How To: Manage your Oracle patch deployment life cycle using Oracle Support Patch Plans

Introduction

 

As part of my writing I often try to document and share best practices I develop on my day to day work, this one relates to formalizing the patch deployment process for your oracle environments. This approach is developed for organizations that have formal release cycles and have established procedures to take patches through test life cycles that; at a minimum, begin in a develop environment, followed by integration testing in a QA and culminate when patches are promoted to production.

I will try to keep this post brief so, at a high level, I have found that the best way to manage patches is to use the Oracle support portal patch & upgrades functionality to create a patch plan for each environment in the life cycle for either each major release or at least each quarter. This process is always initiated by the need to apply a patch so whenever no patches are necessary during a release or quarter no patch plans are created.

The two main benefits of this approach is (1) that it brings transparency into which patches have been approved for each environment, (2) it is a straight forward process that does not carry a lot of overhead. The way patches make it to a patch plan is when a project manager requests a patch to be applied or promoted to each environment in your life cycle, this in turn is monitored using standard project management mechanisms such as issue, task and test management.

 

Implementation

Creating your first patch plan is very simple, just take your first requested patch through the process outlined below.

 

  1. Login to http://support.oracle.com
  2. Click on the Patches & Updates tab
  3. Locate the appropriate version of your patch by specifying a patch number and operating system on the patch search interface

    Locate the appropriate version of your patch by specifying a patch number and operating system on the patch search interface

  4. Locate your patch on the search results screen and click on Add to Plan > Add to new …

    Locate your patch on the search results screen and click on Add to Plan > Add to new ...

  5. Locate the a valid target application server or host name using the search box
  6. Provide a patch plan name using your company’s naming standard and click create plan

    An example naming convention I have used in the past, this particular one allows system administrators to sort by date and to manage patch plans by product:

    – – – approved patches

    Provide a patch plan name using your company's naming standard and click create plan

  7. To add any additional requested patches to your plan go back to Patches & Updatesand select your plan from the Plans list and click on the Add Patch… button.

Having this patching plan makes it easy to manage patch deployment through your environments. As for the actual deployment of each patch, I am a command line geek and like the ability to make sure that each individual patch deployment works correctly by running OPatch for each individual package.

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Reference:

As part of my writing I often try to document and share best practices I develop on my day to day work, this one relates to formalizing the patch deployment process for your oracle environments …

Configuring OBIEE to run as a Windows Service

Introduction

One key step to configuring an enterprise deployment of Oracle Business Intelligence is to be setup your services to run in the background as Windows services and start automatically with your server.  By default the installer will create windows services for Oracle Process Manager (OPMN) and the Weblogic Node Manager, this leaves us with the need to configure services for the Weblogic AdminServer and the BI Managed Server.

Pre-requisites

  • Verify boot.properties files exist for both Weblogic Servers

    AdminServer:
    %mw_home%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\security\boot.properties

    BI Managed Server:
    %mw_home%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\security\boot.properties

  • Define the MW_HOME Variable
  • Edit %MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installSvc.cmd to redirect standard output to a file and to set the service name prefix to “Oracle_”

    Log Syntax:
    -log:”%MW_HOME%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\%SERVER_NAME%-stdout.txt”

    Example Customization:

    set MW_HOME=%WL_HOME%\..\

    rem *** Install the service”
    %WL_HOME%\server\bin\beasvc” -install -svcname:”Oracle_%DOMAIN_NAME%_%SERVER_NAME%” -javahome:”%JAVA_HOME%” -execdir:”%USERDOMAIN_HOME%” -maxconnectretries:”%MAX_CONNECT_RETRIES%” -host:”%HOST%” -port:”%PORT%” -extrapath:”%EXTRAPATH%” -password:”%WLS_PW%” -cmdline:%CMDLINE% -log:”%MW_HOME%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\%SERVER_NAME%-stdout.txt”

    Note: Make sure you replace beasvc and the subsequent space with Oracle_ on the section for -svcname

  • Change the environment script

    %MW_HOME%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\bin\setOBIDomainEnv.cmd

  • Edit %MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installSvc.cmd to ensure the correct Java memory arguments are utilized by your windows service

