Recently Oracle announced the Exadata Fleet update but do you know What it is?
Exadata Fleet update is based on Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) formerly known as Rapid Home Provisioning (RHP).
Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP), standardizes and simplifies software distribution and management. FPP represents a standard method for provisioning, patching and upgrading the Oracle Database estate in a
unified manner across an entire enterprise.
The software only needs to be installed once on the FPP Server and can then be provisioned to any node or cluster in the data center as needed. This approach minimizes maintenance impact and risk, increases automation, and reduces touch points, making it suitable for large-scale deployments.
Exadata Fleet Update brings this powerful patching engine to OCI as a native cloud service, accessible from the OCI Console, OCI API, and via the OCI CLI and the good news is that it is available free of charge on Exadata Cloud at Customer (ExaDB-C@C) and Exadata and Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure (ExaDB-D).
FPP commands can be ran simultaneously on hundreds of targets, making possible to patch your whole database fleet every quarter. A single command line, or a single RESTful API call, replaces dozens or hundreds of manual tasks.
How Does Fleet Patching and Provisioning Work?
The functionality of Oracle FPP can be summarized in the following steps:
- Patch Plan: Create a plan for patching, including which systems to patch and the order in which to apply the patches.
- Patch Analysis: Analyze the patch to check if it can be applied to the systems and if there are any conflicts.
- Oracle Database Home Provisioning: Set up the Oracle Database Home environment by installing or updating the necessary software.
- Patch Application: Apply the patches to the target systems, minimizing downtime and making sure the patches are applied correctly.
- Validation and Monitoring: Check if the patching process was successful and monitor the progress in real-time.
- Rollback and Recovery: If any issues occur, restore the systems to their previous state.
Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning simplifies the management of patches and updates across a large fleet of systems, ensuring consistency and reducing the time and effort required for patching activities. With its automation and centralized control, FPP minimizes the risk of errors and enables efficient patch management for Oracle software installations
Exadata Fleet Update Key Features:
- Group multiple Oracle Databases and Oracle Grid Infrastructures into collections to allow patching in a single operation, enabling fleet-wide patching, gold image standardization and reducing human interaction.
- Available free-of-charge for our ExaDB-C@C and ExaDB-D customers
- Reduced patching time and complexity using standard out-of-place patching mechanism and Oracle-provided or customized database software images.
- Offers different patching options, including rolling and non-rolling, depending on availability and workload requirements.
Provides session draining for seamless rolling patch operations. - Schedule pre-check, staging, and patch operations.
Exadata Fleet Update is available in the following commercial regions at launch:
US East (Ashburn)
US Midwest (Chicago)
US West (Phoenix)
Germany Central (Frankfurt)
France South (Marseille)
Switzerland North (Zurich)
UK South (London)
Other commercial regions will follow shortly after.
You can read the Exadata Fleet Update note announcement here: https://blogs.oracle.com/maa/post/announcing-exadata-fleet-update
Stay tuned, as I will post a demo soon about Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP)
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