Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

View Patch and Maintenance Window Information, Set the Patch Level

Autonomous Database uses predefined maintenance windows to automatically patch your database. You can view maintenance and patch information and see details for Autonomous Database maintenance history. When you provision your database you can select a patch level.

  • About Scheduled Maintenance and Patching
    All Autonomous Database instances are automatically assigned to a maintenance window and different instances can have different maintenance windows.
  • View Maintenance Event History
    You can view Autonomous Database maintenance event history for details about past maintenance events, such as the title, state, start time, and stop time.
  • View Patch Details
    You can view Autonomous Database patch information, including a list of resolved issues and components.
  • Set the Patch Level
    When you provision or clone an Autonomous Database instance you can select a patch level to apply to upcoming patches. There are two patch level options: Regular and Early.
  • View Maintenance Status Notifications
    The DB_NOTIFICATIONS view stores information about maintenance status notifications for your Autonomous Database instance.

Parent topic: Managing and Viewing Maintenance Windows, Patching Options, Work Requests, and Customer Contacts

About Scheduled Maintenance and Patching

All Autonomous Database instances are automatically assigned to a maintenance window and different instances can have different maintenance windows.

Autonomous Database uses these maintenance windows to patch the entire stack used to run your database, including the database software, database dictionary, operating systems, Exadata storage, firmware, and more.

Patches include bug fixes, security fixes, and new features. Critical security fixes are always applied as soon as they are available. Patches are deployed uniformly across all databases, so you do not need to track one-off patches. After a fix for an issue is implemented, for example an issue seen in one database, the fix is deployed to all Autonomous Database instances.

All patches undergo a rigorous testing and validation process that is part of a continuous integration and development pipeline. Fixes are validated in multiple stages and environments before they are deployed to Early patch level and Always Free databases, followed by Regular patch level databases. This pipeline allows regressions to be caught and fixed before the patch is deployed to all databases. In the unlikely case that a regression is introduced, there are processes to mitigate the problem either by rolling back a subset of the patch or the entire patch itself.


Description of autonomous-database-continuous-integration.eps follows

The Autonomous Database Details page shows the Next Maintenance field that includes the date and time for the upcoming maintenance window; the date is updated automatically when the next maintenance window is scheduled. The View History link provides details on past maintenance. The Patch Level field shows the patch level setting for the Autonomous Database instance.

Note

Your database remains available during the maintenance window. Your existing database connections may get disconnected briefly; however, you can immediately reconnect and continue using your database.
Description of adb_patch_level.png follows

Notes for scheduled maintenance and patching:

  • The Autonomous Database operations team never accesses your data unless you explicitly grant permission through a Service Request for a specified duration.

  • If your database is in the stopped state during the maintenance window, the database changes from the patch are applied when you start your database.

  • You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Events to be notified when maintenance begins and ends. See Information Events on Autonomous Database for more information.

  • If you want to change the assigned maintenance window to a different 2-hour window, file a Service Request at Oracle Cloud Support. If you want a specific time period for your maintenance window, you can request the time period with the same Service Request. If you request a specific time period for your maintenance window, the change can only be made if the time period you request is available for your database.

  • If your database's allocated storage is 384 TB, you can choose a custom 2-hour window by filing a Service Request at Oracle Cloud Support (that is you can file a Service Request to request a specific day for your maintenance window).

View Maintenance Event History

You can view Autonomous Database maintenance event history for details about past maintenance events, such as the title, state, start time, and stop time.

Perform the following prerequisite steps as necessary:

  • Open the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console by clicking the navigation icon next to Oracle Cloud.

  • From the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure left navigation menu click Oracle Database and then, depending on your workload click one of: Autonomous Data Warehouse, Autonomous JSON Database, or Autonomous Transaction Processing.

  • On the Autonomous Databases page select an Autonomous Database from the links under the Display name column.

To view maintenance history, do the following:

  1. On the Autonomous Database Details page, under Maintenance, click View History.
  2. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console displays the Maintenance History page.
  3. (Optional) Use the State selector to filter events by state.

    For example, if you select Succeeded, the Maintenance History page shows only the maintenance events with the Succeeded state.

    Description of adb_maintenance_history.png follows
The Maintenance History page shows details for each maintenance event, including the following:

  • Title: The name of the maintenance event.

  • Maintenance Type: Planned or Unplanned.

  • Resource Type: The type of the resource on which the maintenance event occurs: Database or Infrastructure.

  • State: Succeeded, Failed, or In progress.

  • Start Time: Maintenance start time.

  • End Time: Maintenance end time.

Note

Maintenance event history is available starting with maintenance events after February 2021.

View Patch Details

You can view Autonomous Database patch information, including a list of resolved issues and components.

The DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO view provides patch information related to reported bugs (bugs reported by a customer). You can use this information to determine if a bug you reported is fixed and the patch version where the fix was applied to your Autonomous Database instance. If there were no customer bugs in a patch, DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO does not include any rows for that patch.

To view patch information for a specific patch, do the following:

  1. Select the Autonomous Database patch that you want to view. The Maintenance History page on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console shows the list of patches under Title.
  2. For the selected patch, query the DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO view.

