EBR

at one of my customers, database maintenance is always done within offline windows: application is shutdown, new code installed, database recycled, application started up. This is one of the reasons why we do have only a few windows per year. For smaller fixes, we are looking at using EBR (edition-based redefinition). Heard not so much about it in the past, anyone using it out there? Any comments about it? Or are there better alternatives to minimize application downtime?  

Thanks for listening
Willy