New-Features-12c on Café Com Cloud

Patching an Engineered System

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 16:54:11 -0300

Everyone in Oracle DBA world knows the key value of use an Engineered System, such as Exadata or Supercluster.

In a mission critical on premises database, as a DBA we need to consolidate many databases, plataform in different versions into an Engeneed system.

In a Engeneered System world we have different types of patch deployment that consists in a group of many other patches for differents versions of databases / applications / system /services. They are called Oracle Engineered Systems Quarterly Patch Deployment (QPD).

The key advantage of using QPD is stay with best practices patches that was recommeded by Oracle. The QDP are available for download every 4 months and if you have a contract, you can let Oracle apply for you via ACS / platinum contract. More information, you can see in https://www.oracle.com/assets/as-quarterly-patch-deployment-3042102.pdf.

Personal experiences on Engineered Systems(Exadata, Supercluster) patch apply I have some few experiences on patch apply in many enviroments even Exadata or Supercluster systems.

First, I always take an exachk. It’s extremely important to compare how health your environment are before apply. Always download the last available on MOS “Oracle Exadata Database Machine exachk or HealthCheck (Doc ID 1070954.1)”

Second, I recommend this note lecture:

Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions (Doc ID 888828.1)

Oracle SuperCluster Supported Software Versions - All Hardware Types (Doc ID 1567979.1)

PS. in this notes there are some references to others Engeneered Systems. If you have on your enviroment, please take a look on MOS.

So before download, as every patch I extremaly recomments read the README of each patch before start (it seems obvious, but I knew many DBAs that don’t follow this secret rule) and follow the prechecks as Oracle recommendations such as space, check if there are any conflict with another patch, etc.

Some tips based on my personal experience - In most of cases, during patching some errors related by datapatch (on Database apply) occurs. Don’t be affraid and take a look at:

Queryable Patch Inventory - Issues/Solutions for ORA-20001: Latest xml inventory is not loaded into table (Doc ID 1602089.1)

12.1 : Datapatch Fails with ERROR “KUP-04004,KUP-04017,KUP-04118,KUP-04095,ORA-29913”," fatal: libjli.so or libpicl.so.1: open failed" (Doc ID 2085653.1)

- If you have a segregated environment, always apply patches on DEV or UAT environment.

Examples of database patch apply

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Don’t be affraid if you get an error. It’s happen with everyone:

Log file for this invocation: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_2278_2018_08_16_14_39_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log

Connecting to database…OK Note: Datapatch will only apply or rollback SQL fixes for PDBs that are in an open state, no patches will be applied to closed PDBs. Please refer to Note: Datapatch: Database 12c Post Patch SQL Automation (Doc ID 1585822.1) Bootstrapping registry and package to current versions…done

Queryable inventory could not determine the current opatch status. Execute ‘select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual’ and/or check the invocation log /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_2278_2018_08_16_14_39_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log for the complete error. Prereq check failed, exiting without installing any patches.

Please refer to MOS Note 1609718.1 and/or the invocation log /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_2278_2018_08_16_14_39_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log for information on how to resolve the above errors.

SQL Patching tool complete on Thu Aug 16 14:39:59 2018

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It’s so good when everything was work as design:

Log file for this invocation: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_23787_2018_08_16_14_47_57/sqlpatch_invocation.log

Current state of SQL patches: Bundle series DBBP: ID 180717 in the binary registry and not installed in any PDB

Adding patches to installation queue and performing prereq checks… Installation queue: For the following PDBs: CDB$ROOT PDB$SEED Nothing to roll back The following patches will be applied: 27547374 (DATABASE BUNDLE PATCH 12.1.0.2.180717)

Installing patches… Patch installation complete. Total patches installed: 2

Validating logfiles… Patch 27547374 apply (pdb CDB$ROOT): SUCCESS logfile: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/27547374/22329708/27547374_apply__MGMTDB_CDBROOT_2018Aug16_14_48_44.log (no errors) Patch 27547374 apply (pdb PDB$SEED): SUCCESS logfile: /u01/app/grid/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/27547374/22329708/27547374_apply__MGMTDB_PDBSEED_2018Aug16_14_52_35.log (no errors) SQL Patching tool complete on Thu Aug 16 14:55:29 2018

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See you soon! :-)

12c Upgrade Exam - 1z0-060

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:25:10 -0300

Today we will describe some impressions about 1z0-060 exam.

