Patching OEM13c, step1 of an upgrade to OEM 24ai - Tales from the Datacenter v2.0

With OEM 24ai out, I’m getting a lot of folks reaching out about the upgrade process. It’s actually not too difficult, but there is some prep work you need to do. Mainly, making sure your OEM system is patched along with the database.

The first step is , making sure your database is at least at 19.22. Most DBAs know how to patch, but if you get stuck, feel free to send me a note, and I’ll post step-by-step directions.

The next step is not always needed, but you will likely need to update the OMSPatcher tool. In this case, I’ll need you to update that to 13.9.5.23. I went ahead and downloaded the patch ( p19999993_135000_Generic.zip_ and renamed it to OMSPatcher_13.9.5.23.p19999993_135000_Generic.zip. I have found renaming the patch fines with some added details helps to track what ‘s what. I also went ahead and downloaded OEM 13.5 RY24, and changed the file named to OEM_13_5_RU24_p36761595_135000_Generic.zip. This file was also extracted /u01/software/13_5ru24/36761595

Before doing much more, we need to know what the OMS middleware directory is. With a default install it’s /u01/app/oracle/middleware. You can figure it out by looking at the process table for where ohs run. It’s the directory above ohs. You can do a ps -ef | grep ohs and look at the path.

Here we can see that the path for the httpd process is /u01/app/oracle/middleware/ohs/bin/httpd, this means that the MIDDLEWARE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/middleware. We can go ahead and export that for future use;

export MIDDLEWARE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/middleware
export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/middleware

Here, I set both the MIDDLEWARE_HOME and ORACLE_HOME. If your database is on the same system as the OMS, you need to be careful setting the ORACLE_HOME. When possible, I try to keep the names separate, even if redundant at times.

The OMSPatcher is right under $MIDDLEWARE_HOME, so we can back it up using the command

mv $MIDDLEWARE_HOME/OMSPatcher $MIDDLEWARE_HOME/OMSPatcher.backup

Next we will cd to the home, and unzip the downloaded patch.

unzip /u01/software/13_5ru24/OMSPatcher_13.9.5.23.p19999993_135000_Generic.zip

Now lest test it with the following commands

cd $MIDDLEWARE_HOME/OMSPatcher

./omspatcher version

Before we patch, we need to make sure we have the following info hand;

Weblogic host and ports, just to double check
Weblogic user name and password
Database sys username and password

Now lets test the patch. Using the following command.

./omspatcher apply -analyze /u01/software/13_5ru24/36761595

The system will verify the host info and ports and then prompt you for the login info for both the WebLogic server and the database. It will then check all the patches.

Now, pay attention to the output. In my case, I need to install a few extra patches! This is mainly because I am upgrading a stock OEM 13.5 install that has never been patched. I come across systems all the time that have never been patched! Once you get to 24ai, you do need to plan on patching OEM on a schedule. With 13.5, Oracle went to a continuous integration/ continuous delivery ( CI/CD) approach to new features. If you don’t patch, you are missing out on A TON of cool new tools to help you monitor and manage your systems.