Upgrade to Oracle 19c now, or face the risk of being unsupported

Oracle Database edition 19c was released in April 2019. For those organisations yet to make the move from earlier versions of the database, now is the time to start planning your upgrade to 19c as a number of key Oracle support dates are looming.

Oracle Support Dates

Key milestones for earlier releases can here be seen:

• Oracle Database 18c went out of Premier Support in Jun 2021, Extended Support is not available and it is now in Sustaining Support
• The Limited Error Correction Period for 12.2 comes to an end March 2022 (“As a one-time exception, Oracle will provide Limited Error Correction at no additional charge, for a period of 16 months after Premier Support Error Correction ends. Limited Error Correction will be in place from December 1, 2020, until March 31 2022, for those customers needing additional time to complete their 19c upgrades”)

• The Extended Support offering for 12.1 Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition 2 comes to an end in July 2022.
• For customers running Oracle E-Business Suite on database 12.1, the Extended Support fee has been waived through July 2022. When this arrangement comes to an end, the database will drop into Sustaining Support
• The limited Market Driven Support offered for database 11.2.0.4 comes to an end Dec 2022

In the graphic below the first red line shows where we are now in November 2021 which intersects 5 database releases that are currently supported. But in a short time when we get to around this time next year, that number drops from 5 to just 2
 

What about Oracle Database 21c?

Why would you want to upgrade to  Database version 19c, when a newer version 21c is now available?

The difference here is that 19c is categorised as a ‘Long Term Release’ whereas 21c is an ‘Innovation Release’

• Long Term Release: Oracle Database Long Term Releases are ideal for use cases that benefit from less frequent upgrades to newer releases. Long Term Releases offer the highest level of stability and the longest length of error correction support. These releases have 5 years of Premier Support followed by 3 years of Extended Support. When combined with Extended Support, customers typically have almost 4 years to upgrade from one Long Term Release to the next Long Term Release

• Innovation Release: In between Oracle Database Long Term Releases, Oracle delivers Oracle Database Innovation Releases that include many enhancements and new capabilities which will also be included in the next Long Term Release. Innovation Releases are designed to enable customers to continuously use leading-edge technologies to rapidly develop or deploy new applications or augment existing applications. Support for Innovation Releases includes at least 2 years of Premier Support, but there is no Extended Support. Production workloads can be deployed on Innovation Releases if upgrading to the next database release within one year after the next database release ships are factored into the deployment plan

21c is effectively a ‘beta’ release and unless there is a killer use-case new feature that would transform your business by adopting 21c straight away, generally speaking, customers still running on prior releases (e.g. 11gR2, 12cR1, 12cR2, 18c) are encouraged to upgrade rather to Oracle Database 19c - the current Long Term release with support through to April 2027.

The next planned Long Term Release will be Oracle Database 23c but as the name suggests this will not be available until 2023.

19c therefore becomes the only viable version to be on come 31st December 2022 to remain in Oracle support.

 

Read here to find out more about the feature of Oracle Database 21c and what's new.
 

Premier Support – What’s the Big Deal?

Does it actually matter if your Oracle Database version goes into Sustaining Support?

Not necessarily and some of Claremont customers are quite happy to remain on older versions that are stable and do the job for them, although as a best practice we would tend to recommend being on a supported release.

But if your database supports a business-critical function or you care about security, then you should for sure be on a version that is in Premier, or at least Extended Support.

This table summarises the key differences offered in each level.

 

The two main ones to note here are:

• Security alerts and updates: If your database is in Sustaining Support it is not eligible to receive any new security patch updates. Indeed Oracle simply does not produce security patches for versions of their software that are in Sustaining Support. Any new security problem or bug discovered will not get backported to these versions.
• Certification with third-party products: If you are planning on a server upgrade to a later version of Linux or Windows, or deploying a new version of Java to the server or such like, then you are limited to those versions that are certified with your database. If your database is in Sustaining Support it will never be certified on new platforms you may wish to migrate to.

Oracle Database 19c Multitenant Architecture

The Multitenant Architecture model was first introduced in 12c, but becomes mandatory from 19c onwards. This is a fundamental restructuring of how Oracle databases work and introduces the concepts of Container Databases (CDB) and Pluggable Database (PDB). Rather than having a number of separate Oracle instances running on a server, these can now be consolidated.

Click here to find out more about Oracle Multitenant.

Up to three Pluggable Databases can consolidated into a single CDB for all Enterprise and Standard Edition databases at no extra cost; beyond 3 then the feature requires the ‘Oracle Multitenant’ Pack.

See Oracle Database Licensing Information User Manual for further information.

Choosing the right Managed Services Provider

Claremont is the UK’s leading independent provider of Oracle Database Managed Services, If you are looking for an Oracle partner who can help you with your Oracle 19c goes about it the right way, and can back up the talk, then contact us. You can email us at info@claremont.co.uk or phone us on +44 (0) 1483 549004.