• Service: Database
• Release Date: November 15, 2024

Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure now can accept Microsoft Entra ID (MS-EI) tokens to access the database. Azure users and applications can use the MS-EI token to access the database.

MS-EI integration will be available for databases patched to 19.17 and above. This feature is not available on Oracle Database release 21c.

For information on configuring MS-EI, configuring the database, and configuring the database client, see:

• Authenticating and Authorizing Microsoft Azure Active Directory Users for Oracle Databases in the Oracle Database 19c Security Guide.
• Authenticating and Authorizing Microsoft Azure Users for Oracle Databases in the Oracle Database 23ai Security Guide.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: November 01, 2024

Delegate Access Control service enables Oracle Exadata Database Service Dedicated customers to subscribe to VM and database maintenance and support services, delegate access to service providers, and control when those service providers can access VM and database resources. These service providers include Oracle global support, Oracle cloud support, and Oracle professional services.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: October 05, 2024

In Oracle Data Guard configurations, it's common to have primary and standby databases in a synchronized state, including the same Release Updates (RUs) applied to both database homes. However, there are scenarios where you might need to allow different RUs between the primary and standby database homes, particularly during the patching cycle or for testing purposes.

Create Data Guard Associations:

• The primary and standby Oracle Homes must be of the same major database version.
• If the primary and standby Oracle Homes are running different RUs, a Data Guard association can be created only if the standby is on the same or higher RU than the primary database.
• The home for the standby can be a custom DSI or an Oracle image regardless of whether the primary is running on a custom DSI or Oracle image.

Switchover or Failover Database: The primary and standby Oracle Homes can be of any major database version or running different RUs.

Upgrade Database: The primary and standby Oracle Homes can of different major database versions.

Patch Database: If the primary and standby Oracle Homes are running different RUs, the standby can be patched to a higher RU than the primary database.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: October 01, 2024

Protect your data against unauthorized access and exfiltration with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Zero Trust Packet Routing (ZPR), a data-aware cloud security control.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: September 30, 2024

Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) allows users to import their own keys or key versions instead of having the vault service generate the keys internally. BYOK enables users to import keys into the OCI Vault service and utilize their imported keys for database encryption. Currently, when an ExaDB-D customer employs BYOK to create a new database (CDB), the customer's key is only used for the CDB, while a system-generated key version is assigned to the PDB. Users cannot assign specific key versions to the PDBs.

With this enhancement:

• Associate a key version with both CDB and PDB.
• Rotate keys independently at the CDB and PDB levels.
  Note
  
  In a Data Guard association, key rotation is only possible for the primary database, not the standby database.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: September 26, 2024

This enhancement allows you to use the Recovery Service or Object Storage to back up the standby databases.

Before getting started, note the following:

• You can schedule automatic backups and configure retention periods and backup schedules on the standby database.
• You can create a database in another availability domain (AD) within the same region or a different region from a backup of the standby database.
• Backups can be configured on the primary database, the standby database, or both. However, when configured, the primary and standby databases must share the same backup destination.
• For backups in the Recovery Service, the primary database can be restored or recovered from the backups of either the standby database or the primary database. Similarly, the standby database can be restored or recovered from the backups of either the primary database or the standby database.
• For backups in Object Storage, the primary and standby databases can only be restored or recovered using their respective backups.
• The backup destination of the primary database and standby database in a Data Guard association must be the same. For example, if the backup destination of the primary database is Recovery Service, then the backup destination of the standby database must also be Recovery Service. Similarly, if the backup destination of the standby database is Recovery Service, then the backup destination of the primary database must also be Recovery Service.
• The backup destination can be changed only after disabling the backup on either the primary or standby database in a Data Guard association. For example, if the backup destination of both the primary and standby databases is Object Storage and you want to change the backup destination of the primary database to Recovery Service, you must first disable the backup on the standby database.
• If automatic backups are configured on the primary database, upon switchover, the backups will continue on the new standby database.
• If automatic backups are configured on the standby database, upon failover, the backups will continue on the new primary database. However, the backups will be disabled on the new standby database.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: September 17, 2024

With this enhancement, you can deploy and run multiple databases in a VM cluster running on a single VM without requiring RAC licenses.

