2. Understanding Patching for Your Oracle Fusion Cloud Services
Marc Lamarche
Senior Director
Global HCM Customer Support
Sep 28, 2014
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted

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4. Agenda 1
Fusion Cloud Basics Mandatory and Optional Patches Patching Recommendations Common Patching Scenarios Q&A 2 3 4 5
Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted

5. Oracle Cloud Hosting and Delivery Policies
Fully managed environments—high availability, flexibility, backup, and monitoring to enable secure and scalable applications
General maintenance releases (Upgrades R7 to R8), selected functionality releases, and documentation updates
Assistance with Service Requests 24 hours per day, 7 days a week
Access to My Oracle Support Portal(24 x7), with the ability to log Service Requests online
Applications updates, security fixes, and critical patch updates
Non-technical customer service during normal business hours
cloud.oracle.com - navigate to Resources -> Support ->Oracle Cloud Policies ->Policies

6. SaaS Basics We manage the software for you as a service
We publish policies that cover our service lifecycle processes
We provision, maintain, and upgrade for you
We publish a schedule for maintaining the software
Patches to fix problems
Upgrades to improve software capability or operational infrastructure
As a customer you agree to work within our maintenance schedule
You plan your project milestones to accommodate our published maintenance schedule for Production and Non-Production instances

7. Provisioned Environments
Test, Prod and Optional Dev
2 environments are provisioned as standard
Test (aka Stage) to be used for initial development and then for testing patches and upgrades
Production (aka Prod)
Dev1-n : Customers can acquire instances for parallel development and testing
Production to Test (P2T) content migration requires that both instances are at exactly the same release and patch level
Customers need their own instance management strategy for the lifetime of their service
Understand the mandated standard monthly maintenance schedule for both Test and Prod
Understand the options and process to get critical patches as an exception to the monthly schedule
Understand the conditions attached to exception patching

8. Mandatory and Optional Patches
We manage the software for you as a service
Mandatory Patches
Monthly Patch Bundle (MPB)
Monthly Vertex Patch (Tax and address files)
Quarterly Database and Hardware Maintenance patches
Optional Patches
Weekly Patch Bundle (WPB)
Monthly Translation Patches
One-Off Critical Showstopper Patches

9. Monthly Patch Bundle (MPB)
Mandatory Patches - Applications PB & Middleware P4FA
Our standard monthly process for maintaining all customer environments
Includes Applications, Middleware and BI patches
The MPB is cumulative and includes all eligible patches available since the last monthly patch bundle
Applied automatically to all customer instances on the published schedule
No exceptions (cannot be skipped)
Non Production (Test/Dev) : 1st Friday of every month
Production (Prod) : 3rd Friday of every month
A full automated regression test suite is executed against the MPB
Outage notifications sent to customers

10. Vertex, DB and Hardware Maintenance Patches
Mandatory Patches
Monthly Vertex Patches
Vertex is an Oracle business partner that provides monthly tax updates and address validation files that must be patched into all environments
Non Production instances are patched on the 18th of each month
Production instances are patched on the 25th of each month
No outage is required to apply these patches (applied in the background)
Quarterly Database and Hardware Maintenance Patches
Example: Database updates, security patches, EXA patches, etc…
Applied as-needed (typically quarterly in conjunction with MPB)
Outage notifications sent to customers
Next planned outage Dec 19th

11. Weekly Patch Bundle (WPB)
Optional Patches
Not for live production instances
Includes critical patches blocking your ability to go live
The WPB is an aggregate of approved one-off patches release after the last MPB
We run a full automated regression test suite on the WPB
Applied weekly at the start of every weekend (for current month)
Before requesting the WPB you must be aware of your P2T schedule
P2Ts can only be done in a month where you do not request a WPB on your Test instance or your instances will be out of Sync
Customers who request the WPB must agree:
To take subsequent WPBs until the end of the current month (aka the “Train”)
To take the WPB on all environments if in pre-production status (keep in sync)

12. Translation and One-Off Critical Showstopper Patches
Optional Patches
Translation Patches (R8)
Applied on request via SR
Non-Production instances - 2nd Friday of the month
Production Instances - 4th Friday of the month
In R9 translation patches will be installed automatically on the standard monthly patching cadence based on the language(s) installed in your instances
One-Off Critical Showstopper Patches
Senior management approval required
Limited to critical live production down issues only
Example: payroll issue, cannot pay employees

