Introduction
Tessell handles database patching by following the patch set composition recommended by Oracle.
Tessell supports all the database versions and patch sets that are supported by Oracle. When Oracle announces the end of support for a particular database version, Tessell's support policy will be adjusted accordingly.
Tessell provides self-service for Minor patch management for Oracle and can be scheduled or applied on-demand as per requirements.
Minor Version Patching
As and when a new minor version patch is available from Oracle, Tessell’s Oracle SME team validates the patch to ensure that the patch adheres to any security and compliance requirements and then makes it available publicly as AMIs or Images which is then available for consumption from the customer’s Tessell Control plane.
Once the patch is published it will be available in the Tessell control plane against all database instances that are candidates for applying patches.
The following schematic summarizes the Patching process.
Validating Patches
While the patches released by Oracle usually have all the required security and compliance considerations, Tessell SMEs also validate the released patch by carefully reading the patch documentation provided by Oracle.
This documentation typically includes release notes, a readme file, and detailed instructions for applying the patch. Once it is validated it is made available for applying to customer tenants.
The Patches are published as public AMIs to be consumed or applied as per requirements to Tessell-managed Oracle databases from the Customer Tessell control plane.
Patch Management
All the Oracle database patch management can be performed through the Tessell console.
Once the Patch for a minor release is made available to customers will be able to see available patches in the Control plane and will have a choice to apply the patch or discard or plan for applying the patch.
For a High-Availability database cluster, Tessell uses the standby first methodology for patching databases, where the standby and other standby (DR or read-replicas) are patched first and then the primary instance is patched.
The switchover required during the patching process is automatically handled by Tessell DBaaS.
During the Patching process following automated actions are performed by Tessell DBaaS:
A new volume with Patch AMI is created in the data plane which has all pre-baked binaries in it for the new minor release.
A New Oracle home is installed with all the binaries and the patching is performed.
Once the release patching is done, data is moved to the new volume.
Tessell process validates the applied database patch.
Oracle Datapatch is applied for post-patch SQL actions for RDBMS-related patches.
Required switchover is performed in the case of an HA database cluster.
Tessell DBaaS validates and notifies once the patching is successfully performed.