Skip to main content

Understanding the New Oracle Database Release and Patching Model

If you have been paying attention to Oracle database releases in the past few years, you will recognize the release numbering has changed. In the past, Oracle had release one and two but now they have changed to yearly release numbers and full releases each year. These changes started in 2018 that's why we have release 18c,  19c coming out this year and then next year will be release 20 afterwards 21 and so on. The good news here for us DBAs is that the is No "FIRST" and "SECOND" releases anymore! since it is a yearly and full release there is no patchset anymore to apply, which will definitely save us the headache about which release to go live on (first or second).


Release Families

  • The 18c and 19c releases are part of the Database 12.2 "Family" for Lifetime Support as if they were the 12.2.0.2 and 12.2.0.3 patch sets.
  • Patching end date for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 will be determined once Oracle 18c is available on premises.

Support for Annual Releases

  • Annual releases get a minimum of 2 years patching after the succeeding release is available on all enterprise (non-Engineered Systems) platforms.
  • Similar to what patch sets received under the previous release model

Long-Term Support Release

  • The final release in a family will get long term support.
  • Please check MOS Note 742060.1 for details


Release Numbering and Patching

Oracle has changed to a 3 Number Format { Year.Update.Revision } i.e 18.1.0 is year -> 2018, update -> 1 and revision -> 0. Annual release is like a patchset.

Let's take a look at patching before Oracle Database 12.2:

Oracle provided two types of patches: Patch Set Updates(PSUs) and Bundle Patches (BPs).


Now take a look at patching since Oracle Database 12.2:

Oracle has now changed to Updates (RU) and Revisions (RUR)


NB!!

  • No PSUs anymore.
  • Version number now reflects patch level.
  • A Release Update or Revision is only a patch, not a database upgrade.



Upgrading Directly to Oracle 18c:



Important Notes



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RESOLVING SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATE HANG SITUATIONS

Many times Oracle DBA's are often faced with situation where shutting down the instance with shutdown immediate seems to take infinite time and gives an impression that the session in hung. In most of the cases this is not a hang. Hang can be defined as a scenario when few sessions/processes are waiting on some action and in turn blocking other session/processes to complete their tasks. Now the original sessions could be waiting because of resource issues or Oracle Bugs. Shutdown immediate can take long time to complete (appear to be hung) because of three reasons: Uncommitted transactions are being rolled back. SMON is cleaning temp segments or performing delayed block clean-outs. Processes still continue to be connected to the database and do not terminate. 1. Uncommitted transactions are being rolled back: This is the case when the message 'Waiting for smon  to disable tx recovery' is posted in the alert log after we issue shutdown immediate. There ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oracle Database 19c Step by Step Installation On Oracle Linux 7.6

This post describes the installation of Oracle Database 19c 64-bit on Oracle Linux 7.6  x86-64 bit. The Linux server needs a minimum of 3G swap and secure Linux set to permissive. An example of this type of Linux installation can be seen here . Download Software Download the Oracle software from oracle edelivery . Oracle Installation Prerequisites Automatic Setup Use the "oracle-database-preinstall-19c" package to perform all your prerequisite setup. # yum install -y oracle-database-preinstall-19c If you are using RHEL7 or CentOS7, you can pick up the PRM from the OL7 repository and install it. It will pull the dependencies from your normal repositories. # yum install -y https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL7/latest/x86_64/getPackage/oracle-database-preinstall-19c-1.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm Hosts File Set a fully qualified name for the server in the "/etc/hosts" file. < IP-address > < fully-qualified-machine-name > < machin...
9 comments
Read more

Step by Step Installation of Oracle Database 12c on Solaris 10

In this article we will look at Installing Oracle 12C database on Solaris x86 64bit version. This article assumes that you already had Solaris 10 installed on Virtualbox. Preparing System for Installation The first step toward Oracle installation is to perform the pre-installation tasks. Configuring hosts file The first step is to properly name your host machine. The hostname should properly be provided with IP address for installation to continue. Ideally, your /etc/hosts file should look something like this. 192.168.34.47   sol10.cm 127.0.0.1 localhost Kernel Parameters The default installation of Solaris 10 is normally good enough for oracle database installation. You just have to configure one parameter. Use the command below to set the required kernel parameters. Remember that you will have to use the root login to run the commands. # projadd  -K "project.max-shm-memory=(privileged,4G,deny)" user.oracle To confirm that parameter has be...
3 comments
Read more