For more information, see Overview of VM Cluster Node Subsetting.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: August 29, 2024

Recovery Service supports multicloud Oracle Databases, such as Oracle Database@Azure, and provides the flexibility to store backups in the same cloud location where the source database resides.

Recovery Service creates protected databases and related backups in Oracle Cloud by default. You can optionally override this default behavior for your multicloud Oracle Databases such as Oracle Database@Azure.

If you enable the Store backups in the same cloud provider as the database option for a protection policy, then the policy-linked protected database and backups will be stored in the same cloud location where the Oracle Database is provisioned. For example, for Oracle Database@Azure, Recovery Service stores the associated protected database backups in Azure if you have selected the Store backups in the same cloud provider as the database option in the protection policy.

If you do not select the Store backups in the same cloud provider as the database for a protection policy, then the policy-linked protected database and backups will be stored in Oracle Cloud even if your Oracle Database is provisioned in a different cloud location.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: August 22, 2024

With this enhancement, when the region is up, you can:

• use an existing backup and restore it to create a database (out-of-place restore) either within the same availability domain or in a different availability domain across regions, regardless of whether the backup was created with backup destination Object Storage or Autonomous Recovery Service
• restore a backup taken on either a database that was configured using host-based wallets (local wallet) or OCI Vault

• Service: Database
• Release Date: July 10, 2024

With this enhancement to the Cost Analysis feature of the OCI Cost Management Service, you can view the attributed usage and cost for all the PDBs in a VM Cluster. This data will be available on the cost analysis dashboard and the reports.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: May 15, 2024

With this enhancement, you can use the software image created in one region in a different region while:

• updating a database software
• updating a Grid Infrastructure software
• provisioning a new Database Home
• provisioning a new database
• enabling a Data Guard association
• creating a database from a backup

• Service: Database
• Release Date: May 09, 2024

Currently, you can only increase or decrease the size of the /u02 file system in the Guest VM. Now, using the OCI Console or API, you can increase the size of additional local file systems such as /, /u01, /tmp, /var, /var/log, /var/log/audit, and /home.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: May 08, 2024

The ability to create a custom software image (Database and Grid Infrastructure) with all the required patches bundled together and certified in the customer environment will allow developers and database administrators to build an approved and reusable "gold image".

• Service: Database
• Release Date: May 07, 2024

You can create and delete serial console connections to your Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure systems to diagnose and resolve VM guest operating system issues using an SSH connection in case standard SSH access to the VMs is not possible.

Requirements: Exadata System Software 23.1.13 is the minimum required version. Also, make sure to review all prerequisites stated below, including setting a password for either the opc or the root user. Failure to make necessary changes to meet these requirements in advance will result in the inability to urgently connect to the serial console when the need arises when the VM is not otherwise accessible.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: May 02, 2024

Oracle Database 23ai is a regular production release available on Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure (ExaDB-D). With this release, you can perform all the lifecycle operations on the 23ai databases.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: April 30, 2024

With this enhancement, you can enable Unified Auditing during the creation of a database home, a feature available since Oracle Database version 12.1.

• For Oracle Database versions lower than 12.1: You cannot use the Unified Auditing framework and should instead use the Traditional Audit, the legacy Oracle Database audit framework.
• For Oracle Database versions 12.1 or higher: You can enable Unified Auditing from the OCI Console. For Oracle Database versions 12.1 or higher but lower than version 23ai, the Unified Auditing check box is not selected by default. However, it is selected by default for Oracle Database version 23ai.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: February 28, 2024

With this enhancement, you can provision a VM cluster with either an OL7-based image or an OL8-based one if the infrastructure is X9 or prior.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: January 29, 2024

With this enhancement, you can:

• Scale down your Exadata Infrastructure resources by changing your server count to a lower value than the current assignment.
• Scaling down to a lower count is supported for both DB and Storage Servers.
• Database servers will be removed if there are no VMs running on them.
  Note
  
  You will not be able to choose the DB Server to remove. This functionality will automatically remove Database Servers in which there are no VMs.
• Storage server will be removed if the server has not been used to expand Exadata Infrastructure storage.
• Remove a VM from a provisioned VM cluster in a non multi-VM-enabled infrastructure. The procedure is similar to terminating a VM from a VM Cluster in a multi-VM-enabled infrastructure.

