Just a word of advice... unless you plan to spend lots of time on your db (like you want to think about it more than twice a week sort of thing...), just go with what you have in terms of the distro. We are running 8.1.4. And it just works, yes, even after all this time! You are certainly behind a good firewall, so if you have X.X.X, and it works (ie, your developpers have certified for X.X.X), why think about having the latest? Upgrading to new versions may well expose problems (like I remember someone talking about query optimisations a while back) that are non issues. If you are going to be pushing the limits, then compiling your own versions is not going to be an issue... Just my 2c Cheers Anton ps. I know, when a new version comes out so often it is soooooooooo hard to resist!