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Brief Oracle Patch Process and Types of Patches

Regardless of your environment's patching requirements, the basic patching methodology is the same. The normal patching workflow can be broken down into the following nine steps shown in the following figure.

Patch Process

Types of Oracle Patches

Oracle regularly makes patches available to upgrade features, enhance security, or fix problems with supported software. The major types of patches are:

  • Interim patches - contain a single bug fix or a collection of bug fixes provided as required
  • Interim patches for security bug fixes - contain customer-specific security bug fixes
  • Diagnostic patches - intended to help diagnose or verify a fix or a collection of bug fixes
  • Bundle Patch Updates (BPUs) - a cumulative collection of fixes for a specific product or component
  • Patch Set Updates (PSUs) - a cumulative collection of high impact, low risk, and proven fixes for a specific product or component and Security Patch Updates
  • Security Patch Updates (SPU) - a cumulative collection of security bug fixes. SPUs were formerly known as Critical Patch Updates (CPU).
  • System Patch - contains several sub-patches in a format that can be used by OPatchAuto.
  • Merge Label Request (MLR) - a merge of two or more fixes. MLR creation requires a label for the new set of merged code and a Patch Set Exception.

OPatch consists of patching utilities that help ensure your Oracle software stays current and secure. The utilities are:

  • OPatch: A Java-based utility that enables the application and rollback of patches to Oracle software.
  • OPatchauto: A patch orchestration tool that generates patching instructions specific to your target configuration and then uses OPatch to perform the patching operations without user intervention. Specifically, OPatchAuto can:
    1. Perform pre-patch checks.
    2. Apply the patch
    3. Start and stop the running servers.
    4. Perform post-patch checks.
    5. Roll back patches when patch deinstallation is required.
  • OPatchauto -binary: A patch application tool that applies a single patch on a selected Oracle home. OPatchauto -binary patches only one Oracle home per session.