Due to the ongoing nature of software improvement, vendors periodically issue patches and service packs for the operating systems, application servers, and database servers on top of specific versions that Oracle products have already been tested against.

If it is necessary to apply an upgrade, it is recommended to do so in a test environment that is running on the same platform as your production environment prior to updating the production environment itself.

Always contact My Oracle Support before applying vendor updates that do not guarantee backward compatibility.