Category Archives: Engineered Systems

Category about Oracle Engineered Systems

23ai, Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching using Release Update with Silent Install

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My two last posts (about the GI update) used the GOLD IMAGE (link post#1, and post#2), where we basically deploy a patched image of the desired version. But this is different when we use the Release Update patch. Below I will describe how to do this, covering all the steps, using the silent install (easily adapted for automation), and with Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching – ZDOGIP (that can easily bypassed if you want).

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23ai, Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching – GOLD IMAGE with Silent Install

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My previous post was about the Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching (ZDOGIP) for 23ai using the gold image. In that case, I used the GUI interface to do the installation and patch, but as you know, this is not good for the automation process. So, here in this post, I will describe how to do the same operation using the silent mode for the installation. I will show what parameters you need to set in the response file and all the other steps.

Important details

The focus of this post is to show how to do the same process as my previous post using the silent mode. I will not “prove” (like I made in the last one) that databases continue to receive inserts or details about the AFD/ACFS drivers not being updated. I really recommend that you read my previous post to understand all of these details. Here I will show how to do in silent mode what I made in the previous post.

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23ai, Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching – GOLD IMAGE

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As you know, the 23ai was released for Cloud and Engineered Systems (Exadata and ExaCC) first, I already explored these in previous posts as well. And since the patches already started to be released, now with the patch for 23.6, we can re-test the feature Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching (ZDOGIP). The steps here are not specific to the Exadata version and can be used for any 23ai version.

I already demonstrated how to use it for 21c (using graphical, and silent mode) and the same can be done for 19c as well.

But now, I will show how to do for 23ai, and this post includes:

  • Install the Grid Infrastructure 23.6.0.24.10, using the Gold Image
  • Upgrade the GI from 23.5.0.24.07 to 23.6.0.24.10 using the Zero-Downtime Oracle Grid Infrastructure Patching

This will be done while the database is running to show that we can patch the GI without downtime. I will show how to do this:

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ExaCC, Upgrading from OEL 7 to OEL 8

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Recently I shared several posts about the process to upgrade the GI from 19c to 23ai at ExaCC. My last post summarizes a lot of this, please read it here. But as you know, to use the 23ai you need to be running with OEL 8, and for ExaCC, the upgrade is quite simple. The goal is to reach this, “no updates” and “System up to date”:

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Manually upgrading Oracle GI from 19c to 23ai

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With the official release of Oracle 23ai to Exadata on-prem, it is now possible to manually upgrade Grid Infrastructure (GI) from 19c to 23ai. Nowadays the process is simpler than it was in the past, and I already published several examples of how to do this:

So, several examples that you can use as a guide to reach from GI 12.1 to 19c. In this post, I will upgrade from GI 19.23 (19.23.0.0.240416) to GI 23.5 (23.5.0.24.07).

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Exadata Exascale, The Game-Changer

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Yes, it is a game-changer. It is for DBAs. It is for DevOps. It is for Enterprises too. And it is not because of new internal services, new ways to access data, or the scalability. But because it changes and improves a lot the way that databases can be refreshed, the way that databases are cloned, how to do CI/CD, and how to deliver databases.

Forget all the slowness and painful process when it is needed to clone production databases over lower environments, or when it is required to clone the dev database to another one. Let’s discover below what can be done with Exascale.

Exascale, the basic information

Exascale is built on top of Exadata software. So, all the software features from Exadata are there, the smartscan, the bloom filter, the resource manager, the AI Vector, the JSON, the RDMA, and the RoCE. Even details like the internal services, the MS, CS, and RS continue the same.

On top of that, comes the Exascale software. Several additional services are created to control the communication with the database and deliver the new features. Exascale can be used, deployed, and scaled the way that is needed. It can start, for example, with 300GB until hundreds of terabytes. So, scalability is not an issue.

At Exascale, the usable space is called Vault and the database clusters can share this Vault (imagine that it is the same as ASM diskgroup) to put datafiles redo’s and archivelogs. Going beyond, the storage can be shared (as block devices) by iSCSI to allow plug the Exascale into your network and facilitate the database migrations. When it is OCI, virtual machines can be booted using the Vault as a bootable device.

The communication with databases does not change too much, the Oracle database kernel talks directly with Exascale Vault. So, the first big change, ASM does not exist for 23ai and newer versions. All the redundant processes consuming CPU and memory (by ASM) are gone (imagine all the clusters of ExaCC/ExaCS/Exadata, all of them with their own ASM process). With Exascale they don’t exist anymore because, now, the databases talk directly with Exascale and the Vault. For the 19c database, the ASM is still in place. But at the same Exadata Exascale appliance can have clusters running in 23ai, and others in 19c.

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23ai, DBCA, Cloud, and TDE

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The 23ai is already available at Cloud and ExaCC as well. It is On-Prem, but it is Cloud too, so, we can use it. Recently I needed to create some databases manually (not using the ExaCc dbaas* utilities) and encountered some interesting details when using dbca. Mainly because at Cloud we are forced to have encrypted databases. You can skip directly to the end to see how to solve and create databases with TDE enabled since the beginning when using dbca, or read the rest of the post to check the root cause and the troubleshooting.

