Releases and patch numbers - September 2006

Back in April of this year I published a release guide for Oracle Discoverer. This posting contains the latest information, as of September 18, 2006. I will endeavor to update this every six months or thereabouts with the latest information.

• Discoverer 10g (10.1.2.0.2) - This is the current and most up-to-date release and the one you should be on if you can. Notwithstanding the fact that this is the current version it is also an excellent piece of software. It has a new user interface and is packed with lots of new and exciting features. The current release is 10.1.2.48.18. No ECS or ES dates have been announced for 10.1.2.0.2. The latest open patch for all platforms is 5381031, which was released on July 11, 2006.

• Discoverer 10g (10.1.2.0.0) - The terminal release is 10.1.2.45.46c. You can upgrade to 10.1.2.48.18 by applying the 10.1.2.1 patchset which will bring you to the 10.1.2.0.2 code level. No ECS or ES dates have been announced for 10.1.2.0.0.

• Discoverer 10g (9.0.4) - There is no terminal release as of this time because 9.0.4 is still a supported product, although desupport (ECS) is scheduled for December 31, 2006. The recommended release is 9.0.4.45.07. Extended Support will continue until December 31, 2009.
  
  Note: The upgrade from 9.0.4 to 10.1.2 is a destructive upgrade. This is because, while 9.0.4 and 10.1.2 share a common EUL prefixing system, namely EUL5x, the End User Layers are different. Therefore, if you upgrade from 9.0.4 to 10.1.2 using the same schema be warned that you will not be able to use your 9.0.4 installation after the upgrade. You therefore may want to consider installing 10.1.2 into a separate schema, using Discoverer's export import mechanism to effect the EUL upgrade.

• Discoverer 9i (9.0.2) - desupported from July 1, 2005 with Extended Support being available until July 1, 2008. When installed from CD, the release was 9.0.2.39. The terminal release was 9.0.2.54.10. Patch 3079459, for Administrator and Desktop, which upgraded the software to 9.0.2.54.10, was released on August 1, 2003. Various one-off patches to support Administrator and Desktop bug fixes have been released since, with the last being on December 16, 2004.
  
  Patch 3079487 is the one which upgrades Plus and Viewer to 9.0.2.54.10. It was released on August 5, 2003. Oracle continued to release one-off Plus and Viewer patches until desupport with the last one, 4104258, being released on February 18, 2005.
  
  You are urged to upgrade to 10.1.2.0.2 as soon as you can.
  
  Note 1: The upgrade from any version of 9i to 10.1.2 is a destructive upgrade. This is because, while 9i and 10.1.2 share a common EUL prefixing system, namely EUL5x, the End User Layers are different. Therefore, if you upgrade from 9i to 10.1.2 using the same schema be warned that you will not be able to use your 9i installation after the upgrade. You therefore may want to consider installing 10.1.2 into a separate schema, using Discoverer's export import mechanism to effect the EUL upgrade.
  
  Note 2: So long as you are running at least 9.0.2.53, the upgrade from 9i to 9.0.4 is a non-destructive upgrade. This is because the two systems share a common EUL. Therefore, if you upgrade from 9i to 9.0.4 using the same schema you will still be able to use your 9i installation after the upgrade.
  
  Note 3: Discoverer 9i was never certified for use against E-Business Suite.
  
  
• Discoverer 4.x (with E-Business Suite) - will be desupported from October 31, 2006. According to Oracle "since Discoverer 10g (10.1.2.0.2) is fully certified, we HIGHLY recommend implementing or migrating to this release". Extended Support (ES) will continue until October 31, 2009. The terminal release for use with E-Business Suite was 4.1.48.08. When installed from CD, the release was 4.1.37. It is interesting to note that 4.1.48.08 was issued only as a one-off patch for Administrator and Desktop as 3451630 on February 18, 2004. This release can be applied on top of any 4.1 release from 4.1.37. However, if applied to any release prior to 4.1.46 it will upgrade the EUL. The 4.1.48.06 patch for Administration and Desktop, 3201601, was released on November 25, 2003 and did an EUL upgrade. Since these major releases, Oracle has continued releasing additional one-off patches, mainly for bug fixes, to support E-Business Suite, with the most recent being 5231872 on June 8, 2006.
  
  Patch 3201610, for 4i Plus and Viewer, was released on November 25, 2003 and upgraded the system to 4.1.48.06. The required E-Business Suite release is 4.1.48.08 which was released on February 18, 2004 and is patch number 3451636. Since then, Oracle has continued to release various one-off patches, with the last one being 3759425 which was released on February 15, 2006.
  
  
• Discoverer 4.x (stand-alone, not as part of E-Business Suite) - desupported from June 30, 2004 with Extended Support (ES) available until June 30, 2007. You should migrate to 10.1.2.0.2 as soon as you can. The final release for 4.x not running against E-Business Suite was 4.1.48.06. See above for patch numbers.
  
  Note: The upgrade from 4i to 10g is a non-destructive upgrade. This is because the two systems do not share a common EUL prefixing system. Discoverer 4i uses EUL4x while Discoverer 10g uses EUL5x. Therefore, if you upgrade from 4i to 10g using the same schema you will still be able to use your 4i installation after the upgrade. You may want to consider installing 10g into a separate schema, using Discoverer's export import mechanism to effect the EUL upgrade.
  
  
• Discoverer 3.x - completely desupported. The terminal release was 3.1.46 for Administrator and Desktop, and 3.3.62 for Plus and Viewer. When installed from CD, the release was 3.1.36. Patch 2229365, for Administrator and Desktop was released on January 15, 2002 and upgraded 3.1.36 to 3.1.46. Patch 2240408, for Plus and Viewer, upgraded Discoverer 3i to 3.3.62 and was released on February 25, 2002. A further patch, 2675005, released on 19th November, 2003, upgraded this to the final release of 3.3.62.08.
  
  You should migrate to 10.1.2.0.2 as soon as you can.
  
  Note: There is no direct migration path from 3.1 to 10.1.2. This migration must be done via either 4.1.48.06 or 4.1.48.08. However, because 4.1 will be desupported from October 31, 2006, you need to do this as soon as you can.

Notes: the definitions of ECS and ES can be found on MetaLink in note 187553.1

Have you applied any patches to Discoverer that are different to those listed above or have you applied any of the patches listed? Did they fix the problem or not? If you have any information, let me know and I will gladly post it here to help the community.