RE: Question on database fleet maintenance patching

What errors were you seeing with datapactch as my patching of each quarter with 12.2 I had no failures.

If you did see failures in testing of the patch you should have adjusted your Ansible code.

Automation like anything else is not static. Someone will always have to read the Oracle readmes and adjust the code if Oracle makes changes like they do every 3 yrs or so.      

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> On Behalf Of Mladen Gogala Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:59 AM To: dimensional.dba_at_comcast.net
Cc: Clay.Jackson_at_quest.com; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: Re: Question on database fleet maintenance patching  

I have written an ansible playbook but that doesn't help when the "datapatch" utility bombs. And that happens regularly with 12.2

Ansible is the same type of utility as chef or puppet.  

On Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 20:45 <dimensional.dba_at_comcast.net <mailto:dimensional.dba_at_comcast.net> > wrote:

I have written Puppet code to fully patch Oracle databases with all steps being automated.

The whole point of automation is to make it a completely repeatable process and eliminate the need for humans for patching. There is much more valuable work for the humans than patching.

Patching takes about 15 minutes along with be able to patch multiple systems at a time so a singular human is much more efficient.    

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> > On Behalf Of Clay Jackson (cjackson) Sent: Monday, December 23, 2019 4:33 PM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Subject: RE: Question on database fleet maintenance patching  

Well, I suppose you could use some sort of automation/orchestration tool; there are lots out there, from DBMS_JOB to Puppet/Chef and lots of others.  

But, do you REALLY want to trust patching your databases that presumably contain data of greater than zero value to some automated process? I’ve seen too many patch processes “go awry” to want to trust automation.  

That said, of course you SHOULD have some sort of script that you run repeatedly (avoid typos or sequencing errors); but, automation as in “unattended” would not be my choice.  

Just my $.02…..    

Clay Jackson

Database Solutions Sales Engineer

 <mailto:clay.jackson_at_quest.com> clay.jackson_at_quest.com

office 949-754-1203 mobile 425-802-9603  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> > On Behalf Of Tharmarajah, Sam Sent: Monday, December 23, 2019 2:24 PM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org <mailto:oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Subject: Question on database fleet maintenance patching  

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Hi All,  

We have been asked to reduce the number of personals involved during our quarterly database patching. I was looking into using the fleet maintenance. Upon doing a POC, I notice the process of deploying the software job, awaits for manual step run and confirmation at three different points (new oracle home dir creation, pre -root run section and post root.sh run section), in spite of providing the normal and privileged credentials . We are wondering if there is a way to have these steps be run as part of the process automatically, instead of running manually.  

Example:

./emcli db_software_maintenance -performOperation -name="deploy195" -purpose=DEPLOY_DB_SOFTWARE -target_type=oracle_database -target_list=xyz.com <http://xyz.com> -normal_credential=FLEETMGR_STANDARD:SYSMAN -privilege_credential=FLEETMGR_PRIVILEGED:SYSMAN -input_file="data:/oracle/local/config/xyz.inp"  

The .inp file

NEW_ORACLE_HOME_LIST=/oracle/product/195

workingDir=/backup/tmp  

The databases we are trying patch is 19.x

We have EM 13.3c  

Our advance thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions.  

Thanx,

Sam

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