updates on production machines

[Matt Johnson]

Hi,

I've been following the forums for a little while and there seem to be quite a 
few 'show-stoppers' that arise when folks update their machines (remaining in 
the same release). I think I've been blasé about applying updates nightly. 
Reading the issues raised, I'm (perhaps appropriately) anxious about applying 
any updates on production machines I've got here. I've probably got the wrong 
end of the stick.

Are these issues pretty rare? How do people protect against issues caused by 
updating packages?

* Full back up / restore (in which case I'd modify my behaviour to only apply 
updates when I could protect the time required to perform a full restore)

* Some sort of dry run or easy way to roll back?

Thoughts appreciated.

 -- 
Matt