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11.2.0.4 Jan 2015 SPU
As of November 2015,the version numbering for new Bundle Patches,Patch Set Updates,and Security Patch Updates for Oracle Database have a new format. This new format replaces the numeric 5th field of the bundle version with a release date in the form YYMMDD:
YY is the last 2 digits of the year
MM is the numeric month (2 digits)
DD is the numeric day of the month (2 digits)
Note that the release date is the release date of the main BP,PSU,or SPU.
This new version format makes it easier to see which bundle patches are from which time frame,and in particular,which patches are from the same Critical Patch Update release. For examples and more information,see My Oracle Support?Note 2061926.1,Oracle Database,Enterprise Manager and Middleware - Change to Patch Numbering from Nov 2015 onwards.
Note:
Only the first 4 fields of a version are shown in Database views / trace banners etc..? The 5th field and patching method can be verified by checking the inventory of an installation.?
eg: "opatch lsinventory" will show the Patch Set (or Base Release) level along with a list of patches installed. The patch listing usually shows a descriptive line/s for SPU/PSU/BP patches indicating what patch method and version is in use.
In earlier RDBMS Product versions (such as Oracle 8 and Oracle 9),this same version numbering system was referred to as "digits",as in "the version number 9.2.0.4 shows the Major Release is the first two digits of 9.2". Therefore,you may still find some legacy Oracle sources that refer to a version number such as 12.1.0.2,as "showing the Major Release is the first two digits of 12.1". Since "12.1" is technically 3 digits and *not* 2 digits,the term "field" used in the table above is preferred over the legacy term "digit".
Testing Overview
Oracle performs different types of testing on various patch types prior to their release:
- Functional tests
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- test specific areas of functionality against expected outcomes.
An "area" may be a feature or subset of a feature (eg: Advanced Queueing or a specific functionality of Advanced Queueing)
- functional tests include regression testing to ensure that results and behaviour of specific operations are as expected.
- Stress tests
- test resilience of the database when pushed to its limit in resource utilization and in specific configurations
- heavy destructive tests under high load
- Performance tests
- test various workloads and features
- measure the performance of specific operations to ensure that most common code paths have not degraded in performance (sometimes known as "atomics" tests)
- test overall performance of specific workloads / features
The following table shows the level of testing performed by Oracle for the various patch types:
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