Take the risk and migrate to 10gR2

Take a five minutes break and check the output of “select * from v$version” on your critical databases;

9.2 Oracle 9i Release 2 – May 2002
10.1 Oracle 10g Release 1 – January 2004
10.2 Oracle 10g Release 2 – July 2005
Today – April 2007 (and 11g is coming!)

Reference; https://tonguc.wordpress.com/2006/12/27/history-of-oracle/

Especially if you are a developer or dba of an OLAP Oracle database, please check these Oracle whitepapers dated July 2005;

– http://download-uk.oracle.com/oowsf2005/964wp.pdf (paper)
– http://download-uk.oracle.com/oowsf2005/964.pdf (presentation)
– http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/bi/db/10g/pdf/twp_general_sort_performance_10gr2_0605.pdf (paper just for sort)

The improvements in algoritms for both in-memory sort and hash based aggregation are special cases with 10gR2, any 10gR2 migration is of course something to be tested carefully but this time we have more promising arguments and motivation in doing so.

After all sorting and aggregation are what a data warehouse system lives for :)

Remember two more important motivations;

1- in any case if you need Oracle’s support they will somehow first request you to install the latest patch,
2- Also there are lots of great new features you may enjoy with Release 2 like “Flashback Database Restore Points” and “Error-Logging Clause”

Refences Used :
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/10gdba/index_r2.html
http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14214/toc.htm