Choose a New Location for Oracle Home when Upgrading or Patching

When you upgrade or patch the database, you install the new Oracle home in a new location (an out-of-place upgrade or patch).

AutoUpgrade performs out-of-place upgrades and patches. This means that the upgrade or the patched Oracle home is in a new Oracle home. Using separate installation locations enables you to keep your existing Oracle software installed along with the new Oracle software. By using separate installation locations, you can test the upgrade or patch process in the out-of-place Oracle home database before replacing your production environment entirely.

If you are upgrading a PDB by using an unplug/plug upgrade, then the target CDB into which you plug the PDB is the location for the PDB. Because the CDB is the target release, it is already in a new Oracle home for that release. There is no need to choose a new location for installing the target Oracle homes for the PDBs, because the target CDB already has its Oracle home.