Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Depending on what components are updated by the patch, this phase might require a reboot of the servers.
The Oracle Database Appliance nodes are going to be rebooted if the patch bundle updates components that require
a reboot, like ILOM/BIOS or storage firmware.
Upgrade Grid Infrastructure
The Grid Infrastructure is a critical Real Application Cluster component. It provides services necessary to run Oracle
Database in a cluster configuration and ensures that those and other related services are highly available. The
patching utility upgrades the Grid Infrastructure in a rolling fashion. This means it stops and updates one Oracle
Database Appliance node at a time while database instances are available on the other node (needless to say, this
requires the databases to be in RAC mode, and both instances need to be up). The patching is started by the following
command:
oakcli update -patch 2.7.0.0.0 -gi
Please note that in the current version, the patching utility doesn't give any notice at the time it stops instances.
Therefore, applications that rely on the database services should be able to handle an instance failure and reconnect
to the other instance. Otherwise, you will need to restart the applications and doing so would introduce a downtime.
If the Grid Infrastructure patching process completes well, all database instances and other services should be left up
and running on the both ODA nodes in exactly the same state as right before the patching.
Database Upgrade
At this stage, we do have all system-level infrastructure components updated to the target version. The next step is to
update the databases running on the Oracle Database Appliance. The OAK utility simplifies this database upgrade
process significantly. You literally upgrade a database or set of databases by running a single command. All the actual
activities are done by the OAK utility in response to that one command.
There are two ways an administrator can plan and execute database upgrade activities. One is to implement the
default upgrade process that upgrades all Oracle Homes and databases running on a system. The other is to execute a
one-by-one approach to upgrading each database. The following sections describe each of these options.
Upgrading All Databases
To update all Oracle Homes and associated databases, run the following command under the root OS user.
The command will update all databases to the latest version delivered by the patch bundle.
oakcli update -patch 2.7.0.0.0 --database
The OAK utility will ask you if you want to update all Oracle Homes or choose a particular home to update.
Found the following 11.2.0.3 homes possible for patching:
HOME_NAME HOME_LOCATION
--------- -------------
OraDb11203_home1 /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.3/dbhome_1
OraDb11203_home2 /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.3/dbhome_2
[Please note that few of the above database homes may be already up-to-date. They will be
