After months of speculation, it’s finally official: Oracle has released version 26ai of its Autonomous Database. The new release is already available in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), so you can start exploring it right away. One notable change is in the OCI burger menu—Oracle has renamed the familiar “Oracle Database” section to “Oracle AI Database”, reflecting the AI-driven enhancements in this version. Let’s jump in and quickly create a brand-new Oracle 26ai instance to see what’s new! All new features are in the updated docs: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/autonomous-database/serverless/adbsb/whats-new-adwc.html#GUID-F31A86F8-012B-4235-A0BE-4ABF75164853 Create Autonomous Database Do you see the blue announcement? It’s AI World time now! Choose Workload Type Data Warehouse, aka ADW, is now Lakehouse. Choose your Edition Free and Developer versions are available too.…
Read MoreStreamlining Oracle Database Upgrades: Automated Blackouts with AutoUpgrade
AutoUpgrade is used to patch and upgrade Oracle database instances and today the “state-of-the-art” tool to bring Oracle database to a newer version. In a release from the this year 2025, a feature was introduced to automatically set a blackout in Oracle Enterprise Manager 13.5 onwards during the patching process. This removes the need for manual OEM blackout management steps to prevent downtime alerts during patching. Technically it’s done by a local setup and usage of the Enterprise Manager CLI tool called emcli running on the database server. In the first AutoUpgrade release where this feature was announced, there were bugs in the tool as the blackout was set too late in OEM (which produced downtime alerts) and the emcli…
Read More24ai Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Base Platform Periodic Release Update (RU) 01 – On the Way to Zero Downtime Patching (ZDT)
Since April 19th the first release update (RU) for Oracle Enterprise Manager 24ai is ready to apply. This release update contains several bug fixes and prepares the environment for later Zero Downtime Patching (ZDT). The new architecture with additional WebLogic servers is already here and installed. In this blog post I show you how to apply the first release update. My Setup is a Single-OMS with a 19.24 repository running on Oracle Linux 9. The Oracle Enterprise Manager 24ai repository is configured traditional by SYS permissions (non-SYS is possible now) and the schema name is SYSMAN. Steps followed the README from the patch and the Administrator Guide in Section Zero Downtime Patching (Online patching) . A note about Zero Downtime…
Read MorePCA 3.0.2 Patch M3.10 – Backup and Restore of Grafana & Prometheus is now automated
Last Friday, we had a new patch cycle scheduled to upgrade the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance X9-2 from Patch level M3.9 to M3.10 (3.0.2-b1325160). For the first time, we encountered zero issues! All patching steps, including ZFSSA, compute nodes, platform, and OCI images, ran smoothly. For this patch, 37635338: PCA Release 3.0.2-b1325160 Patch (also known as M3.10), the following components were affected according to the ISO and patch readme: Release Notes Oracle provides release notes that highlight new features for each version, but they lack detailed information. Here is an overview of the latest features from the documentation: Latest Features Improved Upgrade and Patching Procedures Both the Upgrade Guide and Patching Guide have been restructured to make it easier and…
Read MoreGetting started with Oracle Autonomous Database@Azure – Pay-As-You-Go | Part 3: Connect via Bastion
If an Autonomous Database (ADB) is deployed in a private subnet and requires access for analysis or troubleshooting, Azure Bastion provides a secure solution. This guide demonstrates how to connect to an Oracle Autonomous Database@Azure via Bastion while using a locally running VS Code as a SQL editor. In this setup, Azure Bastion is already configured, and both the provisioned Autonomous Database and the vNet jump host do not have public IP addresses. All commands are executed on a Windows machine using PowerShell, with the Azure CLI set up according to the official documentation: How to install the Azure CLI | Microsoft Learn. This is part three of the Oracle Autonomous Database@Azure blog post series: Part 1: Subscription: https://www.martinberger.com/2024/10/getting-started-with-oracle-databaseazure-pay-as-you-go-part-1-subscription/ Part…
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