The 'Add Capacity' step runs as part of the storage server scale-up workflow, creates disk groups, and rebalances data across all storage servers. For more information, see Scale VM Resources in Multi VM Enabled Infrastructure.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: January 16, 2024

With this enhancement, you can enable Data Guard if the Exadata Cloud Infrastructure is in different VCNs or compartments in the same OCI region.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: October 18, 2023

With this enhancement, you can restore, refresh, and relocate a Pluggable Database (PDB).

• Service: Database
• Release Date: September 28, 2023

With this enhancement, you can manage the administrator and TDE wallet passwords.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: August 24, 2023

This enhancement:

• Enables customers to offload backups to the standby database with OCI Object Storage in a Data Guard environment thereby freeing up resources in the production database environment.
• Allows customers to schedule automatic backups on the standby database in a Data Guard environment and configure retention period and backup schedules.
• Enables customers to create a database in another Availability Domain (AD) within the same region from a backup of the standby database.
• Allows customers to restore and recover a standby database using a backup of the standby database.
• Provides the flexibility to take backups only on the primary database, only on the standby database, or both.
• Allows customers to create a manual full backup of a standby database.
• Enables customers to enable or disable backup on the standby database only if the backup destination of the primary database is Object Storage.

• Service: Database
• Release Date: August 21, 2023

You now have the ability to cancel an ongoing backup, allowing you to free up system resources. You will no longer have to call the operations team to have this backup job canceled.

As part of the Create Database workflow and independently (after the database has been created), you may enable Automatic Backup and select the desired backup destination. Depending on the backup destination selected, you may have one or more full backups and several incremental backups. Once any of these backups have started, you will not have the option to cancel that backup midway.

This feature allows you to cancel any running backup (automatic or standalone) from the OCI console or via OCI API.

You can also:

• Cancel a manual backup, which is triggered when you click the Create backup button

  Note: All manual backups are full backups.

• Delete a canceled manual backup

Service: Database

Release Date: August 17, 2023

This Console enhancement sets Autonomous Recovery Service as the default backup destination for automatic backups in all regions and includes default limits automatically without having to request them.

For more information about Service Limits, Quotas, and Usage, see Autonomous Recovery Service limits.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: August 02, 2023

Exadata Fleet Update simplifies, standardizes, and enhances the Oracle Database and Grid Infrastructure patching experience. Exadata Fleet Update achieves this by grouping components based on the customers' business needs into collections that can be patched as one entity within a given maintenance cycle.

Exadata Fleet Update brings this patching engine to OCI as a native cloud service, accessible from the OCI Console, OCI API, and via the OCI CLI.

Exadata Fleet Update is available free of charge on Oracle’s Exadata Database Service including Cloud@Customer (ExaDB-C@C) and Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure (ExaDB-D).

For more information, see:

• Exadata Fleet Update Overview
• Exadata Fleet Update service AP

Service: Database

Release Date: August 01, 2023

Update the Guest VM operating system to Oracle Linus 8 using the Console or API. This enhancement is limited to Exadata X7, X8M, and X9M systems.

Service: Database

Release Date: July 26, 2023

With this enhancement, when AD is up, you can:

• use an existing backup and restore it to create a database (out-of-place restore) either within the same availability domain or in a different availability domain within the same region, regardless of whether the backup was created with backup destination Object Storage or Autonomous Recovery Service
• restore a backup taken on either a database that was configured using host-based wallets (local wallet) or OCI Vault

• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 07, 2023

This feature enables cloud-only customers to download one-off patches from the OCI console and API. There is no option to apply the downloaded patch via console and API. To apply these patches, customers must log in to their VM and run the patch apply utility.

Downloading one-off patches does not replace Database Software Image (DSI) creation. Customers must continue to use Database Software Images (DSI) to build and deploy their customized images.

Service: Database

Release Date: May 17, 2023

Enabling Automatic Backup during the Create Database workflow or as a separate step afterward starts the first full backup ("initial L0") immediately.

Similarly, for subsequent full backups (future L0) and daily incremental backups (L1), you can specify a time window but cannot change the day of the week when these backups must begin.

Future L0 and L1 backups will begin during the 2-hour scheduling window that the user selects for the database during which the automatic backup process will begin. There are 12 scheduling windows to choose from, each starting at an even-numbered hour. For example, one window runs from 4:00-6:00 AM, and the next from 6:00-8:00 AM. Backup jobs do not necessarily complete within the scheduled window. If you do not specify a window, the default 6-hour backup window of 00:00 to 06:00 is chosen. In this case, the time zone corresponds to the region of the Exadata Cloud infrastructure instance.

