Follow these steps in order to successfully patch and upgrade your Exadata Cloud PDB's

1. Prerequisites
2. Obtain Patch Recommendations
3. Create a CDB With Target Patch Version
4. Gold Image Operations
5. Validate Patching Operations

Prerequisites

• The source CDB to be used should be discovered in EM
• The source CDB to be used must be subscribed to an image

• The source CDB must contain all patch versions to be applied

• Ensure all Fleet Maintenance prerequisites are met, for more information see: Before you begin: Meeting the Prerequisites

Obtain Patch Recommendations

Before you begin patching, you will need to review and identify the list of vulnerable targets, as well as the list of patches to be applied to these vulnerable targets. Fleet Maintenance Hub provides patch recommendation insights, assisting you in identifying the list of images, their subscribed vulnerable targets, and the patches that need to be applied.

For detailed information on Fleet Maintenance Hub and patch recommendations see: About Database Fleet Maintenance.

Create a CDB With Target Patch Version

Fleet Maintenance uses out-of-place patching, which requires that you already have a destination CDB pre-created and discovered in Enterprise Manager, with the target patches applied to it. There are two different methods to create a CDB with the target patches applied, use the method that best works for your environment:

• Create a CDB with the default Oracle Home on Exadata Cloud@Customer: For detailed information see Using the Console to Create a Database in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer. For a video tutorial see Create Oracle Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer - Video
• Creating a CDB using a custom Oracle Home on Exadata Cloud@Customer: To create a CDB using this method, follow the three steps below.
  1. Create a custom software image: For detailed information see Creation and Storage of Software Images in Manage Software Images. For a video tutorial see: Create a Custom Database Software Image on Exadata Cloud@Customer.
  2. Creating a custom Oracle Home using the software image: For detailed information see Create a Custom Database Software Image on Exadata Cloud@Customer. For a video tutorial see: Create Oracle Database Home on Exadata Cloud@Customer in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer.
  3. Create the CDB with custom Oracle Home: For detailed information see Creating First Database on an Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer System in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer.

Discover the CDB

Once you have created the CDB it needs to be discovered in Enterprise Manager. This will allow it to be visible to Enterprise Manager and allow Fleet Maintenance to use it for patching. Follow the two steps outlined bellow:

1. Discover the new Oracle Home: For detailed instructions see Discovering and Promoting Oracle Homes.
2. Discover and add new CDB targets to the Oracle Home: Discovering and Adding Container Database and Pluggable Database Targets.

Gold Image Operations

A Gold Image represents a database release. A Gold Image consists of versions which are mapped to the Database version. When you create a Gold Image (sometimes referred as image), you create it with a version. Its advisable that you create only one Gold Image for a particular database release.

1. Create a Gold Image: If you have not created a Gold Image, or wish to create a new one follow the instructions outlined in Image Maintenance.
2. Update a Gold Image: In these steps you will create a new version of an existing Gold Image and mark it as current, see Create a new version of the image.

Deploy and Update Patches

1. To perform Fleet Maintenance operations, navigate to Targets, and select the Databases you wish to update.
2. Once the databases have been selected. Click on Administration, then Fleet Maintenance. This will open the Fleet Maintenance home page,
   1. Select the Gold Image to be used from the Image drop down menu.
   2. Select target type Pluggable Database.
   3. In the Operation drop down menu, select Update or Upgrade based on your requirement.
   4. Select the PDB targets that you want to patch or upgrade and click Next.
3. In the Operations screen, check mark the operations to be performed under Maintenance Tasks:
   1. Under Maintenance Tasks, select Attach an existing CDB as Destination CDB.
   2. In the Attach an Existing CDB section, select your Destination CDB.
   3. Update PDB: Select a start time or set to start automatically after the previous step.
4. Enter the Credentials for Normal Host, Privileged Host and Database Credentials. You can select whether to use a Named or Preferred credentials. For Exadata Cloud RAC use the OPC user for Normal Host credentials.
5. Under Options, you can set Work Directory, and optionally upload Custom Scripts which can be executed either before or after update. Click Next.
6. In the Review screen, verify all options entered in the previous screen. Click on Validate to perform a Quick or Full validation of your Fleet Maintenance Operation before submitting.
7. To start your Fleet Maintenance operation, click Submit.

Validate Patching Operations

The DB Sync job introduced with the second Generation Exadata cloud synchronizes certain actions performed outside of the OCI framework with the Cloud UI. This is a fully automated process managed by a daemon that executes every 10 minutes and synchronizes the metadata with Cloud UI. After the patching operation is complete you can verify the status of the PDB on both EM and OCI console.

For more information see Differences Between Managing Resources with dbaascli and the Database API, and Gen 2 Exadata Cloud@Customer New Features: DB Sync Part-1.