    Old Code:
    call “%WL_HOME%\common\bin\commEnv.cmd”
    New Code:
    call “%WL_HOME%\..\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\bin\setOBIDomainEnv.cmd”

  • Edit %MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installSvc.cmd to implement a workaround for the Windows limitation of the maximum length of the command line being 2KB
    • Locate the two instances where the script sets the value of the CMDLINE variable
    • Add the code below before each instance, this code will output the current value of CLASSPATH to a text file

      REM –
      REM output the class path to text file and change reference to file on CMDLINE variable
      REM this is a workaround to a limit on windows command line to 2KB
      echo %CLASSPATH% > %WL_HOME%\server\bin\classpath.txt

    • Replace the class path variable reference \”%CLASSPATH%\” with@%WL_HOME%\server\bin\classpath.txt as depicted in the example below

      set CMDLINE=”%JAVA_VM% %MEM_ARGS% %JAVA_OPTIONS% -classpath @%WL_HOME%\server\bin\classpath.txt -Dweblogic.Name=%SERVER_NAME% -Dweblogic.management.username=%WLS_USER% -Dweblogic.ProductionModeEnabled=%PRODUCTION_MODE% -Djava.security.policy=\”%WL_HOME%\server\lib\weblogic.policy\” weblogic.Server”

  • Read the Microsoft Support article on specifying the startup order of Windows Services
  • Using regedit, add the one group for each of the OBIEE processes to be started at the end of the list entry at:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder

    Example groups:

    OBI Node Manager
    OBI AdminServer
    OBI Managed Server
    OBI OPMN

    This will sequence the startup of your services based on group

  • Note down the names of the OPMN and Node Manager Services from the registry

    Registry Location:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

    Sample Service Names:

    OracleProcessManager_instance1
    Oracle WebLogic NodeManager (d_obi_mw_wlserver_10.3)

  • For each of the two services above add a string value (right click the registry folder and follow New > String Value) named Group and provide the corresponding group value for each service (ie. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Oracle WebLogic NodeManager (d_obi_mw_wlserver_10.3)\Group=OBI Node Manager).

    This will work along with the ServiceGroupOrder configuration to ensure the startup order of your services

Implementation


AdminServer Service

  • Create a new script named %MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installAdminServer_svc.cmd and using the code below:

    SETLOCAL
    @echo off
    set MW_HOME=d:\obi_mw
    set DOMAIN_NAME=bifoundation_domain
    set USERDOMAIN_HOME=%MW_HOME%\user_projects\domains\%DOMAIN_NAME%
    set SERVER_NAME=AdminServer
    set PRODUCTION_MODE=true
    call “%MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installSvc.cmd”
    ENDLOCAL

  • Run the installAdminServer_svc.cmd script
  • Using regedit, verify that a service named Oracle_bifoundation_domain_AdminServer now exists under the following location

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

  • Right click your service folder and follow the context menus New > String Value to add a new entry in your service folder, call your new string value Group and double click on it to add OBI AdminServer as a value. This will work in tandem with the ServiceGroupOrder configuration to ensure the startup order of your services.
  • Right click your service folder and follow the context menus New > Multi-String Value to add a new entry in your service folder, call your new string value DependOnService and double click on it to add the node manager service as a dependency, the node manager service must match the service listing you noted down as part of the pre-requisite preparation steps (ie. Oracle WebLogic NodeManager (d_obi_mw_wlserver_10.3)). Using this dependency value will cause Windows to verify that dependent services have been started before attempting to start this service.

BI Managed Server Service

  • Create a new script named %MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installbi_server1_svc.cmd and using the code below:

    SETLOCAL
    @echo off
    set MW_HOME=d:\obi_mw
    set DOMAIN_NAME=bifoundation_domain
    set USERDOMAIN_HOME=%MW_HOME%\user_projects\domains\%DOMAIN_NAME%
    set SERVER_NAME=bi_server1
    set PRODUCTION_MODE=true
    set ADMIN_URL=http://localhost:7001
    call “%MW_HOME%\wlserver_10.3\server\bin\installSvc.cmd”
    ENDLOCAL

  • Run the installbi_server1_svc.cmd script
  • Using regedit, verify that a service named Oracle_bifoundation_domain_bi_server1 now exists under the following location

