Category Archives: patchmgr

Exadata version 23.1.0.0.0 – Part 04

On 08/March/2023 the Oracle Exadata team released version 23.1.0.0.0 and this include a significant change, OEL 8. I already explained that in my first post that you can read here. In my previous posts, I already described how to patch how to patch storage and switch, and the dom0. In this post, I will discuss how to patch the domU.

What you can do

I already wrote this previously but is important to understand the upgrade paths that you can do: If you are running the old Exadata with InfiniBand, your dom0 will always be updated until Oracle Linux 7 with UEK5. For domU you can upgrade to the OEL 8. And you can upgrade in any order, first dom0 or domU. If you are running RoCE, your dom0 can run the latest OEL 8 UEK6. The blog post from Oracle made an excellent explanation about the upgrade paths and below you can see the images that are there (I used the image from their post).

Click here to read more…

Fixing Exadata Missing Volumes at LVM

Recently during the Exadata patch, one database node reported an issue during the patchmgr and stopped the patch apply. The error was related to missing volumes (LVDoNotRemoveOrUse) at LVM. During the post, you can check the error, but please take attention that it changes some LVM config file contents. So, check correctly the step executed and (if possible) open pro-active SR to be sure what you will be doing.

Click here to read more…

Exadata and ZDLRA, Patch Exadata Stack

The process to patch Exadata stack and software changed in the last years and it became easier. Now, with patchmgr to be used for all (database servers, storage cells, and switches) the process is much easier to control the steps. Here I will show the steps that are involved in this process.

Independent if it is ZDLRA or Exadata, the process for Engineering System is the same. So, this post can be used as a guide for the Exadata patch apply as well. In 2018 I already made a similar process about how to patch/upgrade Exadata to 18c (you can access here) and even made a partial/incomplete post for 12c in 2015.

The process will be very similar and can be done in rolling and non-rolling mode. In the first, the services continue to run and you don’t need to shutdown databases, but will take more time because the patchmgr applies server by server. At the second, you need to shutdown the entire GI and the patch is applied in parallel and will be faster.

Click here to read more…

Atualizando o Exadata – Storage Node

Um dos pontos que sempre perguntam sobre o Exadata é sobre a sua atualização, como ela é ou pode ser atualizado? Como o seu storage é atualizado? Realmente, e sendo franco, a sua atualização não é uma das mais simples no universo Oracle.

Simplificando, a sua atualização pode ser dividida em duas partes, a primeira é a atualização do software Exadata que roda nos storage nodes. A segunda parte é a atualização dos dbnodes, e esta última pode levar a mais algumas.

Desta forma, dividirei este post em dois. Primeiro falando da atualização dos storage nodes. E um segundo post falando da atualização dos dbnodes.

Antes de começar a falar sobre a atualização em si é importante saber onde você está indo. Traçar um mapa do que deve ser feito, dos passos importantes que serão tomados, das notas do Metalink com as informações importantes e dos contatos necessários.

Continue lendo…