Oracle Applications DBA Blog

Oracle Applications Patch Types

In a continuous effort to improve applications performance, fix bugs address security vulnerabilities, perform language translations or simply add additional functionality oracle release a series of patches in addition to their base release of applications.

It goes without saying as with the case of any other applications it is recommended to be at the latest certified patch set level at most times.

The Oracle Application patches are categorized into the various types based on their purpose and the bugs they fix. This could get confusing at times to start with but once you have a understand of the oracle naming conventions, it will make your life  as an APPS DBA a whole lot easier.

Below are categories under which Oracle Application patches are divided.

• Standalone or Individual Patches - These kind of patches are delivered to fix a one off bug or introduce a new feature in any  of the oracle applications products. Mostly these patches would be independent and unrelated though they might require certain 
  pre requisite patches to be applied.
  
• Mini Packs - These are a consolidation of various standalone patches for a particular product in oracle applications like  AD,GL etc. The naming convention for mini packs would be in the form of 11i.<product>.<minipack letter> such as 11i.AD.I.Mini packs are cumulative in nature that is AD.I would include all the bug fixes that were included in AD.H and so on. Prior to release 11 the mini packs were referred as patch sets.
  
• Family Packs - A family pack is a consolidation of all the mini packs and various stand alone patches for a particular oracle 
  applications product family. The functional grouping of application products forms a product family like financials HRMS etc. The naming convention of these family packs are in the form of 11i<productfamily_product>.<Familypack letter> like  11i.HR_PF.K.As in the case of mini packs the family packs are also cumulative in nature.
  
• Consolidated Updates - Since the time between releases of oracle applications is significant, a number of patches mini packs and family packs would have been introduced. A consolidated update as the name implies is a consolidation of the recommended 
  patches that have been released up till the date of the release of the consolidated update. A consolidated update brings the entire oracle applications system to the latest recommended patch level. The consolidated updates are in the form of  CU<Update Number> like CU2.Consolidated updates are also cumulative.
  
• Technology Stack Updates - Recently oracle has started to introduce a new type of patch know as the technology stack update, these include consolidation of patches and mini packs for the underlying technology stack. As a result they do not include any  functional patches. An example of technology stack update is 11i.ATG_PF.H.Technology stack updates are cumulative.
  
• Maintenance Packs - A maintenance pack is a consolidation of all the mini packs for all products and all the family packs for the entire oracle applications. Maintenance packs upgrade the system from on release to a higher release for example when you apply the 11.5.10.2 maintenance pack to a 11.5.9 system you upgrade your entire oracle applications to a higher version.
  
• Critical Patch updates (CPU) - Every quarter oracle releases critical patch update that addresses the security vulnerabilities and alerts that have been identified. The critical patch updates were introduced in 2005 prior to which security alert were used address the security fixes for oracle products.
  
• Translation Patches - In a multilingual environment the patches are first applied in the base language. After that a translation patch is required to be applied for each of the additional language installed. The translation patches would be in the form of <patch number>_<Language code> like 3460000_FRC implies the Canadian French translation patch for 3460000  (consolidated update 2).
  
• Recommended Patch List (RPL) - A recommend patch list is a list of patches for a particular oracle applications product. The RPL is not a patch but just a list of recommendations. In fact the consolidated updates are built up on the RPL based on the cut off dates for inclusion.