DBMS_QOPATCH, datapatch, rollback, apply force

I am working for a customer on a quite big implementation of Cold Failover Cluster with Oracle Grid Infrastructure on Linux. I hope to have some material to publish soon about it! However, in this post I will be talking about patching the database in a cold-failover environment.

DISCLAIMER: I use massively scripts provided in this great blog post by Simon Pane:

https://www.pythian.com/blog/oracle-database-12c-patching-dbms_qopatch-opatch_xml_inv-and-datapatch/

Thank you Simon for sharing this 🙂

Intro

We are not yet in the process of doing out-of-place patching; at the moment the customer prefers to do in-place patching:

  • evacuate a node by relocating all the databases on other nodes
  • patching the node binaries
  • move back the databases and patch them with datapatch
  • do the same for the remaining nodes

I beg to disagree with this method, being a fan of having many patched golden copies distributed on all servers and patching the databases by just changing the ORACLE_HOME and running datapatch (like Rapid Home Provisioning does). But, this is the situation today, and we have to live with it.

Initial situation

  • Server 1, 2 and 3: one-off 20139391 applied
  • New database created

cfc_qopatch1When the DBCA creates a new database, in 12.1.0.2, it does not run datapatch by default, thus, the database does not have any patches installed.

However, this specific one-off patch does not modify anything in the database (sql_patch=false)

and the datapatch runs without touching the db:

Next step: I evacuate the server 2 and patch it, then I relocate my database on it

cfc_qopatch2

Now the database is not at the same level of the binaries and need to be patched:

The column CONSTITUENT is important here because it tells us what the parent patch_id is. This is the column that we have to check when we want to know if the patch has been applied on the database.

Now the patch is visible inside the dba_registry_sqlpatch:

Notice that the child patches are not listed in thie view.

Rolling back

Now, one node is patched, but the others are not. What happen if I relocate the patched database to a non-patched node?

cfc_qopatch3

The patch is applied inside the database but not in the binaries!

If I run datapatch again, the patch is rolled back:

The patch has been rolled back according to the datapatch, and the action is shown in the dba_registry_sqlpatch:

But if I look at the logfile, the patch had some errors:

Indeed, the patch looks still there:

If I try to run it again, it does nothing/it fails saying the patch is not there:

What does it say on the patched node?

Whaaat? datapatch there says that the patch IS in the registry and there’s nothing to do. Let’s try to force its apply again:

Conclusion

I’m not sure whether it is safe to run the patched database in a non-patched Oracle Home. I guess it is time for a new SR 🙂

Meanwhile, we will try hard not to relocate the databases once they have been patched.

Cheers

Ludo

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Ludovico

Principal Product Manager at Oracle
Ludovico is a member of the Oracle Database High Availability (HA), Scalability & Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) Product Management team in Oracle. He focuses on Oracle Data Guard, Flashback technologies, and Cloud MAA.

One thought on “DBMS_QOPATCH, datapatch, rollback, apply force

  1. Pingback: DBMS_QOPATCH, datapatch, rollback, apply force - Ludovico Caldara - Blogs - triBLOG

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