Monitoring Oracle Exadata MOS Notes
October 25, 2023 | 6 minute readWe often get asked how best to keep up to date with the latest information being published in My Oracle Support (MOS). Given the sheer volume of products and services at Oracle, it can be somewhat daunting to trawl through this vast ocean of useful information and find what you are looking for AND then keep updated with what is specifically useful for you in your day to day operations.
So, what should you keep a close eye on in MOS? I'm glad you asked! This post is intended to give you an up-to-date list of the most useful and important MOS notes related to Exadata.
Without further ado, here is a list of MOS Notes I keep a very close (Nick Fury style) eye on. This is not a definitive list of all notes that pertain to Exadata, or Oracle Database & GI, but the really important ones I think you should check on a very regular basis (more on how to do this shortly).
| Topic Area | MOS # | My Oracle Support Note Title |
|---|---|---|
| Core | 888828.1 | Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions (Doc ID 888828.1) |
| 1270094.1 | Exadata Critical Issues (Doc ID 1270094.1) | |
| 556.1 | Oracle Exadata: Exadata and Linux Important Recommended Fixes (Doc ID 556.1) | |
| 2724126.1 | Exadata X9M/X8M (RoCE-based systems) Software Requirements and Recommendations (Doc ID 2724126.1) | |
| 1570460.1 | Exadata Software and Hardware Support Lifecycle (Doc ID 1570460.1) | |
| 1070954.1 |
Oracle Exadata Database Machine EXAchk (Doc ID 1070954.1)
|
|
| Exadata Updates/Patching/Upgrades | 1262380.1 | Exadata Patching Overview and Patch Testing Guidelines (Doc ID 1262380.1) |
| 2207063.1 | HOWTO: Install ksplice kernel updates for Exadata Database Nodes (Doc ID 2207063.1) | |
| Lifetime Support Policy: Oracle Technology Products (PDF) | ||
| Security | 2751741.1 | Oracle Exadata Database Machine Security FAQ (Doc ID 2751741.1) |
| 2256887.1 | How to research Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) for Exadata packages (Doc ID 2256887.1) | |
| 1405320.1 | Responses to common Exadata security scan findings (Doc ID 1405320.1) | |
| Database & GI | 742060.1 | Release Schedule of Current Database Releases (Doc ID 742060.1) |
| 2700151.1 | Grid Infrastructure 11.2.0.4 on Exadata / Oracle Linux 7 Transitional Support (Doc ID 2700151.1) | |
| Database & GI Upgrade/Updates | 2542082.1 | 19c Grid Infrastructure and Database Upgrade steps for Exadata Database Machine running on Oracle Linux (Doc ID 2542082.1) |
| 1919.2 | 19c Database Self-Guided Upgrade with Best Practices (Doc ID 1919.2) |
And some useful tools to keep on your radar
| Tool | Latest Release |
|---|---|
| Oracle Exadata Deployment Assistant (OEDA) | Patch 30640393 |
| Exadata configuration audit - exachk | Patch 30166242 - See MOS Note 1070954.1, MOS Note 2550798.1 |
| Exadata Storage Server update - patchmgr | Supplied with Exadata Storage Server software |
| Exadata Database Server update - patchmgr | Patch 21634633 - See MOS Note 1553103.1 |
| Exadata Admin and Fabric Switch update - patchmgr | Exadata 19.3 and higher: Supplied with Exadata Admin/Fabric/RDMA/InfiniBand Switch software (separate from Storage Server software). Exadata 19.2 and lower: Supplied with Exadata Storage Server software. See MOS Note 888828.1 |
| Grid Infrastructure home and Database home patching - OPatch | Patch 6880880 |
You may already have identified notes that are specifically important, interesting, useful and relevant as they relate to your Exadata Database Machine deployment - union them together with the list above!
So now we have a solid list of MOS notes - the above list will be revised regularly by the Exadata PM Team - how do you get notified when something has been updated?
Firstly, as you go to each of these notes - make sure you click the little star next to the MOS notes name (top left of the note). This will save the note as a favorite. You have the opportunity to categorize your favorites into folders - something I find useful as I have in the past, and still to this day, have either an active interest in multiple products from Oracle.
The next thing to do is navigate to your MOS settings and configure the "Hot Topics Email" function. This is found by clicking your name up in the top left of the MOS interface, then clicking on "My Account".
And then, find the "Hot Topics E-Mail" on the far left of the interface.
As the name suggests, this is an email of Hot Topics - updated MOS notes, Products, Sports Teams (not really), which you can have, er, emailed to you on a regular basis - I personally like daily, but weekly might be more your speed - that includes MOS notes you'd marked as favorite. Bugs can also be included with a check of a box. And, as you can see below, you can add products that you are interested - such as Oracle Database, perhaps Siebel, EBS or Peoplesoft, or some of our cloud services.
Finally, you can limit the number of items to include in the email - 100 as I have it set to is likely too many, but this is something you'll have to "tune" based on your needs - and the time you have available over coffee to consume it of course.
Hopefully, this is useful and helps keep you better updated on changes in MOS as they relate to Exadata. If you have suggestions for notes that should be included - please let me know on X (formerly Twitter) @alex_blyth or @ExadataPM and I'll see if it should be included.
Updates (DD-MM-YYYY):
25-10-2022 - Update contact details
15-11-2022 - added link to Lifetime Support Policy document
Alex Blyth
Senior Principal Product Manager
Alex Blyth is a Product Manager for Oracle Exadata with over 22 years of IT experience mainly focused on Oracle Database, Engineered Systems, manageability tools such as Enterprise Manager and most recently Cloud. Prior to joining the product management team, Alex was a member of the Australia/New Zealand Oracle Presales community and before that a customer of Oracle's at a Financial Services organisation.