existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2), your current release must be greater than or equal to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2.0.3).

• To upgrade Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations from 11.2.0.2 to a later release, you must install the latest bundle for the cumulative patches for Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Patch 11 bundle or higher).

• During a major release upgrade to Oracle Clusterware 12c release 2 (12.2), the software in the Grid home for Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2) is not fully functional until the upgrade is completed. Running the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL), crsctl, and other commands from the 12c release 2 (12.2) Grid home is not supported until the upgrade is complete across all nodes.

  To manage databases using earlier releases of Oracle Database software during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrade, use SRVCTL from the existing database homes.

• To change a cluster member node role to Leaf, you must have completed the upgrade on all Oracle Grid Infrastructure nodes so that the active version is Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2(12.2) or later.

See Also:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Storage Restrictions Related to Oracle Grid Infrastructure Upgrades

• If the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) and voting file locations for your current installation are on raw devices or shared file systems, then you must migrate them to Oracle ASM disk groups before upgrading to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2).

• If you want to upgrade Oracle Grid Infrastructure releases before Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2), where the OCR and voting files are on raw or block devices or shared file system, then you must upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2). You must move the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) and voting files to Oracle ASM before you upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c release 2 (12.2).

Restrictions Related to Upgrading Shared Grid Homes

• You can perform upgrades on a shared Oracle Clusterware home.

• If the existing Oracle Clusterware home is a shared home, then you can use a non-shared home for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster home for Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM 12c release 2 (12.2).

Single-Instance Oracle ASM Upgrade Restrictions

• During Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation or upgrade, if there is a single instance Oracle ASM release on the local node, then it is converted to an Oracle Flex ASM 12c release 2 (12.2) installation, and Oracle ASM runs in the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home on all nodes.

• If a single instance (non-clustered) Oracle ASM installation is on a remote node, which is a node other than the local node (the node on which the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation or upgrade is being performed), then it will remain a single instance Oracle ASM installation. However, during the installation or upgrade, when the OCR and voting files are placed on Oracle ASM, then an Oracle Flex ASM installation is created on all nodes in the cluster. The single instance Oracle ASM installation on the remote node becomes nonfunctional.