How to migrate Grid Infrastructure from release 12c to release 18c

Oracle Clusterware 18c builds on this innovative technology by further enhancing support for larger multi-cluster environments and improving the overall ease of use. Oracle Clusterware is leveraged in the cloud in order to provide enterprise-class resiliency where required and dynamic as well as online allocation of compute resources where needed, when needed.
Oracle Grid Infrastructure provides the necessary components to manage high availability (HA) for any business critical application.
HA in consolidated environments is no longer simple active/standby failover.

In this blog we will see how to upgrade our Grid Infrastructure stack from 12cR2 to 18c.

Step1: You are required to patch your GI with the patch 27006180

[root@dbisrv04 ~]# /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid/OPatch/opatchauto apply /u90/Kit/27006180/ -oh /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid/

Performing prepatch operations on SIHA Home........

Start applying binary patches on SIHA Home........

Performing postpatch operations on SIHA Home........

[finalize:finalize] OracleHomeLSInventoryGrepAction action completed on home /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid successfully
OPatchAuto successful.

Step2: Check the list of patches applied

grid@dbisrv04:/u90/Kit/ [+ASM] /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid/OPatch/opatch lsinventory
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.2.0.1.6
Copyright (c) 2018, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Lsinventory Output file location : /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2018-10-11_09-06-44AM.txt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c                                       12.2.0.1.0
There are 1 products installed in this Oracle Home.


Interim patches (1) :

Patch  27006180     : applied on Thu Oct 11 09:02:50 CEST 2018
Unique Patch ID:  21761216
Patch description:  "OCW Interim patch for 27006180"
   Created on 5 Dec 2017, 09:12:44 hrs PST8PDT
   Bugs fixed:
     13250991, 20559126, 22986384, 22999793, 23340259, 23722215, 23762756
........................
     26546632, 27006180

Step3: Upgrage the binaries to the release 18c

– recommend to run the rootUpgrade.sh script manually

/u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/rootupgrade.sh
[root@dbisrv04 ~]# /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/rootupgrade.sh
Performing root user operation.

The following environment variables are set as:
    ORACLE_OWNER= grid
    ORACLE_HOME=  /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid

Enter the full pathname of the local bin directory: [/usr/local/bin]:
The contents of "dbhome" have not changed. No need to overwrite.
The file "oraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin.  Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:
The file "coraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin.  Overwrite it? (y/n)
[n]:

Entries will be added to the /etc/oratab file as needed by
Database Configuration Assistant when a database is created
Finished running generic part of root script.
Now product-specific root actions will be performed.
Using configuration parameter file: /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/crs/install/crsconfig_params
The log of current session can be found at:
  /u01/app/oracle/crsdata/dbisrv04/crsconfig/roothas_2018-10-11_09-21-27AM.log

2018/10/11 09:21:29 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 1 of 12: 'UpgPrechecks'.
2018/10/11 09:21:30 CLSRSC-363: User ignored prerequisites during installation
2018/10/11 09:21:31 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 2 of 12: 'GetOldConfig'.
2018/10/11 09:21:33 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 3 of 12: 'GenSiteGUIDs'.
2018/10/11 09:21:33 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 4 of 12: 'SetupOSD'.
2018/10/11 09:21:34 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 5 of 12: 'PreUpgrade'.

ASM has been upgraded and started successfully.

2018/10/11 09:22:25 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 6 of 12: 'UpgradeAFD'.
2018/10/11 09:23:52 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 7 of 12: 'UpgradeOLR'.
Creating OCR keys for user 'grid', privgrp 'oinstall'..
Operation successful.
2018/10/11 09:23:57 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 8 of 12: 'UpgradeOCR'.
LOCAL ONLY MODE
Successfully accumulated necessary OCR keys.
Creating OCR keys for user 'root', privgrp 'root'..
Operation successful.
CRS-4664: Node dbisrv04 successfully pinned.
2018/10/11 09:24:00 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 9 of 12: 'CreateOHASD'.
2018/10/11 09:24:02 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 10 of 12: 'ConfigOHASD'.
2018/10/11 09:24:02 CLSRSC-329: Replacing Clusterware entries in file 'oracle-ohasd.service'
2018/10/11 09:24:49 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 11 of 12: 'UpgradeSIHA'.
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.


dbisrv04     2018/10/11 09:25:58     /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/cdata/dbisrv04/backup_20181011_092558.olr     70732493   

dbisrv04     2018/07/31 15:24:14     /u91/app/grid/product/12.2.0/grid/cdata/dbisrv04/backup_20180731_152414.olr     0
2018/10/11 09:25:59 CLSRSC-595: Executing upgrade step 12 of 12: 'InstallACFS'.
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.

CRS-2791: Starting shutdown of Oracle High Availability Services-managed resources on 'dbisrv04'
CRS-2673: Attempting to stop 'ora.driver.afd' on 'dbisrv04'
CRS-2677: Stop of 'ora.driver.afd' on 'dbisrv04' succeeded
CRS-2793: Shutdown of Oracle High Availability Services-managed resources on 'dbisrv04' has completed
CRS-4133: Oracle High Availability Services has been stopped.
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.
2018/10/11 09:27:54 CLSRSC-327: Successfully configured Oracle Restart for a standalone server

– you can ignore the warning related to the memory resources

– once finished the installation, verify what has been made

[root@dbisrv04 ~]# /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/bin/crsctl query has softwareversion
Oracle High Availability Services version on the local node is [18.0.0.0.0]

[root@dbisrv04 ~]# /u90/app/grid/product/18.3.0/grid/bin/crsctl stat res -t
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name           Target  State        Server                   State details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Local Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.DATA.dg
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.DATA2.dg
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.DATA3.dg
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.LISTENER.lsnr
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.RECO.dg
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.asm
               ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 Started,STABLE
ora.ons
               OFFLINE OFFLINE      dbisrv04                 STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Resources
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ora.cssd
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.db18c.db
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 Open,HOME=/u90/app/o
                                                             racle/product/18.3.0
                                                             /dbhome_1,STABLE
ora.diskmon
      1        OFFLINE OFFLINE                               STABLE
ora.driver.afd
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.evmd
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 STABLE
ora.orcl.db
      1        ONLINE  ONLINE       dbisrv04                 Open,HOME=/u90/app/o
                                                             racle/product/18.3.0
                                                             /dbhome_1,STABLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------