Excuse me while I rant a little.

I still consider myself pretty new to Oracle. For about 3 years now, I've been applying the Critical Patch Updates (CPU) to about 9 pairs of Windows Servers. Each pair has one server which runs the database and one server that runs the application server. After all of this time, it still just amazes me how hard it is to patch an Oracle System.

If you complain about Microsoft Patches, then you really should move over to Oracle's side of the street. Here's just a few reasons why:

Versions - Oracle has lots and lots of versions. I had to go and find the patch that upgrades from 10.1.2.2 to 10.1.2.3. Don't run 10.1.2.0, since that's near it's end of life.

That's just the version of the application server. There's something like 78 products bundled in there, all with their own version. Then you have the database, which has it's 5 million products.

Sucky Support Portal - Sorry, but Metalink is horrible. They just put a pretty flash-ish interface on it, and what they should have done is made the information in it useful. Or heck, here's an idea, make the search algorithm better. Maybe Oracle can hire a database company to take a look at it. Oh wait, they are a database company. Nevermind.

Pre-install / post-install - Why in the world do I have to spend 30 minutes reading through the instructions for a patch that's an executable. If something has to be done before hand, can't the setup just do it? Can't the setup just check for prerequisites? Also, if the database has to be shut down in order to install a update, just say so. Don't leave it out of the directions when it's a necessity.

Now I don't want to rant on and on about this, but I think that the reason Oracle restricts Metalink access isn't because the information is valuable, it's because they would be embarrassed if people saw their support site.

The only nice thing about Oracle patches is that they are only released once a quarter. Yes, you heard me, once a quarter. What do they call them again, oh yea, "Critical Patch Updates". Can't be too critical if it can wait 3 months.

Anyway, that's my 2 bits.