Learn about patch delivery methods for Oracle AI Database 26ai with Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC).

To patch and maintain Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) and Oracle AI Database deployed with Oracle Data Guard On Premises, Oracle recommends that you use Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP).

Overview of Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning

Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) is the recommended maintenance method to use for Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle databases deployed with Oracle Data Guard.

Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) is a full fledged automation engine for patching upgrade and provisioning. The central Oracle FPP Server can serve a fleet of databases and Grid Infrastructure from a single central server, making it easy to patch thousands of databases simultaneously. You can deploy a single Oracle FPP server for a given data center and use it to patch your entire fleet in that data center.

It has the following features

  • Performs maintenance patching and software updates to Oracle databases (Oracle RAC, Oracle RAC One Node, and Single Instance), Oracle Grid Infrastructure, Oracle Restart, and Oracle Exadata Engineered Systems (DBNode, Storage Cells, and Network).
  • Performs software upgrades to Oracle databases and Oracle Grid Infrastructure.
  • Is designed with many advanced features to simplify global fleet standardization and management.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

About Oracle AI Database Release Update Patches

Oracle provides quarterly updates in the form of Release Updates (RUs) to release new features, upgrade existing features, enhance security, or fix problems with supported software.

Starting with Oracle AI Database 26ai, RUs are delivered in two formats:

  • As a gold image that you can install out-of-place like a new software release.
  • As a binary patch that you can apply in-place using OPatch or OPatchAuto.

You can apply out-of-place Oracle AI Database patches using the following steps:

  1. Download the RU as a gold image.
  2. Create a new Oracle home (target) identical to the old Oracle home (source) in the same Oracle base as the source Oracle home, using runInstaller -setupDBHomeAs.
  3. Move Oracle AI Database from the old Oracle home to the new Oracle home.

After you move the database to the new Oracle home, all database services will start from the new home.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Fleet Patching and Provisioning for Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Data Guard

For ease of deployment, Oracle recommends that you use Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning to maintain Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) and databases deployed with Oracle Data Guard.

Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) has been built from the ground up by the database development organization with Oracle databases and Oracle Exadata in mind. From day one, FPP has been using a centralized gold image out-of-place maintenance approach offering versatility and flexibility and MAA-compliant patching with support of the latest Oracle AI Database features.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Performing Database Maintenance for Oracle Real Application Clusters with Fleet Patching and Provisioning

To perform maintenance, use the Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) Server to complete the recommended image-based, out-of-place patching.

Oracle recommends that you use the Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) server to manage software images and to patch Oracle databases and Oracle Grid Infrastructure using image-based, out-of-place patching. The patching process moves the Oracle Real Application Clusters database and Oracle Grid Infrastructure from its existing software homes to target homes containing new software.

This topic shows you how to complete the following steps in your software maintenance:

  1. Is an Oracle database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure software update required?
  2. To which Release Update (RU) should I update Oracle databases or Grid Infrastructure software?
  3. How can I perform the update of Oracle databases or Oracle Grid Infrastructure software?

Before you can update software for Oracle databases or Oracle Grid Infrastructure, you must build a gold image using the steps documented in the My Oracle Support document Creating Gold Image forOracle AI Database and Grid Infrastructure Installations (Doc ID 2915366.2). Be prepared to provide the following information:

  • The results of running opatch lsinventory on the source Oracle home. These results show what patches have been applied, and provide additional information about the Oracle home.
  • The target RU patch number that you want to apply, which you enter in the candidate patch input text box.
  • Any recommended one-off patches that you want installed with the target RU for your database release, such as those for Oracle Database 19c listed in the My Oracle Support document Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches (Doc ID 555.1) in the candidate patch input text box.
  • Any additional patches you require for your application or deployment environment in the candidate patch input text box.
  1. To prepare for the software update, download the gold image.

    The order of these steps is as follows:

    1. Download the gold image you have built to your system.

    2. As the Grid user, deploy a new target software home using the FPP command "rhpctl deploy home".

      Examples:

      Deploy the Oracle Grid Infrastraucture software home, where dest_path is the destination path, and gold_image is the image name: 

      rhpctl deploy home -path dest_path -zip gold_image.zip

      Deploy the Oracle AI Database home, where where dest_path is the destination path, gold_image is the image name, and source_home is the source Oracle home: 

      rhpctl deploy home -path dest_path -zip gold_image.zip -sourcehome source_home
  2. Run Precheck for the Apply Software update

    To prevent issues during the patch operation, run a precheck evaluation for moving the database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure to the new software home using the FPP command rhpctl move . . . -eval.

    Oracle Grid Infrastructure example, where gi_home is the source Grid home, and dest_path is the target Grid home: 

    rhpctl move gihome -sourcehome gi_home -desthome dest_path -eval
    Oracle RAC database example, where source_home is the source Oracle RAC home, dest_path is the target Oracle RAC home, and orcles is the database name. 
    rhpctl move database -sourcehome source_home -desthome dest_path -dbname orcles -eval

    For details about the move . . . -eval command options for databases or Oracle Grid Infrastructure, refer to rhpctl move database or rhpctl move gihome in Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning Administrator's Guide.

  3. Apply the RU update, moving the database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure to the new home.

    Move the database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure to the new software home using the FPP command rhpctl move.

    Oracle Grid Infrastructure example, where gi_home is the source Grid home, and dest_path is the target Grid home: 

    rhpctl move gihome -sourcehome gi_home -desthome dest_path
    Oracle RAC database example, where source_home is the source Oracle RAC home, dest_path is the target Oracle RAC home, and orcles is the database name. 
    rhpctl move database -sourcehome source_home -desthome dest_path -dbname orcles

    For details about the move command options for database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure, refer to rhpctl move database or rhpctl move gihome in Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning Administrator's Guide.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Oracle AI Database Maintenance with Gold Images Using Manual Mode

Learn about the manual options available to you for performing regular database maintenance using Gold Images.

Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Creating a Gold Image for Database Maintenance

Learn how to obtain a Gold image for database maintenance using either Fleet Patching and Provisioning, or using manual patching.

Oracle recommends that you use Gold Image Release Updates (RUs) as part of your database maintenance plan. Gold Images promote a more stable and standardized environment, and simplify the maintenance process by providing a single installable software image that contains all critical fixes.

Example 1-1 How to obtain a Gold Image

A gold image can be obtained in the following ways:

After you obtain a gold image, you either can deploy it by using Fleet Patching and Provisioning, or by using the Database Setup Wizard.

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Parent topic: Oracle AI Database Maintenance with Gold Images Using Manual Mode

Setup Wizard Installation Options for Creating Images

Gold image-creation options to use with your Oracle AI Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation setup wizards.

Options

In image-based installations, you can start your Oracle AI Database installation or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations by running the setup wizards runInstaller and gridSetup.sh respectively. Both these wizards come with the following image-creation options.

Table 1-1 Image-Creation Options for Setup Wizard

Option Description

-createGoldImage

Creates a gold image from the current Oracle home.

-destinationLocation

Specify the complete path, or location, where the gold image will be created.

-exclFiles

Specify the complete paths to the files to be excluded from the newly created gold image.

—help

Displays help for all the available options.

For example:

cd $ORACLE_HOME
./runInstaller -createGoldImage -destinationLocation /tmp/my_db_images -exclFiles /u01/app/oracle/product/23.0.0/dbhome_1/relnotes
cd Grid_home
./gridSetup.sh -createGoldImage -destinationLocation /tmp/my_grid_images -exclFiles /u01/app/oracle/product/23.0.0/dbhome_1/relnotes

Where:

/tmp/my_db_images is a temporary file location where the image zip file is created.

/tmp/my_grid_images is a temporary file location where the image zip file is created.

/u01/app/oracle/product/23.0.0/dbhome_1/relnotes is the file to be excluded from the newly created gold image.

Refer to runInstaller -createGoldImage and gridSetup.sh -createGoldImage for more examples.

Parent topic: Oracle AI Database Maintenance with Gold Images Using Manual Mode

Patch Conflict Resolution

If you choose not to use Gold Image patch maintenance, then interim patches used in conjunction with other proactive maintenance methods, including custom Gold Images, may cause patch conflicts.

Note:

Oracle recommends that you use one of the Quarterly Gold Image deployment methods for database maintenance. With Gold Image deployment, patch conflict resolution and merges are included as part of the Gold Image creation. Custom gold images do not have this optimization.

For the quarterly proactive patches (Quarterly Exadata Patch, RU, and MRPs), Oracle proactively produces new interim patches for existing patches that would conflict. The new interim patches are usually released at the same time as the proactive patches.

For information about resolving patch conflicts, see the My Oracle Support notes for patch conflicts.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Patching Oracle AI Database and Oracle GoldenGate

When you use Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle AI Database, you must ensure that Oracle GoldenGate processes are shut down before patching the database.

When you patch Oracle AI Database, and you are using Oracle GoldenGate, you must disable all Oracle GoldenGate processes before starting to patch the database. The reason for this is that patches and upgrades can modify the RDBMS internal tables and views, which cause stored procedures that call them to be invalidated. All dependent objects are invalidated as well. You cannot use SQL queries alone on the database to ensure that GoldenGate processes such as Extract, Pump, or Replicat are shut down, because they run at the operating system level, and are managed by the GoldenGate software. At a high level, the process of checking for such processes is as follows:

  1. Query the status of GoldenGate processes: 

    
GGSCI> info all

  2. Stop all processes

    GGSCI> stop extract *
GGSCI> stop replicat *
.
.
.

    The * wildcard stops all processes of that type. If you have other Oracle GoldenGate processes (for example, manager), ensure that they are stopped as well.

  3. Run a GGSCI info all command 

    GGSCI> info all

    You should see that all processes have the status STOPPED.

For enterprise automation, consider using shell scripts that use GGSCI commands and parse their output. To ensure Oracle GoldenGate processes are shut down, always use the GGSCI utility, and if necessary, combine this with operating system level and application-level checks.

For details about this procedure, refer to the Oracle GoldenGate documentation, and to My Oracle Support.

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Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC

Rolling Back RU Updates for Oracle RAC or Oracle Grid Infrastructure

To roll back an RU patch update performed with Fleet Patching and Provisioning, you move the database or infrastructure to the old Oracle home.

You can undo an RU update by moving the Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure to the old software home using the Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) command rhpctl move. When you use rhpctl move to undo the update, you change the sourcehome and desthome options so that sourcehome is the new release software home, and desthome is the old release software home.

Example 1-2 Rolling back an Oracle Grid Infrastructure update

In this example, the RU is rolled back for Oracle Grid Infrastructure, where gi_home is the source Grid home, and dest_path is the target Grid home: 

rhpctl move gihome -sourcehome dest_path -desthome gi_home

Example 1-3 Rolling back an Oracle RAC home

In this example, the RU is rolled back for an Oracle RAC database, where sourcehome is the source Oracle RAC home, dest_path is the target Oracle RAC home, and orcles is the database name. 

rhpctl move database -sourcehome dest_path -desthome source_home -dbname orcles

Parent topic: Patch Delivery Methods for Oracle AI Database with Oracle RAC