Database Reference
In-Depth Information
I have seen organizations that because of limited budgets and other constraints purchase just one Oracle
Database Appliance as a production system, and then run test and development environments on some other
platform. While such is a possible setup, I suggest to avoiding it. The problem in such a case is that it isn't possible to
test and verify an Oracle Database Appliance patch before you apply it in a production environment. My suggestion is
to purchase at least two Oracle Database Appliances and test the patch process on a test environment before applying
it on the production Oracle Database Appliance(s).
Someone may think that Oracle tests all patches and therefore it is not necessary to do in-house patch testing.
The problem is that even with the Oracle Database Appliance, each system may be slightly different. Some clients
may decide to skip some of the patches. Some may decide to customize the configuration just a bit. Some may use a
different network setup. My recommendation is to test the patch on your particular setup in a test environment, and
make all possible efforts to apply the patch in the same way on the production environment.
Specific ODA Steps
Figure
8-2
illustrates the Oracle Database Appliance's patching steps. There are three main steps involved.
We'll describe them briefly in this section, and then in more detail in later sections. Depending on your business
requirements, each of the three main patching steps can be separated in time from the others.
Figure 8-2.
ODA's patching steps
