One of the things that I have been talking about this year at various user groups and in peer discussions are bad practices that we, as database administrators, developers or managers of Oracle teams can find ourselves engaged in. If you are a member of the UKOUG you can get a copy of the presentation here

One of the things on my list is an absence of an up to date and accurate configuration management database - something that Doug referred to as a database catalog back in January. That copy of the presentation talks about the need to know things like versions, passwords, system owners etc from a day to day management and maintenance perspective. I hadn't explicitly mentioned patching since this is a straight DBA type presentation.