Here are the current defaults for the backup destinations, Object Storage Service, and Autonomous Recovery Service:

• Initial full L0 backup: Immediate
• Subsequent full L0 backups: Every Sunday
• Daily incremental L1 backups: Every Monday - Saturday

With these enhanced controls, you can:

1. Aside from configuring the initial L0 backup to start immediately, you can also specify whether you want the initial L0 backup to start immediately or according to the L0 schedule.
2. Choose a time window for the future full backups to start.
3. Choose a time window for the incremental backups to start, which can be different from the time window for the L0 backups.

   The time windows will remain the same, 2-hour scheduling windows and the default 6-hour window.

Service: Database

Release Date: April 12, 2023

Oracle Database Autonomous Recovery Service provides an optimized policy-driven automatic backup and recovery system for the Exadata Database on Dedicated Infrastructure. It also offers a real-time data protection feature that enables protected databases with zero data loss recovery in the event of a database failure. Since Real-time data protection is an extra cost option, you can choose to enable or disable it.

Service: Database

Release Date: April 12, 2023

The VM Cluster now supports attaching and detaching Application Virtual IP Addresses.

Service: Database

Release Date: March 01, 2023

Security maintenance, performed alongside the quarterly maintenance, is executed once a month and includes fixes for vulnerabilities with CVSS scores greater than or equal to 7.

Service: Database

Release Date: January 24, 2023

With the latest Release Update, you can now configure the database in a virtual machine cluster to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication and authorization to allow IAM users to access the database with IAM credentials.

• Services:Database
• Release Date: January 18, 2023

Allow users to choose the private view and private zone while provisioning a new VM cluster for ExaCS. All the underlying resources of the VCN, including those of ExaDB-D, should be created in the same private zone. The private zones can be associated with subnets inside the VCN. This configuration cannot be changed later.

Private DNS resolver is going to resolve queries in customer VCN and queries coming from the on-premise networks. Ability to provide the DNS address and seed that into DB resources using conditional forwarding, is provided by the private DNS feature. With a private resolver, customers can resolve the A-record across different VCNs (with VCN peering- local/remote).

• Services: Database
• Release Date: January 18, 2023

Service: Database

Release Date: January 11, 2023

You can now enable Database Management for Pluggable Databases (PDBs) on Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure, and use Database Management features for monitoring, performance management, and tuning.

Service: Database

Release date: January 10, 2023

Oracle Exadata Database on Dedicated Infrastructure now can accept Azure AD tokens to access the database. Azure AD users can access the database directly using their Azure AD token, and applications can use their service tokens to access the database.

Azure AD integration will be available for databases patched to 19.17 and above. This feature is not available on Oracle Database release 21c.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Starting November 9, 2022 ( the release date varies by region)

Related Topics

• To create a cloud VM cluster resource
• Scale VM Resources in Multi VM Enabled Infrastructure
• Exadata Cloud Infrastructure VM Cluster Event Types
• Overview of VM Cluster Node Subsetting
• Add a VM to a VM Cluster
• Using the Console to View a List of DB Servers on an Exadata Infrastructure
• Using the Console to Terminate a VM Cluster
• Terminate or Remove a VM from a VM Cluster
• Permissions Required for Each API Operation
• Permissions and API operation details for DB Servers
• VM Node Subsetting Event Types
• Adding a VM to a VM Cluster Fails
• CPU Offline Scaling Fails

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 7, 2022

With this release Oracle will provide health metrics for databases and VM clusters in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: September 15, 2022

Exadata Cloud Infrastructure resources can now be tagged using Oracle Standard tags according to your organizational scheme. By tagging resources, you can group them, manage costs, and gain insight into how they are being used.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: August 31, 2022

Collecting Guest VM events, health metrics, incident logs, and trace files, will help Oracle to enhance service operations as well as provide proactive support by early detection and correlation.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Aug 8, 2022

You can now have the encryption keys used for the primary and standby databases to be available in the primary and standby regions respectively so that it provides protection against a single point of failure for the OCI Vault key. This is possible if the keys are in OCI Virtual Private Vault. So, cross-region Data Guard can be set up between two databases if their keys are residing in a virtual private vault (VPV) and are managed by the OCI Vault service.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: August 3, 2022

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 11, 2022

In addition to performing minor version updates to the Exadata VM Cluster images, you can update to a new major version if the currently installed version is 19.2 or higher. For example, if the VM cluster is on version 20, then you can update it to version 21.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 8, 2022

This feature allows customers to use OCI Console or API/CLI/SDK/Terraform to receive event notifications about health issues with your Oracle Databases or other components on the Guest VM.

Customers currently have basic lifecycle management events like backup begin, backup end, patching begin, etc. We are extending that capability to include a comprehensive set of Database Service events to help customers troubleshoot issues.

Database Service Events monitor guest VM operations and conditions and generate diagnostic notifications for customers by leveraging the existing OCI Events service and Notification mechanisms in their tenancy. Customers can then create topics and subscribe to these topics through email, functions, streams, etc. For more information about using the Events Notification Service, see Notifications Overview

Key Customer Benefits

• Ability to receive notifications for Guest VM operations via an opt-in mechanism.
• Allows customers to proactively address issues before they may become serious.

OCI Console Experience

Customers can navigate to the VM Cluster details page from the OCI console menu by selecting Oracle Database → Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure → a specific VM Cluster to enable Diagnostics Notification for a VM Cluster.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 29, 2022

Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure (ExaDB-D): Now allows you to create a database from backup, when the backup is of the database using customer-managed encryption. This is in addition to the existing ability to create a database from backup, when the backup is of the database using oracle-managed encryption

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 23, 2022

Provision a DB Home using a major version and RU version of your choice.

While provisioning, if you opt to use Oracle Provided Database Software Images as the image type, then you can use the Display all available versions switch to choose from all available PSUs and RUs. The most recent release for each major version is indicated with a latest label.

For the Oracle Database major version releases available in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, images are provided for the current version plus the three most recent older versions (N through N - 3). For example, if an instance is using Oracle Database 19c, and the latest version of 19c offered is 19.8.0.0.0, images available for provisioning are for versions 19.8.0.0.0, 19.7.0.0, 19.6.0.0 and 19.5.0.0.

• Services:Support for Oracle Database Cloud Service Databases
• Release Date: March 22, 2022

Operations Insights now allows you to use the Capacity Planning and SQL Warehouse functionality to gain insight into Oracle Databases deployed in Oracle Cloud (Bare Metal, Virtual Machine VM, and Exadata Cloud Infrastructure).

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 14, 2022

The same SID prefix used for the primary database can now also be used for the standby database when creating a Data Guard Association.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Jan. 12, 2022

You can now create and manage pluggable databases (PDBs) in Exadata Cloud Infrastructure using the OCI console and APIs. See Create and Manage Exadata Pluggable Databases for details.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: January 12, 2022

You can now specify the DB_UNIQUE_NAME value and the Oracle SID prefix when creating a new Oracle Database in Exadata Cloud Infrastructure. You can also set these values when creating a standby database in an Oracle Data Guard association. See the following topics for instructions:

To create a database in an existing Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instance

Using the Console to Enable Data Guard on an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure System

Services: Database

Release Date: December 23, 2021

With elastic provisioning and expansion, you can dynamically increase your CPU and storage capacity to meet your growing workload requirements.

Expand the infrastructure capacity on-demand by scaling up the infrastructure with additional database or storage servers without being constrained by the standard supported shapes. You can allocate CPU and storage capacity available on X8M and X9M servers up to the system limits when you provision new VM Clusters on the infrastructure, or to already deployed VM Clusters without disrupting the current running workloads.

