This article presents new features of 11g added to opatch.
It’s very nice feature of 11g for applying “online” bug fixes on live databases:
- install online patch
- enable online patch
- disable online patch
This functionality is provided with commonly know opatch command-line utility and new type of patches “online”.
New opatch features:
- apply an online patch on running database(no shutdown/restart instance, no relinking of binaries)
- detects conflicts between patches (online-online, online-conventional)
- simple check if a patch is online
opatch query -is_online_patch <patch> opatch query <patch> -all
“Online patch” features:
- is supported by RAC
- persist across database restarts
- fast install/uninstall usually a few seconds
- easy detect of conflicts between patches
- list in patch inventory
- requires more memory versus conventional patch. It depends on size of patch and number of concurrently running Oracle processes. Minimum one OS page per running Oracle process
- supported on many platforms: Linux, Aix, Windows, Sun, HP
- can be installed online
I think it’s great functionality especially that you can install/deinstall it in a few seconds and no shutdown is required.
Have a fun 🙂
Tomasz