RE: Upgrading with no patches in the "base"?

Note carefully that Clay's excellent advice is NOT in conflict with functionality change freezes prior to event windows.  

For example in pre-history when using UNIX for business was avant garde, Burlington Coat had a functionality change freeze from Labor Day until January 5. During that window only bug repairs were allowed. (And in this context a security fix IS a bug repair, right?).  

Good luck out there. It is great to have references to help your management understand that it is not possible to stand still unless you're in an air gapped vault. At Coat we had the rare luxury of a CEO and IT Director who both understood risk management in their bones. Through users groups that brought substantial understanding to software vendors about the business cycles that needed to be respected with regard to functional changes to applications as opposed to bug and security revisions. (And likewise being doggone careful that bug patches and security revisions didn't break things.)  

More modern quick turn feature deployment has to an extent lost that critical notion.  

mwf  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Clay Jackson (cjackson)
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2021 11:52 AM
To: ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Upgrading with no patches in the "base"?  

This is a great reference - especially the point that "Your application is already broken". My corollary to that is that "All code is obsolete the first time it executes". NOT patching, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is a folly. The net over time will be an application that "fails" (to perform as expected) more and more often. . Patching or "upgrading" is to software what "Preventive Maintenance" is to "hardware" (the physical universe); if you don't change the oil in your car, eventually (and unpredictably) it will stop (catastrophically).  

I personally experienced this in a "previous life" and had to fight to develop a "patching cycle"; like law and sausage making, it wasn't pretty, and it took time; but our "application availability" improved dramatically.  

When you're purchasing an application, one of the "due diligence" criteria should be discovering how often the vendor provides updates, what dependencies (like "platform" versions) exist and the vendor's track record on dealing with those.  

Clay Jackson    

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> On Behalf Of Rajesh Aialavajjala
Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 7:37 AM
To: mark_at_bobak.net
Cc: Noveljic Nenad <nenad.noveljic_at_vontobel.com>; mkline1_at_comcast.net; ORACLE-L <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
Subject: Re: Upgrading with no patches in the "base"?  

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not follow guidance, click links, or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.  

This (in my humble opinion) excellent post by Tim Hall - https://oracle-base.com/blog/2020/10/08/upgrades-you-have-to-do-them-when-ar e-you-going-to-learn-tlsv1-2/
<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foracle-ba
se.com%2Fblog%2F2020%2F10%2F08%2Fupgrades-you-have-to-do-them-when-are-you-g oing-to-learn-tlsv1-2%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cclay.jackson%40quest.com%7C994ed2791 2aa4b58d86c08d8b3eb5bcb%7C91c369b51c9e439c989c1867ec606603%7C0%7C0%7C6374571 70719795976%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJB TiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=eUNHpU9kcoKuzC2j9992yIoPXZOL4NxLRtQn Pnn0OnE%3D&reserved=0> - summarizes the reasons to NOT try to use an unpatched home. I agree - I've never heard of this "unpatched $ORACLE_HOME" strategy.  

Patches (RU/RUR/CPU/PSU - a rose by any other name) exist for a reason (grin) - granted they are not always perfect (grimace) and can lead to one dealing with vendor support - in this case Oracle Support.  

I would add my +1 to Mark's comment and the previous replies (of course you gentlemen hardly need my endorsement) - this does not make sense...  

I don't know if there is a constraint from the application side that prohibits 19c - I recently had an upgrade project to move databases to 12.1.0.2 and when the "Why not 19c?" question was raised the reply was the application that uses the DB had a hard stop regarding compatibility at 12.1 - the prior upgrade to 12c (interpreted 12.2) had to be rolled back.  

Thanks,  

--Rajesh      

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 10:28 AM Mark J. Bobak <mark_at_bobak.net> wrote:

"They will test this for a while, and if everything is fine, THEN they will apply the patch."  

And what if everything *isn't* fine? Then they *won't* apply the patch?  

Doesn't make sense.  

-Mark  

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 10:19 AM Noveljic Nenad <nenad.noveljic_at_vontobel.com> wrote:

Hi Michael,  

That sounds like black magic.  

If "for a while" implies two different maintenance windows, you end up with two test cycles and two disruptions instead of just one. If you get the opportunity to combat these voodoo practitioners in front of the management, the most persuasive argument would be that the database will be running without security and other critical patches for a while. Who's going to take that risk?  

Last but not least, why not 19c?  

Best regards,  

Nenad    

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> On Behalf Of Michael Kline
Sent: Freitag, 8. Januar 2021 15:29
To: 'ORACLE-L' <oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Subject: Upgrading with no patches in the "base"?  

Hearing that an application is going to be upgraded from 12.1 to 12.2.  

Vendor is saying they will create a "blank, no patched" 12.2 $ORACLE_HOME, and then upgrade the database.  

They will test this for a while, and if everything is fine, THEN they will apply the patch.  

I've never heard of such a thing and have been working on Oracle databases since 1983, version 4.0.  

Is there logic in this? We try to keep all databases at N-1 on patching.    

Michael Kline      

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