Re: Anyone using 8.1.7 ? Strategy for upgrades?

If it's any help, we've been using 8.1.7 very happily for a couple of weeks now...got the 8.1.7 documentation (such as it is!) delivered this morning which should make us even happier!

"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
>
>
Received on Fri Oct 13 2000 - 09:36:00 CDT