Changes in this Release for Oracle Database

Changes in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Oracle Database 12c.

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2)
New features, deprecated features, and desupported features in this release.
Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1)
New features, deprecated features, and desupported features in this release.

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2)

New features, deprecated features, and desupported features in this release.

The following are changes in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2):

New Features
New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2).
Deprecated Features
The following feature is deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:
Desupported Features

New Features

New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2).

Simplified Image based Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software is available as an image file for download and installation. You must extract the image software into the directory where you want your Grid home to be located, and then run the gridSetup.sh script to start the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

For more information, see About Image-Based Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation
Parallel NFS Support in Direct NFS Client

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Direct NFS Client supports parallel NFS. Parallel NFS is an NFSv4.1 option that allows direct client access to file servers, enabling scalable distributed storage.

For more information, see About Direct NFS Client Mounts to NFS Storage Devices
Direct NFS Dispatcher Support

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Direct NFS Client supports adding a dispatcher or I/O slave infrastructure. For very large database deployments running Direct NFS client, this feature facilitates scaling of sockets and TCP connections to multi-path and clustered NFS storage.

For more information, see About Direct NFS Client Mounts to NFS Storage Devices
Kerberos Authentication for Direct NFS

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Database supports Kerberos implementation with Direct NFS communication. This feature solves the problem of authentication, message integrity, and optional encryption over unsecured networks for data exchanged between Oracle Database and NFS servers using Direct NFS protocols.

For more information, see Creating an oranfstab File for Direct NFS Client
Separation of Duty for Administering Oracle Real Application Clusters

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Database provides support for separation of duty best practices when administering Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) by introducing the SYSRAC administrative privilege for the clusterware agent. This feature removes the need to use the powerful SYSDBA administrative privilege for Oracle RAC.

SYSRAC, like SYSDG, SYSBACKUP, and SYSKM, helps enforce separation of duties and reduce reliance on the use of SYSDBA on production systems. This administrative privilege is the default mode for connecting to the database by the clusterware agent on behalf of the Oracle RAC utilities such as srvctl.

For more information, see Extended Oracle Database Groups for Job Role Separation
AL32UTF8 As the Default Database Character Set

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), the default database character set of a database created from the General Purpose/Transaction Processing or the Data Warehousing template is Unicode AL32UTF8. Oracle recommends that you use Unicode AL32UTF8 as the database character set.

For more information, see About Character Set Selection During Installation
Single-instance Configurations and Operations supported by Rapid Home Provisioning

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Rapid Home Provisioning adds support for installing and configuring single-instance Oracle Databases. These may be on nodes with or without Oracle Grid Infrastructure installed. Rapid Home Provisioning does not support single-instance databases for Oracle Restart configurations.

Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Rapid Home Provisioning also supports Oracle Database upgrades.

For more information, see About Deploying Oracle Database Using Rapid Home Provisioning
Preserve Home Path during Updates with Rapid Home Provisioning

Rapid Home Provisioning leverages a new filesystem capability which allows for separation of gold image software from the site-specific configuration changes, so the home path remains unchanged throughout updates. This capability is available starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2) and Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), and combines the benefits of in-place and out-of-place patching.

This feature does not apply to Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server or Oracle Restart configurations.
Postinstallation Configuration of Oracle Software using the -executeConfigTools option

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), you can perform postinstallation configuration of Oracle products by running the Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer with the -executeConfigTools option. You can use the same response file created during installation to complete postinstallation configuration.

For more information, see Installing and Configuring Oracle Database Using Response Files

New Features for Oracle Automatic Storage Management 12c Release 2 (12.2)

Automatic Configuration of Oracle ASM Filter Driver

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), you can enable and automate the configuration of Oracle ASM Filter Driver (Oracle ASMFD) with a check box during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

For more information, see About Oracle ASM with Oracle ASM Filter Driver
Oracle ACFS Snapshot-Based Replication

The Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) snapshot-based replication feature uses Oracle ACFS snapshot technology to transfer the differences between successive snapshots to the standby file system using standard ssh transport protocol. Oracle ACFS Snapshot-based replication is more efficient with higher performance, lower overhead, and ease of management.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Compression

Oracle ACFS provides file system compression functionality, reducing storage requirement, and resulting in lower costs. Oracle ACFS compression is managed using the new acfsutil compress commands and updates to the acfsutil info command.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Defragger

Databases that share storage with snapshots or with the base of the file system can become fragmented under active online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. This fragmentation can cause the location of the data in the volume to be discontiguous for sequential scans. Oracle ACFS automatically defragments these files in the background.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Support for 4K Sectors

Oracle ACFS supports I/O requests in multiples of 4K logical sector sizes as well as continued support for 512-byte logical sector size I/O requests. The i4096 option is provided with the acfsformat command on Microsoft Windows and the mkfs command in Linux and Oracle Solaris environments.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Automatic Resize

Oracle ACFS provides an automatic resize option with the acfsutil size command. This command enables you to specify an increment by which an Oracle ACFS file system grows automatically if the amount of available free space in the file system falls below a specified amount. There is also an option to specify the maxiOracle ACFS plugins support file content data collection. Both polling and interval based capture are supported with the file content collection.mum size allowed when using the automatic resize option. The output of the acfsutil info fs command displays the automatic resize increment and maximum amounts.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Metadata Acceleration

