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Oracle Database 12c Release 2: New

Features and Enhancements

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12.2.0.1 New Features

• Securing data
– Audit
— Auditing all users to whom roles are granted directly using the BY USERS WITH
GRANTED ROLES clause in the AUDIT POLICY command
— Capturing VPD-generated predicates in Unified Audit Trail in the RLS_INFO column
– Privileges
— SYSRAC administrative system privilege
— INHERIT (ANY) REMOTE PRIVILEGES privileges
— Locking inactive database accounts with INACTIVE_ACCOUNT_TIME user resource
profile limit
– Enforcing profile password limits on administrative users:
— FAILED_LOGIN_ATTEMPTS
— PASSWORD_LOCK_TIME
— PASSWORD_VERIFY_FUNCTION
— PASSWORD_GRACE_TIME
— PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME

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12.2.0.1 New Features

– Password file
— New format of the password file: 12.2 format including new information
— Determining the format of the password file with the new DESCRIBE clause in the orapwd
utility
— New authentication methods used, such as Oracle Internet Directory
— No ENTRIES parameter anymore because the 12.2 password file is auto-extensible
– Privilege Analysis
— Capturing privileges used by the Code Based Access Control (CBAC) and Secure
Application Roles (SAR) roles, and at PL/SQL compilation time
— Enabling a run of a capture over a period of time from a capture to its subsequent
disabling
— Comparing privilege usage through Privilege Analysis runs
— Detecting unused grants with Privilege Analysis by using the new DBA_UNUSED_GRANTS
view

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12.2.0.1 New Features

– Redaction
— Creating and reusing data redaction formats from the format library
— Creating policy expressions with DBMS_REDACT.CREATE_POLICY_EXPRESSION
— Applying policy expressions on different columns to define different situations of redaction
with DBMS_REDACT.APPLY_POLICY_EXPR_TO_COL
— Redacting CLOB and NCLOB data type supported
– Encryption
— Encrypting, decrypting, and re-keying existing user-defined datafiles ONLINE
— Encrypting, decrypting, and re-keying existing user-defined tablespaces ONLINE
— Converting SYSTEM and SYSAUX tablespaces as encrypted only offline
— Configuring automatic user-defined tablespace encryption by using the
ENCRYPT_NEW_TABLESPACES initialization parameter
– Transparent Sensitive Data Encryption (TSDP)
— Protecting sensitive data in table columns by using Unified Auditing, Fine-Grained
Auditing (FGA), or Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) settings in TSDP policies

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12.2.0.1 New Features

• Making data available

– RMAN
— RMAN extends the REPAIR command to accept DATAFILE, TABLESPACE, PLUGGABLE
DATABASE, and DATABASE options.
— Upgrading and dropping the recovery catalog in one command:
— UPGRADE CATALOG NOPROMPT
— DROP CATALOG NOPROMPT
— Recovering the database when a redo log is missing automatically by using the
RECOVER DATABASE UNTIL AVAILABLE REDO command
— Recovering a table across different schemas, presenting a better handle of table-related
indexes, triggers, constraints, and other objects if these object names already exist
under the current schema
— Upfront check on the available disk space for the auxiliary instance, before RMAN
executes a table recovery
— Duplicating encrypted tablespaces across platforms supported

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12.2.0.1 New Features

– Online redefinition enhancements

— Roll back option after FINISH_REDEF_TABLE/REDEF_TABLE
— Redo log overhead removed during table mass update
— Complete lock-free redefinition in FINISH_REDEF_TABLE
— Full restartability for online table redefinition
— Redefinition of tables with BFILE columns supported
— New option to refresh dependent materialized views (MVs)
— Invisible columns for online redefinition supported
— Migrate XML type tables between different storage formats
— Reduce metadata overhead in sync interim table during FINISH_REDEF_TABLE
— Enable incremental refresh of dependent MVs of an online table by setting the new
refresh_dep_mviews parameter in the START_REDEF_TABLE procedure
– Online DDL enhancements
— ALTER TABLE MOVE
— ALTER TABLE MODIFY

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12.2.0.1 New Features

— ALTER TABLE SPLIT / MERGE PARTITION

— New CREATE TABLE FOR EXCHANGE WITH TABLE DDL command
– Data Pump enhancements
— Enabling multiple workers to perform metadata and data export and import operations at
the same time by using the expdp PARALLEL parameter
— Enabling data from multiple partitions to be loaded in parallel by using the impdp
DATA_OPTIONS = TRUST_EXISTING_TABLE_PARTITIONS parameter
— Unloading data for all table partitions in one operation, instead of unloading each partition
separately by using the impdp DATA_OPTIONS = GROUP_PARTITION_TABLE_DATA
parameter
— Checking valid data for date and number columns in imported tables by using the impdp
DATA_OPTIONS = VALIDATE_TABLE_DATA parameter
— Allowing expdp to use the ‘%U’ substitution variable to more than two digits with the
‘%L’ substitution variable
— Allowing expdp to use new substitution variables for dates based on the job start time,
such as %D for DD, %M for MM, %T for YYYYMMDD, %Y for YYYY

