Oracle is one of the leading database service providers of the world. It provides lots of suitable functions and facilities for the enterprise level and the advanced mechanism ensures security, better performance, lower costs etc. Oracle released their latest database solution – Oracle 18c. It brings up a lot of benefits and useful features for the industry.
First of all, the name sounds a bit odd, right? The previous Oracle release was Oracle Database 12c Release 2. In the new release, Oracle simply changed the name so that it reflects the year of its release. A new caveat – Oracle 18c is the first product of Oracle series that follows the yearly pattern. From now on, Oracle will release their new products every year, followed by quarterly updates.
Why this strategy? This yearly release model will simplify the patching process and diagnose the patch issues more easily. Moreover, those small changes are less likely to create any problem, compared to the issues that come with major releases.
Features of Oracle 18c
Oracle 18c is the next release of Oracle 12c Release 2. It consists all the major features from the previous release. In addition, it has integrated many incremental enhancements that target to improve upon the release. The release itself concentrated on 3 key areas.
Features of Oracle 12c Release 2
- Multitenant – Oracle’s strategic container architecture that allows a pluggable database (PDB) to be connected and disconnected from the main database and move them to other containers. Thus, it’s easier to backup, manage and patch numerous databases as one.
- Database In-Memory – This method allows blazingly fast analytics against their operational databases instead of being forced to use new hardware or compromise with their data processing method.
- Database Sharding – It’s a process in which a large database is partitioned into smaller, easily manageable and faster parts, called “data shards”. This allows better runtime performance and easier, simpler lifecycle management.
Oracle 12c Release 2 also included tons of other improvements like syntax improvements, Index Usage Statistics, improved JSON support, real-time materialized views etc. With the new release of Oracle 18c, there are no major/big changes in the infrastructure and others. However, the incremental improvements will make things even better. The newer release focuses on the 6 key areas.
New features of Oracle 18c
- Performance – Memory optimization fetches (faster lookups), Oracle In-Memory (multi-thread, parallel scan)
- High Availability – Sharded RAC, user-defined sharding, zero-impact GI patching
- Multitenant – Clone from Standby (from ADG standby), refreshable PDB switchover, snapshot carousel (periodic snapshot clones).
- Security – Active Directory integration, per PDB key support, schema-only accounts
- Data Warehousing – Improved machine learning, On-Line Partition merge, polymorphic table functions
- Development – Updated tools (SQLDeveloper, APEX, SQLCI), private temporary tables, improved JSON support
In addition to these improvements, the system also introduces a new Connection Manager mode. Connection Manager (CMAN) can funnel tons of data into one single Oracle database.
Oracle holds all the new features released within Oracle 18c. You can check out the in-depth information here. If you’re not an Oracle user, learn why Oracle is the best database management solution in the world.
