Software Library, Patching, and Provisioning - Expert Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c - page 217

Figure 6-41. Deployment options (partial screen)
In the Where to Stage option, you can specify the location where the patch is either downloaded to and/or
stored for patching purposes. By default, patches will be downloaded and stored at the location specified by
%em_emstagedir% . The staging location for the patches needs to be writable by the host, which is going to access
the patch.
The How to Patch section provides two options for patching: Out of Place and In Place. The hyperlink to the side
explains each choice:
Out of Place : Uses less downtime and keeps your old Oracle home available for recovery
In Place : Requires bringing down all databases in the Oracle home during installation of the
patches
Both are good choices, depending on your required service level agreements (SLAs) or organizational policies.
Oracle recommends out-of-place patching, because it basically clones your existing Oracle home and gives you the
ability to back out any changes you do not want by returning to the old Oracle home.
Additional sections on the Deployment Options page are What to Patch, Customization, Recoverability, Rollback,
and Oracle Home Credentials. Each section needs to be reviewed and verified prior to completing the review of the
patch plan.
Validating the Patch Plan
After verifying and configuring all options in step 3, click Next to move to step 4, Validation. In this step, Oracle
Enterprise Manager checks the patches in the plan against previously installed patches for conflicts. This check is
performed against the target inventory for conflicts. The validation takes many factors into account, and may take
more than 10 minutes to complete. These validations include checks against the Oracle home for readiness, space
requirements for the home, OPatch version validation, and other checks such as cluster node connectivity (if patching
a RAC environment).
Figure 6-42 shows what the screen looks like before validation is done. Click the Analyze button to begin the
validation of the patches against targets for the patch plan. While the validation is running, you can move off this
screen and return to it later.