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

Real Time Data Integration and Replication - Here is a complete book from PacktPub on Golden Gate

With more and more real time data integration and replication solution is looked up on , the only tool that comes up is Oracle GoldernGate with its extreme performance with simplified configuration and management, tighter integration with Oracle Database, support for cloud environments, expanded heterogeneity, and enhanced security.

I would like to share a quick answer to the most common problems in GoldenGate with a book from  Packt Pub Oracle Goldengate 11g Complete Cookbook

The book briefly covers the below topics

Chapter 1, Installation and Initial Setup, introduces Oracle GoldenGate and covers the steps in installing GoldenGate binaries. It also goes through the steps in setting up a simple GoldenGate replication.

Chapter 2, Setting up GoldenGate Replication, explains the GoldenGate setup in a more complex environment and also goes through some of the options which one would use in a production environment.

Chapter 3, DDL Replication and Initial Load, goes through the various options that are available to instantiate a target environment and also goes through the steps that one needs to follow to set up DDL replication through Oracle GoldenGate.

Chapter 4, Mapping and Manipulating Data, describes various options that one can use for performing a variety of transformations in a GoldenGate replication. It also explains how to capture errors and how to perform various mappings between different table columns in the source and target environments.

Chapter 5, Oracle GoldenGate High Availability, covers various recipes to implement GoldenGatein high availability configurations. It also includes some failover scenarios that should be followed in those configurations.

Chapter 6, Monitoring, Tuning and Troubleshooting GoldenGate, focuses on the management of GoldenGate environments. It contains the recipes to perform a health check, measure throughput, and monitor a GoldenGate environment. It also includes a few options to enhance the performance of GoldenGate replication.

Chapter 7, Advanced Administration Tasks – I, covers some advanced maintenance tasks such as patching and upgrading GoldenGate binaries that a GoldenGate administrator would need to do at some point. It also covers how to propagate table structure changes in GoldenGate environments. We also discuss some utilities that are available in GoldenGate binaries using which you can view the contents of the extracted records and also undo the applied changes.

Chapter 8, Advanced Administration Tasks – Part II, focuses on additional advanced tasks around the setup and migration of replication to GoldenGate. It explains a few options to set up replication from the production environment without impacting the performance or jeopardizing the risk of replicating erroneous transactions to the target environment. We also cover the process of migrating an Oracle Streams replication environment to Oracle GoldenGate. It also explains the process of replicating data from MS SQL Server environments to Oracle databases using GoldenGate.

Chapter 9, GoldenGate Veridata, Director, and Monitor, focuses on the installation and configuration of some additional tools that one can buy to manage the GoldenGate environments.