Application Continuity During Major Database Version Upgrades with DBMS_ROLLING

Starting with Oracle AI Database 26ai, Application Continuity and draining of database sessions are supported during major database version upgrades and database restructuring when using Application Continuity with DBMS_ROLLING.

Application Continuity with DBMS_ROLLING has full support within Oracle AI Database 26ai. This is the strategic approach for applying non-rolling patches. This feature also supports the upgrade from one major release to another major release. For the major release upgrade from Oracle Database 19c to Oracle AI Database 26ai, it is supported for Oracle Autonomous Database - Dedicated only.

Applications are continuously available during DBMS_ROLLING when you use Application Continuity. This means that your applications can continue through the database upgrade process.

DBMS_ROLLING support for Application Continuity enables transparent failover of database sessions across different major versions of a database so that the interruption is minimized during major database upgrades and restructuring of that database. This feature relocates the database sessions in real time to a different logical version of the database, where it is the same database in terms of data but is a different major version or major database restructuring.

This feature provides failover of the application during the transition period, termed switchover, to the new logical database. Although the transition to the new database is a planned maintenance operation, but the applications are unaware of when the switchover step will occur to the new logical database. The infrastructure monitors and starts the switchover automatically when the lag between the databases is sufficiently small enough for the switchover to run in low numbers of seconds to minutes.

The database sessions failover to the new primary database thereby keeping the application operational. The failover minimizes the interruption and thus enable business continuity during major upgrades and major restructures. This feature integrates support for Oracle Application Continuity with a Logical Standby when using DBMS_ROLLING.