Maintenance Best Practices for Cloud Services

The Oracle Utilities Cloud Service Update Policy Guide explains the maintenance process.

Oracle Utilities Cloud service offers two Saturday maintenance windows a month for performing application updates. Additional windows are offered for hot fix releases on Thursday nights. Please see details Oracle Utilities Release Schedule for actual dates.

Important:

• During implementation and before go-live, Oracle may schedule once a month updates.
• Environments that remain on a release beyond the end-of-life (EOL) date, will be scheduled for update by Oracle.
• Maintenance pack release notes are published on Tuesdays and available on My Oracle Support (MOS). (MOS account required to view link.) We also encourage you to review release readiness materials. 
• You can sign up for maintenance notification emails to stay informed on maintenance windows through Status Page.

Prior to maintenance, your Oracle representative, typically a member of your Customer Success team, is available to review your maintenance plan with you. You’ll need to actively participate in the scheduling process by completing the following steps before each maintenance event:
 

• Provide feedback and confirm your maintenance plan by the communicated deadline.
• After you confirm your plan, review the schedule Oracle sends you for accuracy.
• If any errors are identified, promptly report them so they can be corrected.
• Changes to the maintenance schedule are not possible after the communicated deadline.
• By default, patching will happen automatically. Oracle can work with you on a patching schedule.

By adopting these best practices, you’ll position your organization for a dependable and consistent maintenance process.

Stay informed on upcoming maintenance

• Keep yourself informed by reviewing the Maintenance pack release notes and release readiness materials. 
• Ensure your organization’s relevant stakeholders understand the Oracle maintenance process and schedule.
• If you're unsure how the maintenance event will impact your environments, submit a Service Request (SR) in My Oracle Support (MOS), or contact a member of your Customer Success team.

Post-maintenance testing
 

• After each maintenance window, perform regression testing on your environments to ensure that recent updates have not introduced new issues or affected existing functionality.
  
   
  • Review the list of known issues and workarounds (available through MOS).
  • Should you identify any new issues, log a Service Request (SR) through MOS for investigation and resolution.

For more information on regression testing, see our Regression Testing Recommendations.

By following these best practices, you’ll help ensure a smooth and efficient maintenance process for your Oracle Utilities Cloud service(s). For further details, visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.