Patching Oracle Nodes (SAP/Oracle) with DataKeeper

Most Oracle updates and patches only require access to the system tables drives and not to the data drives (protected DataKeeper data drives).

The following procedure can be used in general:

Prior to the procedure, set block failover on primary and confirm failover on target.

1. On the standby / target server:
   1. Apply the appropriate upgrades, patches, etc.
   2. Reboot your server
2. Then, switchover your resources from the source / active server to the standby / target server:
   1. Verify that you can access the Oracle database
3. On the other node (which now is a standby after the switchover and the original source / active server):
   1. Apply the appropriate upgrades, patches, etc.
   2. Reboot your server
4. (Optional) Switchover again to verify connectivity and access to Oracle on the original / source /active server
   
   

In some cases where the patches require access to the DataKeeper volumes (e.g. running catsbp), you need to pause / unlock the mirrors to perform the upgrades on the standby / target system.

Verify that Oracle can be started on the backup, then stop Oracle on the backup node and continue the mirrors. Then repeat the upgrade on the source system.

At the end of the procedure remove the flags ‘block failover’ on primary and the ‘confirm failover’ on target.