Information about Oracle engine version update on RDS

Question

[Oracle Standard Edition Two running on RDS]

Customer wants evidence of when the database's engine was last updated, for auditing purposes.

From what I found so far looking at logs on the console, AWS doesn't seem to show that information.

I read somewhere that typically the alert.log file *might* have some information, but I'm not sure how it works since the db is on AWS.

Anyone have some pointers?

TIA

gokul_guna · Answer

Hello,

Can you look at the Cloudtrail -> Event history and filter for the particular RDS as "Resource Name" to look for the events performed on this instance for engine version upgrade.

Alternatively, If the RDS Event subscription enabled and SNS topic is subscribed, you might have got notification about the last time successfull engine version upgrade.

As a simple method to check the Oracle database quarterly RU update is to look at the database itself to generate proof for auditing. Can you try with below query (hoping your RDS is 19c) which shows the list of RUs applied date-wise and its status.

```
select PATCH_ID,PATCH_UID,PATCH_TYPE,ACTION,STATUS,DESCRIPTION,TARGET_VERSION,ACTION_TIME from DBA_REGISTRY_SQLPATCH;
```

example output would be something like below

```
    PATCH_ID   PATCH_UID PATCH_TYPE ACTION     STATUS          DESCRIPTION                                                  TARGET_VERSION    ACTION_TIME
------------ ----------- ---------- ---------- --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    29517242    22862832 RU         APPLY      SUCCESS         Database Release Update : 19.3.0.0.190416 (29517242)         19.3.0.0.0          16-AUG-22 04.49.56.837492 PM
    36582781    25751445 RU         APPLY      SUCCESS         Database Release Update : 19.24.0.0.240716 (36582781)        19.24.0.0.0       30-JUL-24 08.22.36.183628 AM

```

rePost-User-5968544 · Answer

On AWS, you can read the Oracle database alert log, which will contain database log patching information. To read the Oracle alert log, you can view it through the RDS console interface. Alternatively, you can push your Oracle alert log to CloudWatch, where you can set up log groups and log streams to monitor and query the alert log. By sending the alert log to CloudWatch, you can set up alerts, create custom dashboards, and perform advanced analysis on the log data.

Information about Oracle engine version update on RDS

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