Free Oracle Learning and Certifications for OCI and Autonomous database - Limited period

Hello All,

Oracle announced a limited period free access to Oracle Learning and Certifications on OCI and Autonomous Database technologies. 

Its absolutely free of cost for everyone. Indeed it is a very good chance everyone to learn something new to update Oracle knowledge and get certified. Use the below Oracle link for enrolling to courses and certification:

https://www.oracle.com/corporate/blog/free-certifications-oracle-oci-autonomous-033020.html

All the very best and happy learning.

RAC DB upgrade from 11.2.0.4 to 12.1.0.2 ASM prerequisites fail with DUBA

A 3 node Oracle extended RAC has been successfully upgrade from 11.2.0.1 to 12.1.0.2 just last week. As part of the upgrade planning, we started off with GRID home upgrade process from 11.2.0.4 to 12.1.0.2, followed by DB upgrade from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.4 and finally DB upgrade to 12.1.0.2. This was done over the 3 weeks. As there was no direct in-place database upgrade option for a database v11.2.0.1 to 12.1.0.2, we had to take the alternative route.

In previous two blog posts, I have shared the details about the challenges faced and resolved. So, here is another challenge encountered during the database upgrade. Encountered the below pre-requisites failure during the pre-requisites validation by DBUA:

Below is the details of the error:

• ASM Upgrade Feasible Check: The database is using ASM as storage. Before you upgrade database, you need to upgrade ASM using Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (ASMCA) from grid infrastructure home. ASM should be running from grid infrastructure home. Upgrade Storage Check :  Disk space usage summary Location +DATA_DG does not exist.

It was wired to see the message despite the fact that the GRID was successfully upgraded, including ASM. After a quick search we have come across of two MOS references , mentioned below, and the solution was just straight forward.

To expedite the post DB upgrade requirements, we did prepare complete environment for EB database.

The solution was to rename the sqlnet.ora file from the 12c network/admin directory. One we did this and resumed DBUA, it went through.


MOS References:

Upgrade database to 12.1.0.2.0, DBUA fails: COULD NOT FIND ANY DISKGROUPS [2039864.1]
Database Upgrade From 11.2.0.4 To 12.1.0.2 Pre-checks Failing while using DBUA [2317976.1]
https://oakinoracle.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/experienced-12c-grid-db-upgrade/

Oracle GI upgrade from 12.1.0.2 to 12.2.0.1 on Exadata

Yet another successful Exadata  Grid Infrastructure upgrade to 12.2. Of course the v12.2.0.1 is bit older, but as per customer's request, we had to proceed. As usual there are some takeaway points from this assignment too.  I am going to share some of the challenges encountered and fixed during the course of this upgrade.

First thing is first. The 12.2 and above installation and upgrade is really cool with the golden image concept introduction. Even great to know that we can also apply the patch before running the root.sh or root upgrade. I really felt super cool about this.

As part of 2 node Cluster upgrade from 12.1, an 12.2 software gold image is extracted to the 12.2 location and started gridSetup.sh with applyPSU (JAN2020 patch). During OUI validation, gridSetup.sh failing with the following error:

[INS-42505] The installer has detected that the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home software at ($GRID_HOME) is not complete.

The installation was looking older version of jar files, hence, it couldn't find, the warning message appeared. It took very less time to figure out the issue. As JAN20 PSU was applied before the OUI startup, it wasn't reflected, hence, ignored the message and resumed with the setup.

After the successful rootupgrade.sh execution on node 1 and node 2, we found that the session (Xwindow) become inactive and OUI couldn't continue.

With >=12.2, you can easily resume the OUI from the point it failed. All you need to do is the following:

Find out the latest response file used during the failed upgrade in the following location (depending on your 12.2 grid home) shown as example:

/u01/app/12.2.0.1/grid/12.2.0.1_180116/gi_1/install/response

And resume the setup from the first node, as show in below:

gridSetup.sh -executeConfigTools -responseFile <responsefile.rsp>

And the setup resumed and managed to complete the upgrade successfully.

Oracle 11.2.0.1 upgrade with restore point scenario fails

I was recently involved in a 3 instance Oracle RAC v11.2.0.1 database upgrade assignment. My favorite method of database upgrade is manual method. This time I had to opt DBUA tool as per customer demand. A guaranteed restore point was created just before initiating an upgrade process.

When DBUA tool launched and initiated an upgrade process, there were lot of surprises thrown by the tool, like, unable to put the database in flashback database mode etc. It was a scary moment for everyone present around as the tool complained many other issues as proceed along. Finally, the upgrade process was aborted and the DBUA did mention to restore the database from a previous successful backup. It was a heart stop moment.

Luckily no damage was done to the database and restore was not required. Wasn't very sure about guaranteed restore point on v11.2.0.1, so, it was dropped and relaunched the DBUA tool again. And this time the upgrade went through without any surprises and successfully upgraded the database to 11.2.0.4.