Oracle Database

An Oracle Database is a collection of data treated as a unit. A database stores and retrieves related information. Oracle DB is widely used and known for its reliability, scalability, and extensive features.

Currently, BigFix supports Oracle Database 19c and 21c in RAC, ASM, and SDB environments.
Note: Oracle has announced 12c and 18c reached the End of Life (EOL).
Key points for Oracle Database 21c Update:
  • Only SDB and ASM Fixlets are being released.
  • Supported platforms: Linux x86-64 and Windows x64 (SDB only).
  • The patch list for both SDB and ASM is the same as the 19c ContainerDB.
  • There is no separate JVM patch; only PSU and OJDK updates are included.
Patching an Oracle Database with BigFix involves three basic steps:
Deploying an "Patch List" task as a Policy Action
This action captures information about all databases entry in the oratab file (or Oracle services on Windows) along with their respective patch levels.
Deploying a "Precheck" task
This step includes updating the Oracle opatch utility to the version required by the patch, and to verify the prerequisites (disk space, patch conflicts, etc) for installing the patch.
Deploying a "Patch" Fixlet
This step is to deploy a "Patch" Fixlet that installs both the binary and database patches.
Deploying a "Rollback" task
This step is performed to reverse a previously applied oracle patch or restore the system to its earlier state by uninstalling or undoing the update.
Note: On non-Windows systems, the Update Fixlet can only capture information about databases entry that are in the oratab file. If a database entry is not in the oratab file, the patch Fixlet will not include it in the patching process.
Note: The Precheck and Patch Fixlets are specific to OS, Oracle version, and specific patch level such as "OracleDB 19c on Linux - 2023-10 Patch". (There are also Fixlet variants specific to ASM and RAC). When a Precheck or Patch Fixlet is deployed to a database server, it performs prechecks or patches on all the targeted databases on that server. For example, "OracleDB 19c on Linux - 2023-10 Patch" will patch all 19c databases on the Linux servers to 2023-10, that are listed in the oratab file.
Note: The Precheck task is designed to be run multiple times as needed prior to patching. Running the Precheck Fixlet allows you to verify that all the prerequisites are met before deploying the corresponding Patch Fixlet.