    For example, for patch ADBS-21.7.1.1, use the following query: 

    SELECT * FROM DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO WHERE PATCH_VERSION = 'ADBS-21.7.1.1';
  3. For an issue of interest, query the view to obtain details for the issue:
    SELECT * FROM DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO WHERE PATCH_VERSION = 'ADBS-21.7.1.1' and BUG_NUM = bug_number;

To view patch information for all available patches:

SELECT * FROM DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO;

Notes for viewing patch information:

  • The view DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO is available to the ADMIN user.

  • Patch information and details on resolved issues is available from ADBS-21.7.1.1 onwards (starting in July 2021).

  • The view DBA_CLOUD_PATCH_INFO has the following columns: 

    BUG_NUM, BUG_TITLE, COMPONENT_NAME, PATCH_VERSION

See View Maintenance Status Notifications for details about the patches applied during maintenance.

Set the Patch Level

When you provision or clone an Autonomous Database instance you can select a patch level to apply to upcoming patches. There are two patch level options: Regular and Early.

When you select patch level Early, patches are applied for the Autonomous Database instance one week before the Regular scheduled patch. The Next Maintenance field in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console reflects a maintenance window date and time based on the patch level.

The default patch level for provisioning an Autonomous Database instance is Regular. The default patch level for cloning is the patch level specified for the source database. Provisioning or cloning an instance and setting the patch level to Early allows you to use and to test upcoming patches before they are applied to all systems.

Note

When cloning a source database with Early patch level, you can only choose Early patch level for your clone.

To set the patch level, do the following:

  1. Set the patch level when you provision or clone an instance.

    When you provision a new instance, follow the provisioning instructions and select the patch level, either Regular or Early. See Provision an Autonomous Database Instance for more information.

    When you clone an instance, follow the cloning instructions and select a patch level, either Regular or Early. See Clone an Autonomous Database Instance for more information.

To change the patch level, do the following:

  1. You cannot change the patch level for an existing Autonomous Database instance. The option to set the patch level is only available when you provision or clone an Autonomous Database instance.

  2. Change the patch level by cloning a new instance and selecting a different patch level for the cloned database. Cloning a source database with the patch level Regular to Early is allowed. Cloning a source database with the patch level Early to Regular is not allowed. See Clone an Autonomous Database Instance for more information.

Reporting Patch Issues to Oracle Support

Oracle Support provides the same handling for regular or early patch level Autonomous Databases. If you are using an Autonomous Database instance and the patch level is Early, Oracle Support considers issues you report with high priority and after validating an issue, determines if the patch should be applied or withheld from the upcoming Regular patch.

If you have an issue to report, file a service request at Oracle Cloud Support or contact your support representative.

Notes for patching level:

  • The option to set the patch level is not available in every region. In some regions all Autonomous Database instances are provisioned or cloned at the Regular patch level.

  • Autonomous Data Guard is only available for instances with patch level Regular. When you configure an Autonomous Database instance with patch level Early, you cannot enable Autonomous Data Guard.

  • Always Free Autonomous Database instances do not provide the Early patch level option.

  • When the patch level of a source Autonomous Database instance is Regular, in regions that support the Early patch level you can set the patch level of a clone to Early.

  • When the patch level of a source Autonomous Database instance is Early, you can only choose the Early patch level for your clone.

View Maintenance Status Notifications

The DB_NOTIFICATIONS view stores information about maintenance status notifications for your Autonomous Database instance.

To show notification information:

  1. Connect to your Autonomous Database instance.
  2. Use the following query to view maintenance (patching) information.
    SELECT * FROM DB_NOTIFICATIONS WHERE TYPE = 'MAINTENANCE';

The following provides details about the DESCRIPTION field values.

  • Maintenance run has ended: Specifies maintenance has completed. The MAINTENANCE_STATUS shows the value COMPLETED with the start and end timestamps for the completed maintenance in ACTUAL_START_DATE and ACTUAL_END_DATE.

  • Maintenance run is scheduled for the instance: Specifies a new maintenance has been scheduled. The MAINTENANCE_STATUS shows the value SCHEDULED with the expected start and end timestamps for the scheduled maintenance in EXPECTED_START_DATE and EXPECTED_END_DATE.

  • Maintenance run has begun: Specifies the maintenance is in progress and provides the start timestamp for the active maintenance. The MAINTENANCE_STATUS shows the value IN_PROGRESS and ACTUAL_START_DATE stores the start timestamp.

The following table shows the DB_NOTIFICATIONS columns and datatypes.

Column Datatype Description
TYPE VARCHAR2(128)

Specifies the type of the notification.

Valid value is: MAINTENANCE.

TIME TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE

Time when the notification entry was added.
EXPECTED_START_DATE TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE

Scheduled maintenance start time.
EXPECTED_END_DATE TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE

Scheduled maintenance end time.
ACTUAL_START_DATE TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE

Actual maintenance start time.
ACTUAL_END_DATE TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE

Actual maintenance end time.
MAINTENANCE_PRODUCT VARCHAR2(128)

Product/component for which maintenance is scheduled/ongoing.
MAINTENANCE_STATUS VARCHAR2(128)

Current status of the maintenance.
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR2(128)

The notification message details.
PATCH_ID VARCHAR2(128)

Patch version.