Oracle ACFS supports accelerator metadata storage. This support enables many critical Oracle ACFS metadata structures, including extent metadata, storage bitmaps, volume logs, and some snapshot metadata to be placed on accelerator storage.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Plugins for File Content Data Collection

Oracle ACFS plugins support file content data collection. Both, polling and interval based capture are supported with the file content collection.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Sparse Files

Oracle ACFS provides support for sparse files. Oracle ACFS sparse files greatly benefit NFS client write operations, which are commonly received out of order by the NFS server and the associated Oracle ACFS file system.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Oracle ACFS Scrubbing Functionality

Oracle ACFS provides scrubbing functionality with the acfsutil scrub command to check for and report any inconsistencies in the metadata or file data.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
High Availability Common Internet File System

Release 12.2 enhances Oracle ACFS Common Internet File System (CIFS) features to provide high availability for exported file systems with the Oracle ACFS NAS Maximum Availability eXtensions (NAS MAX) technology. High Availability Common Internet File System (HACIFS) and High Availability Network File System (HANFS), both provide comprehensive Network Attach Storage solutions for Oracle ACFS.

For more information, see Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

Deprecated Features

The following feature is deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:

Deprecation of the configToolAllCommands script

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), the configToolAllCommands script is deprecated and is subject to desupport in a future release. The configToolAllCommands script runs in response file mode to configure Oracle products after installation and uses a separate password response file.

To perform postinstallation configuration of Oracle products, you can now run the Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer with the -executeConfigTools option. You can use the same response file created during installation to complete postinstallation configuration.

For a complete list of deprecated features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Desupported Features

For a complete list of desupported features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Changes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1)

New features, deprecated features, and desupported features in this release.

The following are changes in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1):

New Features
New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1).
Deprecated Features
The following features are deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:
Desupported Features
The following features are no longer supported by Oracle:

New Features

New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1).

Root Scripts Automation

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Universal Installer provides options to automatically run root configuration scripts required during a grid infrastructure installation. You also have the option to manually run the root configuration scripts.
Oracle Flex ASM

Oracle Flex ASM enables an Oracle ASM instance to run on a separate physical server from the database servers. Many Oracle ASM instances can be clustered to support a large number of database clients.

Oracle Database instances can be set up as clients to Oracle Flex ASM where metadata is provided to the database instance by an Oracle Flex ASM instance that may be on a different node than the database instance.

Note that Oracle Flex ASM can apply to a collection of databases, each one a single instance but running in a Flex ASM Cluster.

For more information about Oracle Flex ASM, see:

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide
Deinstallation Tool Integrated with Installation Media

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, the deinstallation tool is integrated with the database installation media and is no longer provided on a separate installation media.

For more information, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide
Simplified Oracle Label Security Installation

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Label Security is installed by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. You can no longer select Oracle Label Security as a custom component during an Enterprise Edition database installation.

For more information, see:

Oracle Label Security Administrator's Guide
Simplified Oracle Database Vault Installation

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database Vault is installed by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. However, you can configure, enable, or disable Oracle Database Vault after the Oracle Database installation, either using Oracle DBCA, or by running SQL statements. For more information, see:
- Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide, "Disabling and Enabling Oracle Database Vault."
- Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide, "Registering Oracle Database Vault with an Oracle Database"
Unified Database Audit Configuration

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, you can create named audit policies. An audit policy contains a set of audit options, which is stored in the database as an object. The advantage of creating a named audit policy is that it reduces the number of commands that are required to create a database audit policy, and it simplifies the implementation of an audit configuration for security and compliance with conditional auditing.

This new audit policy framework is included with the database installation.

For more information, see:

Oracle Database Security Guide
Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c

Oracle Database 12c introduces Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c, a web-based management tool built into Oracle Database without any need for special installation or management. Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express, you can perform basic administrative tasks such as user, performance, memory, and space management. You can also view performance and status information about your database.

For more information, see:
Oracle Database 2 Day DBA

Note:

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is no longer available. For more information, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide
Multiprocess and Multithreaded Oracle Database

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database may use operating system threads to allow resource sharing and reduce resource consumption. For more information, see:

Oracle Database Concepts
Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties

Oracle Database 12c provides support for separation of database administration duties for Oracle Database by introducing task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges that do not require the SYSDBA administrative privilege. These new privileges are: SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, and SYSKM for encryption key management. For more information, see:

Oracle Database Security Guide
Oracle DBCA Support for CDBs and PDBs

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (Oracle DBCA) allows you to create a a multitenant container database (CDB) or a non-CDB. You can create the CDB with zero, one, or more user-created pluggable databases (PDBs).

You can also create a CDB with one PDB during the database installation.

For more information, see:
Support for NFS Version in Direct NFS Client

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, you can specify the NFS protocol version to be used by Direct NFS Client.

Deprecated Features

The following features are deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:

Change for Standalone Deinstallation Tool

The deinstallation tool is now integrated with the database installation media.
Deprecation of -cleanupOBase

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), the -cleanupOBase flag of the deinstallation tool is deprecated. There is no replacement for this flag.

For a complete list of deprecated features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Desupported Features

The following features are no longer supported by Oracle:

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control
CLEANUP_ORACLE_BASE Property Removed

For a complete list of desupported features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide