Oracle PSU vs CPU

PSU and CPU is one of the biggest issue during audit. Auditors wants to see that you should apply the last patches.

But  the question is
Should you apply PSU or CPU ?
Actually If you apply last PSU , normally It consist of last CPU as well.

PSU and CPU 's are inclusive, A PSU consist of last PSU as well. Therefore If you apply last PSU , It means you apply all PSUs for this version.

To find PSU number ; you should check the last 5th digit. That works for   10g,11g and 12c . For these versions I strongly recommend  below metalink notes. These notes can answer all of your specific questions.

• Patch Set Updates for Oracle Products (Doc ID 854428.1)
• My Oracle Support Note 1618213.1
• Oracle Announces First Patch Set Update For Oracle Database Release 10.2 (Doc ID 850471.1)

And some practical information ;

If you want to check which PSUs or CPUs are applied to your database from command shell.

$ opatch lsinventory -bugs_fixed | egrep -i 'PSU|DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE'

14727310   14727310  Sun Mar 24 05:53:51 EET 2013   DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.5 (INCLUDES CPU

14275605   14275605  Sun Mar 24 05:52:28 EET 2013   DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.4 (INCLUDES CPU13923374   

13923374  Sun Mar 24 05:52:01 EET 2013   DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.3 (INCLUDES 13696216   

13696216  Sun Mar 24 05:51:07 EET 2013   DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.2 (INCLUDES 

13343438   13343438  Sun Mar 24 05:49:26 EET 2013   DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.1


For the same Database ; you can query PSU history by a sql statement.

  SELECT *

    FROM DBA_REGISTRY_HISTORY

    ORDER BY action_time DESC;