- Overview:

Oracle is responsible to perform patches and updates to EXACC infrastructure every quarter (there is no patch in Dec). That includes:

Physical compute nodes (Dom0).
Network switches.
Power distribution units (PDUs).
Integrated lights-out management (ILOM).
Exadata storage servers.

The customer is responsible for managing patches and updates of OS for VM cluster’s nodes.
The customer can apply Oracle Exadata software release updates to VM cluster’s nodes at his/her convenience.
Patching of VM cluster’s nodes will be executed in the rolling mode to preserve database availability throughout the update process.
VM cluster patching tools:

Oracle OCI console.
patchmgr utility. The customer can run the utility either from one of ExaCC VM cluster nodes or from another server running Oracle Linux.

In this blog, I'll demonstrate the steps to patch/update ExaCC VM cluster OS image to the latest available release update using OCI console.

Steps to Update ExaCC VM cluster OS Image

1. Sign in to your OCI tenancy where your Exadata Database Service on Cloud @ Customer system is deployed.

2. Navigate to "Oracle Database" > "Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer" > "Exadata VM Clusters".

3. Click on your VM cluster name.

4. On VM cluster details home page, next to "Updates Available" click "View updates" link.

5. Run patching Precheck.

If the precheck is not successful, then the patch is not applied, and the system displays a message that the patch cannot be applied because the precheck failed.

- On Patches releases page, you will a list of available release update patches for "Virtual Machine OS Update" and "Grid Infrastructure Release Update".

- Review the list of available software updates. Click the Actions icon (three dots) at the end of the row listing the patch you are interested in, and then click "Precheck" action, then run "Run Precheck" button in confirm precheck screen.

Note: once Precheck finishes, update state will be "Available". On "Update History" page, update state will be "Precheck Passed".

6. Apply Exadata OS Image Update.

Note: Patching of VM cluster’s nodes will be executed in the rolling mode to preserve database availability throughout the update process.

Click the Actions icon (three dots) at the end of the row listing the patch that passed Precheck, and then click "Apply Exadata OS Image Update" action, then run "Apply Exadata Image Update" button in confirm screen.