19c and traditional dbca

Just to remember, if you want to create a database using the dbca, you have a lot of options but nothing related to TDE:

[oracle@o8p1-19c ~]$ which dbca
/u01/app/oracle/product/19.18.0.0/dbhome_2/bin/dbca
[oracle@o8p1-19c ~]$
[oracle@o8p1-19c ~]$ dbca -silent -createDatabase -help |grep -i TDE
[oracle@o8p1-19c ~]$

23ai and traditional dbca usage

So, when I tried to create the database with dbca I tried to use it with the same parameters that I used in all my previous years. But it failed telling that “ORA-28361: Master key not yet set”:

[oracle@exxc05db01-]$ which dbca
/u02/app/oracle/product/23.0.0.0/dbhome_1/bin/dbca
[oracle@exxc05db01-]$
[oracle@exxc05db01-]$ dbca -silent -createDatabase -templateName TEMPLATE_23ai.dbt -gdbName DBN234I -adminManaged -sid DBN234I -sysPassword oracle23ai -systemPassword oracle23ai -createAsContainerDatabase TRUE -useLocalUndoForPDBs TRUE -characterSet AL32UTF8 -emConfiguration NONE -sampleSchema false -storageType ASM -diskGroupName DATAC4 -recoveryGroupName RECOC4 -nodelist exxc05db01,exxc06db01 -databaseConfigType RAC
[WARNING] [DBT-06208] The 'SYS' password entered does not conform to the Oracle recommended standards.
   CAUSE:
a. Oracle recommends that the password entered should be at least 8 characters in length, contain at least 1 uppercase character, 1 lower case character and 1 digit [0-9].
b.The password entered is a keyword that Oracle does not recommend to be used as password
   ACTION: Specify a strong password. If required refer Oracle documentation for guidelines.
[WARNING] [DBT-06208] The 'SYSTEM' password entered does not conform to the Oracle recommended standards.
   CAUSE:
a. Oracle recommends that the password entered should be at least 8 characters in length, contain at least 1 uppercase character, 1 lower case character and 1 digit [0-9].
b.The password entered is a keyword that Oracle does not recommend to be used as password
   ACTION: Specify a strong password. If required refer Oracle documentation for guidelines.
Prepare for db operation
4% complete
Creating and starting Oracle instance
5% complete
6% complete
8% complete
Creating database files
[WARNING] ORA-28361: Master key not yet set.

9% complete
[FATAL] ORA-00959: tablespace 'USERS' does not exist

12% complete
100% complete
[FATAL] ORA-00959: tablespace 'USERS' does not exist

8% complete
4% complete
0% complete
Look at the log file "/u02/app/oracle/cfgtoollogs/dbca/DBN234I/DBN234I.log" for further details.
[oracle@exxc05db01-]$

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Upgrading to GI 23ai at ExaCC using CLI

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As you know, the 23ai is already available in several environments, mainly in Oracle Cloud, and one of these is the ExaCC. I already covered how to do the upgrade to 23ai for Grid Infrastructure (GI) using the Web interface, and Christian covered the upgrade of the OCI CLI. But here I will upgrade using the ExaCC CLI (dbaascli).

Again, first things first. Requirements

As discussed in the previous post, the first requirement is that your VM/domU is running the 23.1x version because it runs over the OEL 8. The second one is that the only available versions that are allowed to be installed in the cluster are the 19c and 23ai. The last one is that the attribute “compatible.rdbms” needs to be at least 19.0.0.0 for your diskgroups:

SQL> SELECT name, compatibility, database_compatibility FROM v$asm_diskgroup;

NAME                           COMPATIBILITY                                                DATABASE_COMPATIBILITY
------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------
DATAC5                         19.0.0.0.0                                                   11.2.0.4.0
RECOC5                         19.0.0.0.0                                                   11.2.0.4.0

SQL>
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP DATAC5 SET ATTRIBUTE 'compatible.rdbms' = '19.0.0.0.0';

Diskgroup altered.

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP RECOC5 SET ATTRIBUTE 'compatible.rdbms' = '19.0.0.0.0';

Diskgroup altered.

SQL>

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Upgrading to GI 23ai at ExaCC

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The 23ai was released last month and was only available at Oracle Cloud deployments and a few places for free edition, nothing besides that. Last year it was also released (focused on the Devs) as a formerly 23c free edition. Fortunately, it was released to be used at ExaCC. So, now we can upgrade Grid Infrastructure (GI) and install the database to play with it.

In all previous scenarios, we had some constraints. For Dev’s we didn’t have RAC, DG, and GI features at all. And for OCI, we didn’t have access to manually create databases or deploy GI buy ourselves. For ExaCC we are free to deploy our GI, install RAC databases, and so on. Here I will show how to upgrade your GI from 19c to 23ai. We will reach this:

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Exadata, REQUIRED_MIRROR_FREE_MB and GRID 19.19

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I already wrote about the issue introduced with GI 19.16 in my previous post (click here to read) where (only at Exadata) more space was allocated/reserved by Oracle to guarantee mirror/rebalance. Fortunately, after some months of discussion, they rollbacked the change and released one patch that can be applied at GI 19.19.

The patch was released on 12 of June and it is the number 35285795 and can be only applied at GI 19.19. But to have your space back again there is one important rule: your mirroring needs to be HIGH. This is necessary because the “Smart Rebalance” that allows your disk to be dropped without losing the mirroring. I will write another post just to talk about it.

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