Oracle-Ninja.com Andy Colvin's Oracle Blog

Exadata Critical Patch for 11.2.2.3.x through 11.2.2.4.1

Oracle has released a critical patch for storage server versions 11.2.2.3.x through 11.2.2.4.1.  While 11.2.2.4.1 was released last week, there were a few oneoff patches from 11.2.2.4.0 that didn't seem to make it in to the release.  Oracle has since released 11.2.2.4.2 (patch #13513611, supplemental note #1388400.1).  Similar to 11.2.2.4.1, this release looks to patch several outstanding issues.  Here's the list of bugs fixed from the readme for 11.2.2.4.2:

12764521        INFINIBAND DIAG COMMANDS (LIKE IBDIAGNET AND IBNETDISCOVER) ARE NOT WORKING
13083530        10 GB-E BONDED INTERFACES FAILING- EXADATA
13410353        AFTER UPGRADE TO 11.2.2.4 INFINIBAND CMDS IBDIAGNET, IBNETDISCOVER NOT WORKING
13489032        CHECKHWNFWPROFILE DOES NOT DETECT FAILED FLASH FDOM
13489445        ORA-600 [OSSMISC:OSSMISC_TIMER] WHEN NTPD DETECTED 6 MILLISECOND TIME DIFFERENCE
13512932        FIX INSTALLED WORKAROUND FOR NTP UPDATE BUG 13489445

As you can see, the previously mentioned bugs have been fixed.  There's another bug that was fixed in 11.2.2.4.1 that could be an issue for anybody running 11.2.2.3.x through 11.2.2.4.0.  This bug (13454147) can remove the flashcache from a cell that has an uptime of 6 months or greater.  Fortunately, Oracle has released a patch that includes these critical issues in the event that you can't quickly upgrade to 11.2.2.4.2 - I wouldn't advise running this version for at least a couple weeks...I always advise clients to wait that long for the early adopters to weed out any major issues.

Applying the critical patch only takes a minute, and doesn't take the storage servers or database instances offline.  After it's done, a restart of cellsrv needs to be scheduled, but that can be done in a rolling fashion.  Read on for an example of applying this patch.  As always, do not apply any patch to a production system before appropriately testing against a non-production system!