26 Version Updates

Software updates are critical to keeping an environment secure and functioning well. Critical patch updates are installed on a quarterly basis, for example to the database, APEX/ORDS, and other tools being used in RDS. These updates may require downtime. If this is the case, the planned downtime is communicated in advance according to Oracle Retail standards.

Please note that for APEX patching, the only notifications for when this will occur are shown on the APEX workspace login page and the APEX UI home page; no email notification is sent. Log in at regular intervals to ensure you know when patching will occur, because the ADW instance will be unreachable during patching and all customer integration using RDS (ORDS) will fail. Likewise, APEX interaction should be suspended during the patch period.

You can defer major upgrades to APEX (for example, 22.1 to 23.1) for up to 90 days. See the following information on that process: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/autonomous-database/serverless/adbsb/apex-apply-defer-updates.html

For ADW patching, you can find the status of the current patch level, as well as the scheduled date for any future patching by running this query:

SELECT * FROM DB_NOTIFICATIONS WHERE TYPE = 'MAINTENANCE';

You can find more information on ADW patching and maintenance scheduling here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/autonomous-database/serverless/adbsb/maintenance-windows-patching.html#GUID-C4F488BA-C2ED-4890-A411-9F99C69CD8DF