In a previous post I show you how you can integrate DevOps automation and orchestration tools to provision Oracle databases by leveraging Enterprise Manager (EM) and the Cloud Management Pack (CMP). Once provisioned, databases need to be fully maintained in terms of monitoring but most precisely patching.
Patching databases decreases the risk of breach by timely mitigating vulnerabilities, but in can be a daunting task for organizations. Manual patching is time consuming and error prone. Home grown scripts are difficult to maintain and they increase maintenance cost. So the question is, how can I automate the patching process and even better, how can I integrate it with my current orchestration workflow?
Let me explain how you can achieve all this by making use of Oracle’s Database Lifecycle Management Pack (DBLM) and CMP. DBLM’s Fleet Maintenance help us patch and upgrade Oracle databases at scale with minimum downtime. It makes use of Gold Images and out-of-place patching in order to achieve this.
All this functionality can be integrated with CMP’s DBaaS in order to provide and end-to-end automation solution. DBaaS exposes REST APIs that we could then call using the automation tool of choice. Database Administrators, end users or 3rd party tools can then use these features to patch Oracle databases.
Do you want to learn more about this and even be able to try it? We’ve created an Oracle LiveLabs that cover’s all this functionality. This lab will guide you through the request of a PDB, setup DBaaS configuration, setup Fleet Maintenance and finally patch the PDB.
Follow the link below for the Oracle LiveLabs workshop.
If you are planning on attending to Oracle Cloud World this year and you want to learn more about this consider attending my session.
LRN3519: Deploy and Manage Oracle Databases with Ansible, Oracle Enterprise Manager
See you in Vegas!!!
Thanks,
Alfredo