1. Cloud Control Database Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide
  2. Database Maintenance: Updates (Patching) and Upgrades
  3. Database Updates and Upgrades Using Fleet Maintenance
  4. Fleet Maintenance Automation
  5. Fleet Maintenance EM CLI Operations
  6. Image Maintenance
  7. Create a New Version of the Image

Create a New Version of the Image

After you have verified that all the targets have been subscribed to the selected image, a new version of the image should be created for every patching cycle. This is the target version to which all the subscribed databases are to be patched in the next maintenance window.
In order to create the new version, identify the list of patches to be included into the new image.
  1. It should ideally be a super set of the CURRENT version, this ensures all existing patches are included in the new version. The command emcli db_software_maintenance -describeImage -image_id=<Image Id> lists all the patches in the CURRENT version of the image.
  2. Get the list of Oracle recommended patches.
  3. Identify the one off patches applied to the subscribed databases out of sync.

    Note:

    It is considered best practice, that one-off patches be applied in emergency situations. This helps maintain standardization in your environment. For more information on emergency patching see: Emergency Patching.
    The command emcli db_software_maintenance -checkApplicability -image_id=<image_id> -target_list=<target_list> -target_type=<target_type> provides information about all additional patches applied to the databases but not included in the CURRENT version.
  4. Get the list of patch requests from database owners.
  5. From steps 3 and 4, identify the bug fixes that are part of the patch recommendations.
  6. For the rest of the pending bug fixes, identify the patches available from Oracle Recommended Patches and download them.
  7. All other pending issues, request patches and merged patches that meet your environments needs or from Support.
  8. Create the new version using these patches. This will ensure that your new version is a super set of the CURRENT version and will meet the needs of all the subscribed databases. For more information on creating a new version see: Create a Gold Image Using EMCLI
  9. Once the Oracle home is created and tested, you may mark it CURRENT and begin your next maintenance cycle.

Note:

The same Gold Image can be used for deployments on both Oracle Red Hat Linux 7 and 8 deployments. The database media is identical in both versions, These binaries will be relinked during the deployment process.

Create a New Version of the Image using EM CLI

To create a new version of the image use the following EM CLI command: 
emcli db_software_maintenance -createSoftwareImage -input_file=data:"<input_file_path>”
For a description of input file, see Create a Gold Image Using EMCLI.
Example: 
emcli db_software_maintenance -createSoftwareImage -input_file="data:/home/user/input_rac"

Input File Example:

For a RAC database, the input_file contents can be as follows: 

IMAGE_ID=<ID of the existing gold image under which the version is to be created> 
REF_TARGET_NAME=<Oracle home target name for 112044 Oracle home>
<IMAGE_SWLIB_LOC=Oracle Home Provisioning Profiles/19.18.0/linux_x64
REF_HOST_CREDENTIALS=REF_HOST_CREDS:SYSMAN
WORKING_DIRECTORY=/tmp
STORAGE_TYPE_FOR_SWLIB=OmsShared
STORAGE_NAME_FOR_SWLIB=swlib
VERSION_NAME=PSU 19180 Version
Sample Output:
Create Gold Image Profile deployment procedure has been submitted successfully with the instance name: 
'CreateGoldImageProfile_SYSMAN_12_08_2015_05_09_AM' and execution_guid='25F92D9A00164A45E053D903C40A9B4B'