R12.2 Online Patching Cycle

With five phases R12.2 Online Patching Cycle is a Revolutionary Feature and gives the flexibility on defining downtime. The five interesting phases are Prepare, Apply , Finalize, Cutover and Cleanup. They are achieved with the new architectural changes.

The Online Patching solution involves the usage of two main file systems.

These file systems rotate the role of "run" file system and "patch" file system. The file system playing the role of "run" stores the code used by the running application. The file system playing the role of "patch" is a copy of the "run" file system that could be either in stage mode (ready for the next patching cycle) or being patched during a patching cycle. After patching is complete, the "patch" file system it will be promoted to take the role of "run".

An additional non-editioned file system is introduced to store some code and log files, common to both file systems, in a single location so they can be easily located.

So what exactly is possible with the new feature ?

On the first short this picture will look confusing and once there is a clear understanding on the different phases then this picture is meaningful.

I will share what I have explored in all the phases.

Prepare Phase
Apply Phase
Finalize Phase
Cutover Phase
Cleanup Phase

Abort Phase
File System Clone Phase