Overview

Management Agent patches are released to fix one or more errors related to Management Agent targets. You can patch Management Agents that are deployed on OMS hosts, as well as remote hosts.

Agent System Patches

Beginning with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13.5 Release Update 1, agent patching has been greatly simplified. The patches are consolidated into one single system patch model. The consolidated agent system patch contains:

• Agent platform patch
• Agent plugin patches
  • Monitoring patch
  • Discovery patch

Separate Management Agent patches for core components of the Management Agent and every agent plugin (monitoring and discovery) are no longer necessary. Instead, comprehensive system patches are produced for each Enterprise Manager release update which contains all sub-patches for agent-side platform and monitoring and discovery patches for the agent plugins.

Identifying Patch Release Update Versions

The patch release update version is now embedded as part of each agent system patch in order to help you identify which release update version has been deployed on Monitoring Agents. To view which patch release update version has been deployed on a specific agent, do the following:

1. From the Setup menu, select Manage Cloud Control and then Agents. A list of agents displays.
2. Click on the desired agent to access that agent's home page.
3. From the Agent drop-down menu, select Properties.
4. Scroll down to the _agentRUVersion property. The value shown identifies the release update patch version that has been applied to that agent.

   If _agentRUVersion shows 13.5.0.1, then it means Release Update 1 has been applied on that agent. The last digit indicates the Agent Release Update version.

Patch Installation Methods

You can apply Management Agent patches using the automated approach (that is, using patch plans) or the manual approach. Oracle recommends using the automated approach to carry out your patching operations. This approach not only saves time and effort while mass-deploying patches, but also reduces human intervention, thereby minimizing the errors involved while patching. For more information about this approach, see Automated Management Agent Patching Using Patch Plans (Recommended).

If you are unable to patch your Management Agent using patch plans, you can use the manual patching approach. However, this approach is not recommended. For more information about this approach, see Manual Management Agent Patching.

Note:

System patches are fully compatible with Enterprise Manager Patch Plan functionality, so there is no need to change your patching methodology if you're using Patch Plan.