Oracle Advisory by Opkey: Navigate Updates with Confidence

Oracle operates a quarterly release cycle for its cloud applications. These releases deliver new features, enhancements, and bug fixes over a three-month period. Updates are deployed in cohorts, with every Oracle Cloud customer assigned a specific schedule (e.g., Feb-May-Aug-Nov; Mar-Jun-Sep-Dec; Apr-Jul-Oct-Jan). All customers must adopt the latest release each quarter, and updates to production environments follow non-production testing.

An Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) is a collection of patches for multiple security vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products. It often includes fixes for vulnerabilities in both Oracle code and third-party components. CPUs are cumulative for most products, carrying forward previous fixes along with new ones.

You can check your Oracle product support status by logging into My Oracle Support account. Under your support identifiers and licensed products, you can view whether your Oracle product is within Premier or Extended Support and review the release roadmap for continued coverage.

You can subscribe to Oracle security advisories by signing into your Oracle account, then visiting your profile and managing subscriptions. Simply enable the checkbox for Oracle Security Alerts and save. You can also sign up directly via Oracle’s Security Alerts Subscription page to receive email notifications on Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts.
For curated, easy-to-digest updates on Oracle Cloud releases, subscribe to Opkey’s Oracle Advisory at opkey.com/advisories/oracle. Just fill out the quick form, and you’ll receive quarterly insights, impact analysis, and testing recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox to help you stay ahead of every update.  

Oracle Security Alerts notify customers immediately of highly critical vulnerabilities that require urgent attention. Unlike scheduled CPUs, Security Alerts are issued only when a unique or particularly dangerous threat is discovered, ensuring customers can act proactively to secure their environments.

Oracle Cloud apps provide readiness documentation and test environments for each quarterly release. You should review new features, test all customizations in your non-production environment, and perform impact analysis to identify any conflicts or deprecated elements. Automated platforms like Opkey help scan affected customizations and accelerate testing.

Oracle’s quarterly updates deliver new features and enhancements that can affect customizations, such as personalized reports and user interface changes. While most customizations are designed to be preserved during these updates, it’s essential to test them thoroughly in a non-production environment to ensure compatibility and avoid disruptions. Automated testing with Opkey streamlines this process by rapidly identifying and verifying affected business processes, significantly reducing testing time and ensuring customizations continue to function correctly after each update. Opkey’s managed testing services help certify your Oracle environment in just a few days, minimizing risk and keeping your operations running smoothly.