Oracle 11g Release 2 Database New Features

Oracle 11g Release 2 Database New Features
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(From Oracle Magazin)

The many new features of and enhancements to Oracle Database 11g Release2 include upgrades to application development, availability, business intelligence and data warehousing, clustering, performance, security, server manageability, and unstructured-data management. For a complete list and description of the new features, see the Oracle Database New Features Guide
11g Release 2, available with the Oracle
Database 11g Release 2 documentation
(see “nextSTEPS” at the end of this article for the link).

Application Development
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Application developers can benefit from new application development features of
Oracle Database 11g Release 2. Oracle Application Express includes several Enhancements:

■ Application date format
■ Custom themes
■ Declarative binary large object (BLOB) support
■ Documented JavaScript libraries
■ Report printing
■ Forms conversion
■ Security
■ Interactive reporting region
■ Runtime-only installation

Availability
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To support high availability, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 includes
enhanced backup-and-recovery features:
■ Automatic Block Repair
■ Backup to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) using Oracle Secure Backup
cloud computing
■ DUPLICATE without connection to target database
■ Tablespace point-in-time recovery
■ DUPLICATE options make online application maintenance and upgrades
easier:
■ Edition-Based Redefinition
■ CREATE or REPLACE TYPE to allow FORCE
■ Fine-grained dependencies for triggers
■ IGNORE_ROW_ON_DUPKEY_INDEX hint for INSERT statement Edition- Based Redefinition makes it possible to change an application’s database objects without interrupting the application’s availability, by making the changes in a new edition.


High availability in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is also enhanced by new
Oracle Data Guard features:
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■ Compressed table support in logical standby databases
■ Configurable real-time query apply lag limit
■ Integrated support for application failover in an Oracle Data Guard configuration
■ Support for as many as 30 standby databases


Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Oracle Database 11g Release 2 improves many business intelligence and data warehouse capabilities, including analytics:
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■ Analytic Functions 2.0
■ Recursive WITH clause Data loading has been made simpler:
■ EXECUTE privilege for DIRECTORY objects
■ Preprocessing data for ORACLE_LOADER access driver in external tables



Partitioning in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 has been improved in several
ways:
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■ Virtual columns in the primary key or foreign key for reference partitioning
■ System-managed indexes for list partitioning



Features that enhance Performance and scalability have been added to Oracle Database 11g Release 2:
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■ In-memory parallel execution
■ Minimal-effort parallel execution—auto degree of parallelism and queuing
■ DBMS_PARALLEL_EXECUTE package many improvements have been made
to Oracle Warehouse Builder:
■ Find support in mapping editor
■ Business intelligence tool integration
■ Copy and paste of operators and attributes in mapping editor
■ Current configuration list in Design Center tool bar
■ Support for flat-file imports
■ Table function support
■ Experts available in Editor menu
■ Expression editing in Operator Edit dialog box
■ Grouping and spotlighting of objects in mapping editor
■ Management of locations registered in multiple control centers
■ User interface for managing locations
■ Key lookup operator enhancements
■ Mapping debugger enhancements
■ New Oracle JDeveloper–style user interface
■ Operator references included in generated PL/SQL code
■ Quick mapper
■ Repository Browser changes
■ Simplified Oracle Warehouse Builder repository upgrades
■ Support for extracting data from tables containing LONG datatype and
Subqueries in JOIN operator