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

  • Right click your service folder and follow the context menus New > String Value to add a new entry in your service folder, call your new string value Group and double click on it to add OBI Managed Server as a value. This will work in tandem with the ServiceGroupOrder configuration to ensure the startup order of your services.
  • Right click your service folder and follow the context menus New > Multi-String Value to add a new entry in your service folder, call your new string value DependOnService and double click on it to add the node manager service and Weblogic AdminServer services as a dependencies (ie.Oracle_bifoundation_domain_AdminServer ). Using this dependency value will cause Windows to verify that dependent services have been started before attempting to start this service.
  • Right click the service folder for OPMN and follow the context menus New > Multi-String Value to add a new entry in your service folder, call your new string value DependOnService and double click on it to add the node manager service and Weblogic AdminServer  and your new BI Managed Server services as a dependencies (ie. Oracle_bifoundation_domain_bi_server1). Using this dependency value will cause Windows to verify that dependent services have been started before attempting to start this service.
  • On the Administration Tools > Services application verify that all of the following services are configured to start automatically and, optionally, configure what actions are taking on failure starting each service.

    Oracle WebLogic NodeManager
    Oracle_bifoundation_domain_AdminServer
    Oracle_bifoundation_domain_bi_server1
    Oracle Process Manager (instance 1)

Setup Validation

  • Restart your windows server and monitor the order in which services are started
  • If you see issues with OPMN starting at the same time as your WebLogic servers you might need to try setting the AdminServer, BI Managed Server and OPMN  services to start manually and using the code below to create batch command file that is executed by a scheduled task each time the computer starts:

    net start Oracle_bifoundation_domain_AdminServer
    timeout 300
    net start Oracle_bifoundation_domain_bi_server1
    timeout 300
    net start OracleProcessManager_instance1

    This script would use the timeout DOS command to institute a five minute wait between each of the OBI services being started.

One key step to configuring an enterprise deployment of Oracle Business Intelligence is to be setup your services to run in the background as Windows services and start automatically with your server.  By default the installer will create windows services for Oracle Process Manager (OPMN) and the Weblogic Node Manager, this leaves us with the need to configure services for the Weblogic AdminServer and the BI Managed Server.

How To: Download, install, configure and verify you have the latest version of Opatch

On this post we will discuss all the steps necessary to ensure you have the correct version of the OPatch patching utility for oracle software running on your system. If you find this post useful please or Share our site!

Environment Variables:

Set your ORACLE_INSTANCE path to a valid OBIEE 11g instance

Set your ORACLE_HOME path to the OBIEE 11g home (Oracle_BI1)

Validating Your Environment:

OPatch is installed by default, locate it go to the ORACLE_HOME path for your OBIEE installation:

\Oracle_BI1\OPatch

To verify your current session is correctly configured verify the installed version by running the following command:

opatch version

Minimum Required Versions:

OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0 -> OPatch version 11.1.0.8.3 or higher (do NOT use OPatch 12.x)

OBIEE 11.1.1.6.0 -> No OPatch packages available as of March 12, 2012

Downloading a Newer Version of OPatch:

To find and download the appropriate version of OPatch for yor system please go to ORacle Support and find the knoledge base article below:

Note 224346.1 – Opatch – Where Can I Find the Latest Version of Opatch?

Installing OPatch:

To install OPatch once you have downloaded the appropriate version follow the steps below:

  1. Rename your current OPatch directory (ORACLE_HOME\OPatch)
  2. Copy the zip file to your ORACLE_HOME
  3. Unzip the zip file
  4. Verify that the upgrade succeeded

    cd OPatch
    opatch version

File System Access:

OPatch will update the local Oracle Inventory so the user account running OPatch must have acces to the location of the OUI Inventory, to verify this you can run the following command:

opatch -lsinventory

Patch Directory Location (PATCH_TOP):

If you have a centralized location where you store code / releases it is a good idea to create a directory called PATCH_TOP to store patches as they are applied to each environment (DEV, QA, STAGE, PRD).

On this post we will discuss all the steps necessary to ensure you have the correct version of the OPatch patching utility for oracle software running on your system.