Custom Database Software Images now available on Gen2 Exadata Cloud@Customer

We are pleased to announce the General Availability (GA) of custom Database Software Images on Gen 2 Exadata Cloud@Customer. Today, Exadata Cloud@Customer users patch and provision their Oracle Database Homes using standard Oracle published images. With this release, you can create custom Database Software Images by specifying the additional customizations on top of the standard Oracle published image and use it to provision and patch Database Homes. This functionality provides complete customer control to standardize and automate the usage of Oracle Database Home software images with specific one-off patches, according to their application compatibility requirements.

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Custom Database Software Images provide,

◉ An easy, automated way to customize Database Software Images with Database Embedded JVM (OJVM) patches and application-specific patches

◉ A way to apply a standardized custom Database Software Image across multiple Database Homes for specific application needs

◉ An easy path to move on-prem databases running custom one-off software updates to Exadata Cloud@Customer

◉ A seamless way to use one-off patches to build custom images within Exadata Cloud@Customer service without special entitlements required to download patches from MOS

Custom Database Software Images are managed as an OCI resource and automatically saved to a service-managed object store bucket. To build a custom image, you can specify a major database version (such as 19c) with specific Release Update (RU) and optionally specify one-off patch IDs as a comma-separated list and/or upload an existing Oracle Database Home inventory file (opatch lsinventory output). You can fully manage the life cycle of these custom Database Software Images, which are compartment aware and belong to a specific region in which they are created. 

OCI Console Experience

Let's take a look how you can use the OCI Console with Custom Database Software Images. 

◉ Create a Database Software Image

◉ Use Custom Database Software Image to Provision Database Home

◉ Patch Database Home with Custom Database Software Image

1. Create Custom Database Software Image

From the Exadata Cloud@Customer service home page, create a custom Database Software Image in a specific OCI region. As part of the custom Database Software Image creation flow, you can select the database version and a specific patch set/release update to build the image. You can optionally specify one-off patch numbers (comma-separated) and/or upload Oracle Database Home inventory file to customize the Database Software Image to meet their specific requirements.

The custom Database Software Image is created with the selected database version and specified one-off patches.

2. Use Custom Database Software Image to Provision Database Home

While provisioning a Database Home, you are presented with the latest Oracle published software image by default.

You can change the database image selection to choose from an older version of Oracle published images or switch to select from their own repository of custom Database Software Images.

You can choose a specific custom Database Software Image from their compartment of choice. The selection list also supports a quick filter to narrow down images by their database version.

The Database Home details page clearly calls out the database version and the underlying custom Database Software Image (displayed as a hyperlink for quick navigation) used to provision the home. 

When a custom Database Software Image is used to provision a home, the image is automatically downloaded and cached for subsequent use on the Local Control Plane Servers by the Exadata Cloud@Customer service.

3. Patch Database Home with Custom Database Software Image

You can choose to patch the Database Home with an Oracle published image or use a custom Database Software Image.

You are presented with custom Database Software Images that are built using the latest four RU versions as patching options for the Database Home. In addition, custom Database Software Images with the same version but different one-off patch IDs are also available to apply as a patch. The custom Database Software Image selection list available for patching is filtered by compartment. 

A few items to note while managing custom Database software Images.

◉ You are billed for the storage used by the custom Database Software Images

◉ Custom Database Software Images do not expire automatically. You are responsible for deleting images that are no longer in use.

◉ Custom Database Software Images are a regional resource. You will need to manage/create them in each region as required.

◉ Oracle Data Guard association will automatically use the custom Database Software Image associated with the primary database to create the new standby Database Home

◉ For the first release, 'Enable Data Guard' operation will not proceed if the underlying Database Software Image used by the primary database is no longer available

Availability

Support for custom Database Software Images is now available on Exadata Cloud@Customer, Exadata Cloud Service and Database Cloud Service BM/VM in all OCI commercial regions.

Source: oracle.com