Clustering
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Oracle Real Application Clusters (OracleRAC) now provides many features for
simplifying installation and management of clusters and Oracle RAC databases:
■ Configuration Assistants, which support new Oracle RAC features
■ Cluster Verification Utility
■ Integration of Cluster Verification Utility and Oracle Universal Installer
■ Cluster Time Service
■ Oracle Cluster Registry enhancements
■ Grid Plug and Play
■ Oracle Restart
■ Policy-Based Cluster and Capacity Management
■ Oracle Clusterware resource modeling
■ Role-separated management
■ Agent development framework
■ Zero Downtime Patching for Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager–based Oracle Clusterware resource management
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager provisioning for Oracle Clusterware and Oracle
RAC
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager support for Grid Plug and Play and Oracle Restart
■ Oracle Universal Installer support for removing Oracle RAC installations
■ Improved deinstallation support with Oracle Universal Installer
■ Scripts that support DBControl database downgrades
■ Oracle Restart integration with Oracle Universal Installer
■ Support for out-of-place Oracle Clusterware upgrade
■ Server Control Utility enhancements
■ Oracle Universal Connection Pool integrations

These improvements include faster relocation of services on node failure,support for as many as five copies of Oracle Cluster Registry for improved availability of the cluster, and storage of Oracle Cluster Registry in Oracle Automatic Storage Management.


Performance
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Server performance capabilities are improved by new features in Oracle
Database 11g Release 2:

■ Stored outlines migration to SQL plan management
■ Client result cache using table annotations support
■ Support for 4K-sector disk drives


Security
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New auditing and encryption features of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 make
deployments more secure:
■ Audit Trail Cleanup
■ Tablespace master key

Audit Trail Cleanup provides for automatic file completion; the new encryption
key management functionality enables complete integration with hardware
security modules and increased performance for transparent data encryption.

Server Manageability
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Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is easier to use than its predecessors, because of features that enhance manageability:
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management FS Snapshot
■ Oracle Cluster Registry and voting disk on Oracle Automatic Storage
Management
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management intelligent data placement
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant
■ Oracle Automatic Storage Management file access control
■ ASMCMD command extensions
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager support for Oracle Automatic Storage Management
Cluster File System
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager integration for Oracle Automatic Storage
Management file access control

Oracle Automatic Storage Management now supports all types of data, including database files, Oracle Clusterware files, and file system data such as Oracle homes and binaries. Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System
extends Oracle Automatic Storage Management by providing a file system
for Oracle binaries, report files, trace files, alert logs, and other application
data files.
Database management features complement storage management features
for general ease of use:

■ Oracle RAC configuration for Oracle Enterprise Manager
■ Patch application with DBControl
■ Automatic patching of time stamp with time zone data
■ Local time zone datatype
■ Segment creation on demand
■ Zero-size unusable indexes and index partitions
■ Metadata SXML Comparison Tool
■ Replay compare period reports
■ SQL Tuning Set comparisons
■ Sampling for Oracle Active Data Guard
■ Oracle Exadata simulation
■ Global Oracle RAC active session history report plus Automatic Database
Diagnostic Monitor backward compatibility
■ Oracle multithreaded server and Oracle Streams support
■ Parallel query plus alt plan recording, export of SQL Tuning Set enhancements
■ Synchronization controls

Unstructured-Data Management
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Developers can achieve significant productivity gains with improvements to unstructured-data management capabilities:
■ Attribute extraction of requested attributes only
■ Client-side Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM)attribute
extraction
■ DICOM enhancements
■ Watermarking and image processing enhancements
■ Visualization framework
■ Network data model enhancements
■ GeoRaster Java API
■ Raster reprojections and ground control point-based georeferencing
■ Routing and geocoding enhancements
■ Database file system
■ LZO support for SecureFiles
■ Binary XML enhancements
■ Oracle XML DB repository performance improvements and guidelines
■ XMLIndex enhancements
■ XMLType partitioning

Other Database Capabilities
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Oracle Database 11g Release 2 supports other functionality as well, including
improvements to Oracle Scheduler:

■ E-mail notification
■ File watcher
■ Multiple-destination jobs
■ Remote database jobs Other enhancements improve database operations:
■ Flashback Data Archive support for data definition languages
■ Instance caging
■ Data Pump Legacy Mode utility
■ IPv6 support for JDBC thin clients,Java virtual machine, and Java Debugger
■ Oracle Enterprise Manager Support Workbench for Oracle Automatic Storage Management