For more information, see:

• To scale CPU cores in an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure cloud VM cluster or DB system
• To add compute and storage resources to a flexible cloud Exadata infrastructure resource
• Using the API to Manage Exadata Cloud Infrastructure Instance
• cloud-exadata-infrastructures
• Storage Expansion Event Types

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Nov. 17, 2021

When provisioning a new Oracle Database or a new virtual machine or bare metal DB system, the TDE wallet password parameter is now optional, and it is not used if you configure an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure database to use customer-managed keys with the OCI Vault service. For more information on creating Oracle Databases and virtual machine DB systems, see the following topics in the documentation:

• Creating Bare Metal and Virtual Machine DB Systems

• Creating Databases (bare metal DB systems)

• Creating and Managing Exadata Databases

For information on using the Vault service to store and manage encryption keys and other secrets used by OCI resources, see the Vault service documentation.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Nov. 16, 2021

The Exadata tab provides a unified view of Oracle Exadata hard disk and flash performance statistics with deep insight into the health and performance of all components such as the Oracle databases, Oracle Exadata storage cells, and Automatic Storage Management (ASM). It is available for Exadata Cloud deployments.and external databases that use Exadata infrastructure. For more information, see Using Performance Hub to Analyze Database Performance.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Nov. 3, 2021

You can now specify a custom SCAN listener port for your Exadata cloud VM cluster. See SCAN Listener Port Setting for more information.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Sept. 9, 2021

You can now use the Performance Hub tool and view metrics on cloud databases that run on the following systems: Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instances, bare metal DB systems, and virtual machines DB systems. This feature provides additional monitoring and management functions to these databases. For more information, see Analyzing Exadata Cloud Service Database Performance and Analyzing Virtual Machine / Bare Metal Database Performance .

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 28, 2021

You can choose to specify up to 10 valid email addresses to which Oracle sends maintenance notifications when updates are made to an Exadata infrastructure. The email addresses you specify are used only for service-related operational issues. See Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Maintenance Updates for more information.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 21, 2021

You can now specify the Data Guard protection mode for Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instances and bare metal and virtual machine DB systems. See the following topics for more information:

• Use Oracle Data Guard with Exadata Cloud Infrastructure

• Using Oracle Data Guard (for bare metal and virtual machine DB systems)

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 26, 2021

You can now configure Exadata infrastructure patching to take place in a non-rolling fashion across the database nodes. This option allows you to reduce the total time your system is undergoing quarterly maintenance, but does involve system downtime. See Oracle-Managed Infrastructure Maintenance Updates for more information.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 16, 2021

Customer-managed keys for Exadata Cloud Infrastructure is an encryption key management service that enables you to encrypt your data using encryption keys that you control. You can use customer-managed keys on databases you provision in Exadata Cloud Infrastructure that are enabled with Oracle Data Guard.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Feb. 5, 2021

DomU OS Patching is a feature which enables ExaDB-D customers to upgrade the Exadata OS image on their domU nodes in an automated manner from their OCI console and APIs. The following information explains about a recent change in the feature that could not be added to the docs in time for release, but will be added soon.

Rollback required if the patch fails.

On multi-node systems, if one of the nodes fails the patch, you must roll back all nodes to get them all on the same version. Then run precheck, fix any problems, and run the patch again.

Example: If you run precheck on Monday and all nodes pass, but do not apply the patch until Wednesday, it is possible that one or more of the nodes may fail the patch because of changes on the nodes or a maintenance conflict.

To prevent this from happening, Oracle recommends that you run precheck right before applying the patch.

For more information, see Updating an Exadata Cloud Service VM Cluster Operating System.

• Services: Database, Key Management, Vault
• Release Date: Dec. 18, 2020

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault service integration with Exadata Cloud Infrastructure enables database encryption with customer-managed keys. For more information, see Customer-Managed Keys in Exadata Cloud Service.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Dec. 3, 2020
• API Versions Affected: 20160918

You can now upgrade Exadata Cloud Infrastructure databases to Oracle Database version 19c using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console or API. For information and instructions, see Upgrading Exadata Databases.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Nov. 10, 2020

You can now create custom Oracle Database software images to use for provisioning Database Homes and and patching databases in Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instances. For more information, see Oracle Database Software Images.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Oct. 15, 2020

You can now upgrade the grid infrastructure (GI) of an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure VM cluster using the Console. For more information, see Upgrading Exadata Grid Infrastructure.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Oct. 15, 2020

You can now provision an Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instance using the flexible X8M shape. This shape allows you to expand your system after provisioning, as your databases grow and you need more storage servers, compute servers, or both. For more information, see Overview of X8M Scalable Exadata Infrastructure.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Oct. 15, 2020

You can now choose to use an existing Database Home when setting up a Data Guard standby database in your Exadata Cloud Infrastructure instance. See Using Oracle Data Guard with Exadata Cloud Service Instances for information on setting up Data Guard for your Exadata databases.