Re: Anyone using 8.1.7 ? Strategy for upgrades?

Go for it, if you go with 8.1.6.2 I guarantee there are bugs, I just logged a new with with support this afternoon. Interesting problem with the cursor_sharing=FORCE parameter that causes a *lot* of core dumps and application disconnects. It was a person from this newsgroup who helped me understand the problem. Support took over a week with 500 trace files I sent them and were still scratching their head. I am sure that 8.1.7 will have it's share of bugs as well. It's just the nature of the beast and it keeps us employed and making good money.

I cannot think of any good reason to go with anything other than the latest release when upgrading since the older versions all had problems or deficiencies or their wouldn't be a newer version :-)

--
Dave A


"Richard A Papaj" <papaj_at_acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote in message
news:8s57li$p4r$1_at_prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu...


> I'm curious as to how many sites are running 8.1.7 and what your

 experience


> has been?  Oracle now reports it to be the "terminal" release for 8i

 meaning


> it's "extremely stable and has been thoroughly tested by Oracle and will

 be


> supported longer than initial versions of 8i" (that was paraphrased from

 the


> oracle technet site: new features summary for 8.1.7).

>

> The "thoroughly" tested by Oracle sounds like a good thing but I'd feel

 more


> comfortable going to 8.1.7 right now if I heard a number of you (client

> sites) saying that it's been tested in the "real world" and appears stable

> with no significant new bugs being introduced.  I'm currently torn between

> going with 8.1.6.2 which I've heard from a number of you to be pretty good

> or going with 8.1.7 which is "reportedly" stable.  An option is try & buy

> some time & wait for 8.1.7 to get circulated and pounded on a bit more but

> we'll need to perform a few upgrades fairly soon.

>

> Another complicating factor is software packages (more so than home-grown

> apps) and their compliance with the newest releases (e.g. 8.1.7); the

> vendors don't do enough sufficient testing up-front at times to test full

> compliance so you're taking a risk.

>

> We're not in desperate need of the new features in 8.1.7 but I guess it

> would nice to get into that "terminal" release.  One strategy for upgrades

> is to go from terminal release to terminal release so you don't have to

 deal


> with desupport timeframes as often (oracle's dbms desupport timeframes

 have


> become more aggressive recently).  Or am I putting too much value into the

> terminal release concept and what Oracle purports it to be?  And is it

 ever


> a good idea to go with a new release (e.g. 8.1.7.0.0) at the point in time

> where no patches have yet been applied?

>

> I'm rambling so I better stop right there.  Any feedback is appreciated.

> Thanks in advance.

> -Rick

>

>