New Features

Finer Granularity Supplemental Logging

Fine-grained supplemental logging provides a way for partial database replication users to disable supplemental logging for uninteresting tables even when supplemental logging is enabled at the database or schema level.

Use this feature in cases where where only some of the tables in the database require supplemental logging and thereby significantly reduce overhead of resource usage and redo generation.

To use this feature configure the new supplemental_subset_replication_clause added to the supplemental_db_logging clause of the ALTER DATABASE and ALTER PLUGGABLE DATABASE statements.

Signature-based security for LOB locators

Starting with this release, you can configure signature-based security for large object (LOB) locators. LOB signature keys can be in both multitenant PDBs or in standalone, non-multitenant databases.

You can enable the encryption of the LOB signature key credentials by executing the ALTER DATABASE DICTIONARY ENCRYPT CREDENTIALS SQL statement. Otherwise, the credentials are stored in obfuscated format. If you choose to store the LOB signature key in encrypted format, then the database or PDB must have an open TDE keystore.

Cloud Object Store Support Using REST APIs

Oracle Data Pump can import data from files located in a supported object store.

You can specify database credentials on the command line and store default credentials in the database using the new property_clause of the ALTER DATABASE statement.

Multiple Table Family Support for System-Managed Sharding

This feature applies to system-managed sharded databases only. You can host different applications accessing different table families on one sharded database with the CREATE SHARDED TABLE statement.

Generation of Unique Sequence Numbers Across Shards

You can generate globally unique sequence numbers across shards for non-primary key columns with unique constraints without having to manage them yourself. The sharded database manages these sequence numbers for you.

Use the SHARD clause of the CREATE SEQUENCE statement or the ALTER SEQUENCE statement to generate unique sequence numbers across shards.

Big Data and Performance Enhancements for In-Memory External Tables

The inmemory_clause of the CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE statement supports supports specification of the ORACLE_HIVE and ORACLE_BIGDATA driver types.

You can specify INMEMORY in the inmemory_clause clause on non-partitioned tables to support these driver types.

Bitmap Based Count Dictinct SQL Functions

You can use five new bitvector functions for speeding up COUNT DISTINCT operations within a SQL query:

• BITMAP_BUCKET_NUMBER
• BITMAP_BIT_POSITION
• BITMAP_CONSTRUCT_AGG
• BITMAP_OR_AGG
• BITMAP_COUNT

Memoptimized Rowstore - Fast Ingest

Use the memoptimize_write_clause of CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLEto enable fast ingest. Fast ingest optimizes the memory processing of high frequency single row data inserts from Internet of Things (IoT) applications by using a large buffering pool to store the inserts before writing them to disk.

JSON-Object Mapping

This feature enables the mapping of JSON data to and from user-defined SQL object types and collections.

You can convert JSON data to an instance of a SQL object type using SQL/JSON function json_value. In the opposite direction, you can generate JSON data from an instance of a SQL object type using SQL/JSON function json_object or json_array.

JSON_MERGEPATCH Function

You can now update a JSON document declaratively, using new SQL function json_mergepatch. You can apply one or more changes to multiple documents using a single statement.

This feature improves the flexibility of JSON update operations.

JSON Syntax Simplifications

Syntax simplifications are offered for SQL/JSON path expressions and SQL/JSON generation with function json_object. A new SQL query clause, NESTED, provides a simple alternative to using json_table with LEFT OUTER JOIN.

JSON_SERIALIZE and JSON Data Guide Support for GeoJSON Data

You can use new SQL function json_serialize to serialize JSON data to text or to UTF-encoded BLOB data.

SQL aggregate function json_dataguide can now detect GeoJSON geographic data in your documents. You can use it to create a view that projects such data as SQL data type SDO_GEOMETRY.

Hybrid Partitioned Tables

You can create hybrid partitioned tables where some partitions reside in Oracle database segments and some partitions reside in external files and sources. Internal and external partitions can be integrated into a single partitioned table as needed.

Specify INTERNAL or EXTERNAL in the table_partition_description clause of CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE.

Parity Protected Files

You can configure single parity for write-once files, such as archive logs and backup sets that do not require a high level of redundancy and save space.

Specify PARITY in the redundancy_clause of the ALTER DISKGROUP statement.

DISTINCT Option for LISTAGG Aggregate

The LISTAGG aggregate function now supports duplicate elimination by using the new DISTINCT keyword.

Unified Auditing Top Level Statements

Specify the ONLY TOPLEVEL clause in the CREATE AUDIT POLICY statement (Unified Auditing) when you want to audit the SQL statements issued directly by a user.

Transparent Online Conversion Support for Auto-Renaming in Non-OMF Mode

If FILE_NAME_CONVERT is omitted in the ALTER TABLESPACE ENCRYPTION statement, Oracle will internally select a name for the auxiliary file, and later rename it back to the original name.

ALTER SYSTEM clause FLUSH PASSWORDFILE_METADATA_CACHE

The command ALTER SYSTEM FLUSH PASSWORDFILE_METADATA_CACHE flushes the password file metadata cache stored in the SGA and informs the database that a change has occurred.