Is it worth upgrading from Oracle JVM 1.6.0_07 to a newer release?

I work on a Java application which is run within Tomcat 6 on top of the Oracle JVM (build 1.6.0_07-开发者_JS百科b06). This JVM is now 2+ years old and I think upgrading to a newer version (e.g. build 1.6.0_25-b06) would be a good idea.

Will upgrading the JVM make much impact on performance or stability of my application? Are there any good benchmarks of the likely performance difference between JVM builds? Are there any good writeups of the new features which have been introduced along with their significance? This page shows all the updates and described the new features but doesn't make it clear which features I should care about.

There have been many security fixes in this time frame. So if this is a publicly facing server (or even an accessible intranet server with a large-ish audience), then that alone is enough reason to upgrade to the newest release.

Having said that: major performance improvements in Update releases are rare with the Oracle JVM. While there are always some minor improvements, major changes usually end up in major releases.

Java 6 Update 10 was somewhat of an exception, in that it included some semi-major changes.

My suggestion: update. And work on a more aggressive upgrading-schedule.

Definitely. It is likely to improve performance and fix security issues and other bugs.

It is always possible that it could have a negative impact, so just make sure that you keep your current Java installation around so that you can revert it there are problems.

... but doesn't make it clear which features I should care about

Yea well, its not really Oracle's responsibility to tell you what to care about :-)

Seriously, the issues that are relevant to you will depend on your application. The release notes assume that you are a professional and are able to make your own informed judgements on these things. (And that includes trying things out on your test platform and measuring any performance changes.)