About Read-Only Oracle Homes

Starting with Oracle Database 18c, you can configure an Oracle home in read-only mode.

In a read-only Oracle home, all the configuration data and log files reside outside of the read-only Oracle home. This feature allows you to use the read-only Oracle home as a software image that can be distributed across multiple servers.

Apart from the traditional ORACLE_BASE and ORACLE_HOME directories, the following directories contain files that used to be in ORACLE_HOME:

• ORACLE_BASE_HOME

• ORACLE_BASE_CONFIG

Benefits of a Read-Only Oracle Home

• Enables seamless patching and updating of Oracle databases without extended downtime.

• Simplifies patching and mass rollout as only one image needs to be updated to distribute a patch to many servers.

• Simplifies provisioning by implementing separation of installation and configuration.

Note:

This feature does not affect how database administrators monitor, diagnose, and tune their system performance.