So, for get success in exam, you need:

Study hard on 12c architecture (CDB / PDB): how to start/ stop, create, drop, secure, etc.
Do not believe on dumps answers.

We recommend to do new features course, or have some experience on 12c first - some questions have direct relation with daily DBA tasks.

First impression on 12cR2 Oracle Clusterware install

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 15:51:24 -0300

Today we will gonna discuss about first impression on fresh install of Oracle Clusterware 12cR2 (for database, you could found some considerations here).

I install on new Oracle Linux 6.9 on Virtualbox 5.1.18 and I observe some points:

Like database install, the grid software has only one file to download (take care with uncompress the zip file. You need to uncompress on the location that you need to use the cluster software).
Oracle has added 2 diskgroups types (in 11gR2 its doesn’t are present): Flex and Extended (more information you could found here).

Pay attention with pre-requisites and space: at least, almost 40 GB was necessary for grid diskgroup if you have less than 4 nodes clusterware.
Gavin Soorma has upgrade a 12R1 Cluster. If you are planning to upgrade your cluster, consider to read this post
I install with old way Oracle ASMLIB for test purposes and it’s works! :-)
If you install on graphical mode be aware in unzip the cluster software where ORACLE_HOME grid software resides because you can not change the location of install home, as you could see below:

So, I’ll perform more tests in this test cluster. So, if you are planning to construct your own test cluster, i recommend:

Oracle RAC 12cR2 on Linux 6 using VirtualBox, by Oracle Base Tim Hall

First impression on 12cR2 database install

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 16:00:00 -0300

Today I’ll describe my first impressions on install the new 12cR2 (available for premises on march 2017) for linux and Solaris.

Inicially I felt a little bit strange because there are only one file for database and only one for grid install (on other versions since 11gR2, there are 2 files for database and one or more for grid - depends of version that you install).

So I downloaded and install it on OEL6.8 for study purposes.

The install process is almost similar than 12cR1 process, except you need more free space to install it (at least 8 GB).

Other point, when you unzip the single file, keep careful in uncompress on a folder (for organization, because all files will be uncompress in same directory that you are).

Then I will keep study and publish some more new features! :-)

Release schedules dates document was updated!!

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 18:33:13 -0300

Continue Hanganalyze’s post: 12.2 on-prem available for download, we see that realease date document was update on MOS (742060.1).

Basically Oracle 12.2 was released for cloud (in March 2017 for premises) and 12.2 have been supported until 2021.

So, now it’s time to think about and plan to upgrade databases 11.2.0.4 and 12.1.0.2, of course if application was compatible too! :-)

Remember, now Oracle Recertification program follow the schedules date (more information you could see in this video).

To be or not to be (lazy)

Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:49:44 -0300

Sometimes you are an Oracle DBA just tired of perform setup ( I like to install everything from scratch…since oracle 7.3 it was always an adventure for me :) )

If you only want to download and have fun on some cool new features, a pre-installed ova is the gold medal for you..

Check out last this Jeff Smith (SQL Developer and lots of fun on his blog) here.

Its a OVA with 12.2, APEX, SQL Developer and other cool stuff :)

See you around!

12.2 on-prem available for download

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 20:27:05 -0300

Finally :)

We will post shortly about some cool new features - like online move for non partitioned tables, sharding, v$index_usage_info and more!

See you around!

Why and Why not use table recover - Oracle 12c

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 22:23:53 -0300

Today will gonna discuss about RMAN table recovery, one of new features of Oracle 12c and my personal view of this feature.

Official documentation you could found here.

Basically RMAN use the mecanism of Point in Time recovery and automates the way that we can do a recover for a single table. Before Oracle 12c we can do it manually.

Inside of this mecanism, RMAN create auxiliary instance to perform recovery, get only necessary information: RMAN restore and recover the SYSTEM, SYSAUX, UNDO tablespaces + tablespace where table resides and use a datapump (expdp and impdp - if you configurate to import this on database) to get point-in-time information.

Why use this mecanism?

Because it permitted to get the old information dropped (accidentally or not for some user, of course if you have the previous backup) without restore all database.
It very easy to use: its permitted to recover the information of tape or disk backup based. You only have the information available.
You can set the recover to import table with another name or just generate a dump.

Why not use this mecanism? (until 12cR1)

If you have index associate with required table and this index was on different tablespace, you can have some trouble.
You can’t configure options like parallelism or exclude index on datapump.