13. Patching Recommendations for Implementations
We manage the software for you as a service
Prior to Go-Live we recommend all customers to be on concurrent patching
Concurrent patching needs to be requested via an SR
Both Test and Prod are patched with the MPB on the first weekend of the month
When WPB is requested, patching is done automatically on Test and Prod
Plan your go-lives 1 to 2 weeks after the MPB is applied to Production
Latest fixes applied before Go-Live
Sync up Prod and Test (P2T)
Perform P2T after the Monthly Patch Bundle is applied to Production
Production to Test (P2T) content migration requires same patch level in Test & Prod
Schedule and plan for the P2T well in advance

14. Patching Scenarios #1 (Live Customers)
October 2014
November 2014
Dec
Week1 M S T W F
Week2 M S T W F
Week3 M S T W F
Week4 M S T W F
Week5 M S T W F
Week1 M S T W F
Week2 M S T W F
Week3 M S T W F
Week4 M S T W F
Week1 M S T W F
MPB 8.10
MPB 8.10
P2T
MPB 8.11
MPB 8.11
MPB 8.12
TEST
PROD
P2T Window
P2T Window
Live

15. Patching Scenarios #2 (Pre Go-Live – Concurrent Patching)
October 2014
November 2014
Dec
Week1 M S T W F
Week2 M S T W F
Week3 M S T W F
Week4 M S T W F
Week5 M S T W F
Week1 M S T W F
Week2 M S T W F
Week3 M S T W F
Week4 M S T W F
Week1 M S T W F
MPB 8.10
WPB x.1
MPB 8.10
WPB x.2
WPB x.3
WPB x.4
WPB x.5
MPB 8.11
MPB 8.11
P2T
Go-Live
MPB 8.12
TEST
PROD
P2T Window
Implementing
Live

16. R9 Upgrade December Rollout Pre-Upgrade Surveys went out last week
You have until October 6th (HCM/ERP) to reply and voice your preference
3 preferences for each environment
Best efforts to accommodate one of the top 3 preferences
We will begin the broad rollout of upgrades from R8 to R9 in December
The R9 upgrade cannot be skipped
Language patches are done automatically

17. References Important MOS Docs
Oracle ERP Cloud Patching Process (Doc ID )
Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Patching Process (Doc ID )
The Oracle Sales Cloud Service: Patching Process (Doc ID )
Oracle Fusion Applications Cloud Concurrent Patching Option (Doc ID )
Guide to the Functional Readme for Fusion HCM Patch Bundles (Doc ID )
Oracle Fusion Applications R9 Upgrade Process for Oracle HCM Cloud Service (Doc ID )
Cloud Service Requests and Fulfillment for Oracle HCM Cloud Service (Doc ID )
Managing Fusion HCM Cloud Service Environments (Doc ID )

18. Drinks. Food. Fun. My Oracle Support Monday Mix Tonight
Drinks. Food. Fun. My Oracle Support Monday Mix Tonight! Monday, September 29 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. ThirstyBear Brewing Company (only ½ block from Moscone Center)
Do you have an active role in supporting Oracle products within your company?
Do you interact directly with Oracle Support or manage a team that does?
If so, this event is for you! Join us for a fun and relaxing happy hour at the annual My Oracle Support Monday Mix. This year’s gathering is tonight - Monday, September from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the ThirstyBear Brewing Company – just a 3 minute walk from Moscone Center.
After a busy day at Oracle OpenWorld, take a break and unwind with your peers. Stop by and get to know the Oracle Support Engineers you depend on as well as key Oracle Support executives and developers over drinks and hors d’oevres. Admission is free for Premier Support customers with your Oracle OpenWorld badge. Visit our web site for more details. We’ll see you there!
Join us for a relaxing Happy Hour after a busy day at Oracle OpenWorld!
Take a break and unwind with your peers
Get to know the Oracle support engineers you depend on
Meet My Oracle Support executives and developers
Enjoy drinks and hors d’oevres
Admission is free with your Oracle OpenWorld badge
Event details at:
Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted

19. Oracle Support Stars Bar & Mini Briefing Center
In the back of the exhibition hall
ASK THE EXPERTS
Moscone West Exhibition Hall

20. Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted