RE: Applying CPU to RAC with physical standby - a way forward?

From: S. Anthony Sequeira <tony_at_sequeira.org.uk>
Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 00:29:38 +0100
Message-Id: <1212190178.18522.9.camel@quasar.sequestor.lan>

Hi,

I have received a couple of off list requests to update this, so here's the status so far.

Quite a bit of to and froing on this SR, but this is what we (well I did I guess) came up with in the end. Please note these is a skeleton plan, not detailed.

---

I should then recompile the views *after* running catcpu.

So I see the steps as follows (broadly) please confirm:

Defer log shipping
Rolling patch both nodes (opatch)
Patch standby (opatch)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Primary becomes unavailable now
Startup standby
Re-enable log shipping
Apply note (startup primary 'upgrade', Run catcpu) and the rest Post patch - Recompile views

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Primary becomes available
Checks logs applied to standby and whatever.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I start tomorrow, outage Sunday in between batch runs.

I have another issue which I will start another thread for.

Regards.

On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 17:08 +0100, S. Anthony Sequeira wrote:
> Thanks for that, I'll have a look at it.
>
> I got a reply from Oracle Support, after escalating the SR, and they
> give similar steps, except they didn't mention catpatch.
>
> I did catch that, and am awaiting an answer on how and when catpatch
> should be run. I believe catpatch should be run with the database
> started up in migrate mode? In which case I believe all nodes should be
> shutdown, though I may well be wrong.
>
> But thanks again, I'll have a look.
>
> Regards.
>
> On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 08:44 -0700, William Wagman wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Metalink note 278641.1 gives instructions for applying a patchset with a
> > 10g physical standby in place and, although I haven't tried it in a RAC
> > environment, only with standby, but I suspect it could be extrapolated.
> > Shut down the primary (in this case the RAC node which is the primary)
> > and the standby, install the patch and then with both the primary and
> > standby open run catpatch, then follow the instructions for a rolling
> > upgrade on other nodes? I've not tried it but it seems like it should
> > work.
> >
> > Bill Wagman
> > Univ. of California at Davis
> > IET Campus Data Center
> > wjwagman_at_ucdavis.edu
> > (530) 754-6208
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
> > [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of S. Anthony Sequeira
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 5:13 AM
> > To: Oracle List
> > Subject: Re: Applying CPU to RAC with physical standby
> >
> > On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 12:37 +0100, jason arneil wrote:
> > > I think you should be OK to apply the catpatch.sql with the database
> > > up, the patch instructions are clear on that. I don't think having
> > > dataguard involved impacts on this, why should it?
> >
> > Yes, but the standby patch application note (187242.1) specifically
> > mentions that all nodes must be down while the entire patch is being
> > applied. This is what I'm querying with Oracle Support, and the list.
> > I too believe that having a standby should not make a difference, but
> > apparently it does.
> >
> > > You must however
> > > start the database in upgrade mode to perform the view recompile -
> > > but
> > > you know this already!
> > >
> > > At this stage I can't see how you can have a node open for business
> > > -
> > > except if you want to offer your users some read only activity, then
> > > you could use your standby read only while you were doing the view
> > > recompile.
> >
> > We have scheduled downtime in a short window between batch runs on a
> > Sunday afternoon. Oracle Support are dragging their heels on this, if I
> > have to take the database down for an extended period of time, it has to
> > go back to the business.
> >
> > > This though is far removed from the marketing hype of "rolling
> > > upgrade".
> >
> > Agreed, this begs the question, why use RAC and pay through the nose?
> > But that's probably been gone through many times, and is not really
> > relevant to the thread.
> >
> > Regards.

-- 
S. Anthony Sequeira
++
System checkpoint complete.
++

--
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Received on Fri May 30 2008 - 18:29:38 CDT