1 Upgrading Your Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

This guide provides instructions for an administrator to upgrade the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance or one of its components.

Do not install or upgrade individual packages on the appliance components. Only upgrades as described in this chapter are supported. Security and other updates are provided through patches. Patching is separate from the upgrade functionality and uses a ULN mirror to download supported packages to the shared storage on the management nodes.

Implementation details and technical background information for the upgrade and patching functionality can be found in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Concepts Guide. Refer to the sections "Upgrade" and "Patching" in the chapter Appliance Administration Overview.

Patching instructions are provided in a separate document. Refer to the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Patching Guide.

Oracle-provided Images

At the end of the full management node cluster upgrade procedure, the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure images are automatically updated. The management node upgrade procedure includes the steps described in Upgrading Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Images so they do not need to be performed separately. However, on systems with software versions 3.0.2-b852928 and earlier, those steps are not automated and must always be performed to obtain the latest images.

Upgrade Strategy

We recommend to run the latest available software on your Oracle Private Cloud Appliance. It improves protection against vulnerabilities and allows you to take advantage of all new features, bug fixes, and functional improvements.

Systems running an appliance software version older than 3.0.2-b892153 require a two-phase process to get the latest version. The appliance must first be upgraded to version 3.0.2-b892153; patching to this version is not possible. After this upgrade operation has been completed successfully, you can upgrade or patch to version 3.0.2-b1081557. An administrator must manually verify the upgrade path to the new target version.

The latest Upgrader code automatically enforces prerequisite software versions. During the upgrade or patch preparations, the Upgrader service validates the currently installed appliance software version against the new target version. If the appliance is not running at least the minimum required version, the Upgrader exits the process and rolls back the environment to its previous state. You must first install the prerequisite version as indicated in the log.

Upgrade Order

Components must be upgraded in a prescribed order. In appliance software version 3.0.2-b892153 and later, the upgrade plan helps manage the order of upgrade operations. When upgrading to version 3.0.2-b1081557 or later, there is an extra requirement to upgrade the ZFS Storage Appliance firmware before all other components. For more information, see Checking Upgrade Plan Status and Progress.