Originally posted by swiego
I'm just wondering what other DBAs do to establish a comfort level with patches.
If I was constantly getting hit with a bug that is fixed in a higher level patch, I would tend to apply the patch so I don't get hit with that error. Will there be new bugs in the patch? Sure. What software doesn't have bugs? Besides, you can always go back to 9.2.0.4 if things really suck, right?

When applying patches, I prefer to install Oracle in a seperate $OH. I've outlined the reasons before of why I like to do that. By using multiple $OHs, you could be back on 9.2.0.4 in about 30 minutes.