Upgrade Oracle 19c Autonomous Database to 26ai

 

Introduction:

• You can upgrade Oracle 19c Autonomous Database to 26ai through a scheduled in-place upgrade or by creating a clone.
• In-place Upgrade: this method schedules an in-place upgrade from the Oracle Cloud (OCI) Console, which handles the process automatically during a designated time.
• You may select the earliest available schedule or a future schedule.
• Selecting the earliest available schedule for an upgrade will incur no additional charges.
• Scheduling an upgrade for a future date will reserve additional upgrade resources and will incur additional charges up till the upgrade completes.
• Upgrade windows are available based on the size of the database, connected standbys and refreshable clones. If a date is disabled in the scheduler, it is because the date falls outside available upgrade windows.
• Create a Clone: this method creates a new 26ai version of your 19c database with minimal downtime, allowing for a cutover later.

In this blog, I'll demonstrate upgrading Always Free ADB with In-place Upgrade method.

Prerequisites:

• A free tier or paid Oracle Cloud account
• A provisioned Always free ADB

Steps to upgrade ADB with In-Place Upgrade

1. Open OCI console navigation menu and select Oracle AI Database > Autonomous AI Database.

2. On Autonomous AI Database page, select the right compartment and click on 19c ADB database you want to upgrade.

3. On ADB home page, navigate to Autonomous AI Database Information tab page and click on Schedule upgrade to 26ai button next to Database version property. 

4. On Schedule upgrade to 26ai window, select Schedule option from Select Schedule drop list item, then click Schedule button.

Note: You can only select Earliest available schedule for Always Free ADB as this option doesn't incur additional charges.

5. A work request will be created to schedule ADB upgrade to 26ai. Navigate to Work requests tab page. Notice operation name "Upgrade Autonomous AI Database scheduled time for DB upgrade to 26ai".

6. Navigate back to Autonomous AI Database Information tab page, notice that database upgrade is scheduled to run on Earliest available schedule as highlighted below.

Note: database is still available until the upgrade scheduled time. Database will not be available during u[grade. Database upgrade duration depends on database size.

7. After Oracle has upgraded database on the scheduled time, database version is 26ai now.

That completes the workshop.

Thanks for reading !!!