OCI - Oracle Database Merge Patch

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Handling one off Patches in OCI & merging multiple patches

This is a pretty interesting topic of handling multiple one off patches in OCI

When you encounter one off patches in OCI it needs to be handled a bit different from the traditional way of applying one of patches ,
lets understand a scenario as below

Reference : Link for Oracle Documentation for Custom Images

Scenario multiple bugs seen in database

1. The database hits a big lets say the bug number is 3XXXXXX1
2. The database hits another big lets say the bug number is 3XXXXXX2

Now both these bugs needs to be applied into the database , below is how it must be done in OCI

Merging Patches , Creating Images and Create custom Oralce Homes

Below is the flowchart on how patches need to be merged to create a custom Oracle Home

So this is how it works

1. 3XXXXXX1 and 3XXXXXX2 needs to be merged into a single merge patch ( a MOS Support case for this needs to be raised ) , lets call the merge patch created from MOS as 3XXXXXX3 (MOS will route this to Oracle Dev teams to create 3XXXXXX3 )
2. Now we have a Base 19.31 RU where and we need to have a OH where 19.31 will have 3XXXXXX3
3. OCI Database Images can be created for 3XXXXXX3 , we will need to select the version of 19.31 to create the software Image
4. Once the Custom Image is created we must create a Custom Oracle Home using the Custom Image
5. We can create multiple Custom Oracle Homes for multiple databases as needed.
6. From OCI Console we can move the database from one Oracle Home to another ( a database downtime is incurred )

The six steps are essential for ensure OCI supported patching methods , DBA must not attempt to perform an opatch ( though it works we would need to use the OCI supported way )

We will have the rollback mechanism available to the Base RU as along as the Base Oracle home is not removed from OCI Console.

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