Oracle Database Appliance customers can use monthly updates to keep their systems current between quarterly releases. Monthly updates help address critical security fixes in Oracle Linux and the Oracle Database Appliance software.
These updates are optional maintenance patches designed to be applied quickly and without downtime for running databases. For customers who need to respond faster to security vulnerabilities, monthly updates provide a practical way to reduce exposure between quarterly release cycles while continuing to use the familiar Oracle Database Appliance lifecycle management experience.
Why Monthly Updates?
Security teams are under increasing pressure to remediate vulnerabilities quickly. At the same time, database and infrastructure teams must protect availability for business-critical applications.
Oracle Database Appliance quarterly releases continue to be the comprehensive standard for full-stack lifecycle updates, including Database and Grid Infrastructure updates. Monthly updates complement that model by providing security-focused maintenance between quarterly releases, and give administrators more flexibility to respond to security requirements without waiting for the next full-stack quarterly release.
Designed for Availability
Oracle Database Appliance monthly updates are designed to be applied quickly without downtime for running databases, Oracle Clusterware , or restarting any node.
This makes monthly updates well suited for customers who want to improve their security posture while minimizing disruption to database services. Administrators can continue to use the ODA patching workflow they already know, including repository updates, prepatch reports, and controlled update commands.
Restart Flexibility
Some updates may require a restart to take effect. When that happens, Oracle Database Appliance provides flexibility through the –no-reboot or -nr option. With this option, administrators can apply all updates except those that require a restart. The remaining updates can be applied later during a planned maintenance window by running the update command without the –no-reboot option.
This gives customers a practical way to address security exposure sooner while still planning restart-required updates on their own schedule.
Key Features at a Glance
- Security-focused maintenance: Monthly updates help address critical CVEs in Oracle Linux and the Oracle Database Appliance software.
- Optional adoption: Customers can choose to apply none or some of the monthly updates on top of a quarterly release before moving to the next quarterly release.
- No database downtime design point: Monthly updates are designed to be applied without downtime for running databases, Oracle Clusterware , or node restart.
- Restart flexibility: If a monthly update includes updates that require a restart, administrators can use –no-reboot or -nr to apply updates that do not require a restart and defer the remaining updates.
- Familiar workflow: The monthly update procedure is similar to the quarterly update procedure. For monthly updates, administrators do not need to run odacli update-gihome for Grid Infrastructure or odacli update-storage for shared storage firmware.
- Support for ODA deployments: Monthly updates can be applied to Oracle Database Appliance bare metal systems and DB systems.
Stay Secure, Stay Current
Monthly updates reflect our continued commitment to making Oracle Database Appliance secure, reliable, and easy to manage. By making critical monthly maintenance updates easier to apply between quarterly releases, Oracle Database Appliance gives customers a more flexible way to stay current, reduce security exposure, and maintain availability for business-critical databases.
For more information about the latest monthly updates, refer to the Oracle Database Appliance Release Notes and the Oracle Database Appliance Deployment and User’s Guide for your hardware model.