8.5.1 Overview of Oracle Exadata Database Server Updates

When updating database servers, there is more than one software that needs to be updated.

Oracle Exadata database server release updates contain updates for the following components within a database server:

• Oracle Linux operating system
• Firmware (Disk, RAID controller, ILOM, HCA)
• Oracle Exadata System Software

The software and firmware components that are updated for a specific release depend on the current Oracle Exadata System Software release the database server is running and the release you are updating to. Oracle Linux operating system packages and Oracle Exadata System Software are always updated while firmware may be updated for only a small selection of the components or not at all.

Updates for Oracle Exadata database servers can be applied independently from the storage servers or RDMA Network Fabric switches unless otherwise specified in My Oracle Support document KB153930.

Updating database servers is always performed in-place. This means the active operating system is updated. The actual update is performed using standard Linux update commands, such as YUM and DNF, which are wrapped in an Oracle Exadata utility called patchmgr. The update is orchestrated by the patchmgr utility to maintain strict ordering of all steps during the update process.

Starting with Oracle Exadata System Software release 24.1.0, you can use Exadata Live Update to orchestrate Exadata software updates on Exadata database servers using online update capabilities.

Apart from Exadata Live Update, Oracle Clusterware processes and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) database instances must not be running on a database server that is being updated. To reduce application-level impact, follow the client failover best practices described in the Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) guidelines for "Client Failover Best Practices for Highly Available Oracle Databases."

If you cannot afford cluster-wide downtime, you can update database servers in a rolling fashion. This means updating one database server at a time. If you can afford cluster-wide downtime, you can update all database servers in parallel. Non-rolling updates reduce the overall time required to complete the upgrade at the expense of having a full database outage.