Originally posted by OracleDoc
errr ummm apply it to dev first to see how long it's going to take and to see if it fixes your problem? That is if your Dev is in sync with prod...
Hi! Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately that is the easy part, testing to see if a bug is fixed that is. The thing I'm much more interested in is determining the degree to which the patch will cause problems of its own. Just installing in development may not reveal these issues; our development is fully in sync with production but with two hundred applications and half as many IT staff, we're not likely to "stumble" onto the esoteric bugs, like the ones biting us in 9.2.0.4 for example.

I know there is no clear answer to this question. I'm just wondering what other DBAs do to establish a comfort level with patches.