RE: new Patch Set Updates released

Another one to note that is possible after applying Oct2009's PSU... Woohoo, onto work around for bug #6319761.  Just love it when I can't collect stats!  Two bugs down, how many to go from patching? :)  
Signed,
Bugged DBA

• On Thu, 1/14/10, Kellyn Pedersen <kjped1313_at_yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Kellyn Pedersen <kjped1313_at_yahoo.com> Subject: RE: new Patch Set Updates released To: "Martin Bach" <development_at_the-playground.de>, "ORACLE-L" <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>, Brandon.Allen_at_OneNeck.com Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 1:12 PM

Honestly?  This is the first PSU I've ever released and I've never released a CSU patch set.  I've worked for companies where I had less influence and/or experience where they had you implement every quarterly patch as part of SOX compliance, etc. but it was before they even referred to them as PSU/CSU's and it's been literally years since I've applied anything outside of a one-off patch for a bug that I couldn't find a work around for.  I simply find that the cure is worse than the disease for most of my patching.  I patch for a bug then I have a new bug to contend with from the newly applied patch.  Not my idea of a fun way to work, (yes, I'm now putting in the work around for bug 6367692 that resulted from me patching the PSU this last week.. and no, I don't know who's bright idea it was to alter sessions in packages and go back to a manual workarea_size_policy for hashing and sorting because they can't tune their SQL! :))

Kellyn Pedersen
Multi-Platform DBA
I-Behavior Inc.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kellynpedersen www.dbakevlar.blogspot.com
 
"Go away before I replace you with a very small and efficient shell script..."

• On Thu, 1/14/10, Allen, Brandon <Brandon.Allen_at_OneNeck.com> wrote:

From: Allen, Brandon <Brandon.Allen_at_OneNeck.com> Subject: RE: new Patch Set Updates released To: "Martin Bach" <development_at_the-playground.de>, "ORACLE-L" <oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 11:12 AM

Thanks Martin.  I’ve had the same position as you on patching for years, especially since all our databases are on secured networks, we’ve never had a (known) security breach, and we’re running ERP systems where testing requires a major coordinated effort.  But, I’m starting to worry that my luck must be wearing thin and most malicious attacks are internal, plus I’ve seen a few articles about worms and hacker programs for Oracle in the past few years so I figured I should try changing my ways and get a bit more proactive before it’s too late.  I figure as long as I’m applying security updates (CPUs), I might as well take the full plunge and apply the “low risk, high value” bug fixes in the PSU too, but I’m just as skeptical as anyone about that “low risk” claim.  So far, I haven’t heard too many horror stories to scare me away, other than some problems getting the one-off overlay patches if required, but my databases don’t  have a lot of one-off patches so I’m hoping I won’t have trouble there.  I’m just waiting for the green light from my developers to take some downtime and patch their database, and then I’ll post my results - hopefully in a couple days.

From: Martin Bach [mailto:development_at_the-playground.de]

For what it's worth I'd never install any Oracle patch regardless . . .  

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