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12.2.0.1 New Features

— Allowing impdp to use wildcard syntax for the leaf, file name portion of a data file
specification so that only each unique directory on the import platform needs to be
specified by using the REMAP_DIRECTORY parameter
— Allowing network import to load LONG columns by using the ACCESS_METHOD
parameter set to DIRECT_PATH or INSERT_AS_SELECT or AUTOMATIC that is now
compatible with the NETWORK_LINK parameter
— Allowing impdp to send compressed data over the network link by using DATA_OPTIONS
= ENABLE_NETWORK_COMPRESSION
– SQL*Loader enhancements
— Allowing SQL*Loader Express data file to contain multicharacter delimiters for:
— TERMINATED_BY
— ENCLOSED_BY
— OPTIONALLY_ENCLOSED_BY
— Allowing SQL*Loader to use the LLS clause in the control file to indicate that a field in the
data file is an LLS field

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12.2.0.1 New Features

— Allowing SQL*Loader to use the SDF_PREFIX parameter value appended to the front of
the name for all LOBFILEs and secondary data files (SDFs) to be loaded from different
directories on different systems without hard-coding the complete file specification in the
data file
– External table enhancements
— Overriding the DEFAULT DIRECTORY, ACCESS PARAMETERS (DISCARDFILE,
BADFILE, and LOGFILE), LOCATION, and REJECT LIMIT clauses when querying an
external table
— Partitioning external tables using single level RANGE, LIST, INTERVAL, multi-column
LIST partitioning, and all combinations of RANGE, LIST, and INTERVAL as composite
partitioning
— Defining subpartitioning on external tables

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12.2.0.1 New Features

• Partitioning data
– Auto-list partitioning
– Multicolumn list partitioning
– Disallowing DML operations on read-only partitions
– Enabling deferred segment creation for subpartitions of composite interval and
auto-list partitioned tables
– Filtering data during partition maintenance operations using the INCLUDING ROWS
WHERE clause of ALTER TABLE MOVE PARTITION or ALTER TABLE MERGE
PARTITIONS or ALTER TABLE SPLIT PARTITION
• Managing information lifecycle
– Heat map and ADO policies can be configured in CDB.

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12.2.0.1 New Features

• Monitoring DB operations and managing performance

– In-Memory Database
— Dynamically increase the In-Memory Column Store after instance startup
— Using the Oracle Database In-Memory Advisor through the DBMS_INMEMORY_ADVISOR
package
— Configuring IM FastStart to accelerate IM segment population at startup through the
DBMS_INMEMORY_ADMIN.ENABLE_FASTSTART procedure
— Optimizing join queries by creating join groups with the CREATE INMEMORY JOIN
GROUP command
— Storing expressions and virtual column values in the IM column store by:
— Detecting the candidates by using the
DBMS_INMEMORY_ADMIN.IME_CAPTURE_EXPRESSIONS procedure
— Using the expressions through the INMEMORY_EXPRESSIONS_USAGE initialization parameter
— Using the virtual columns through the INMEMORY_VIRTUAL_COLUMNS initialization parameter
— Use heat map statistics and ADO policy to add or evict objects from the IM column store
by using the ALTER TABLE ILM ADD POLICY (NO) INMEMORY SEGMENT command

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12.2.0.1 New Features

– SQL Tuning enhancements

— SQL Plan Management (SPM) enhancements
— Searching other repositories for good plans with new
DBMS_SPM.SET_EVOLVE_TASK_PARAMETER like ALTERNATE_PLAN_SOURCE,
ALTERNATE_PLAN_BASELINE, ALTERNATE_PLAN_LIMIT
— Loading plan baselines from AWR with the DBMS_SPM.LOAD_PLANS_FROM_AWR
function
— Minimizing DBA intervention to get the right statistics with the 12.2 Optimizer Statistics
Advisor using rules consistent with the current release, recommending changes to the
way statistics are being gathered
— Using SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) new task parameters in
dbms_sqlpa.set_analysis_task_parameter
— EXECUTE_TRIGGERS
— REPLACE_SYSDATE_WITH
— NUM_ROWS_TO_FETCH
— Using the new plsql_mode parameter to determine how PL/SQL is handled by DB
Replay during capture, preprocessing, and replays
— Using new SQL JOIN processing
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12.2.0.1 New Features

– Miscellaneous performance enhancements

— Starting and stopping DB operation in a session with
DBMS_SQL_MONITOR.BEGIN_OPERATION(… session_id ,session_serial …)
— Avoiding excessive PGA memory usage by setting the SESSION_PGA_LIMIT argument
in the DBMS_RESOURCE_MANAGER.CREATE_PLAN_DIRECTIVE procedure
— Controlling IM Column Store repopulation resource consumption by changing the
consumer group for IM column store population operations (value ‘INMEMORY’) to map it
to another group by using the
DBMS_RESOURCE_MANAGER.SET_CONSUMER_GROUP_MAPPING procedure
— Creating Advanced Index Compression (HIGH level) indexes by using the COMPRESS
ADVANCED HIGH clause in the CREATE INDEX command
— Reducing cursor invalidations for DDLs by setting the CURSOR_INVALIDATION
initialization parameter to DEFERRED
— Creating Real-Time materialized views with On Query Computation by using the ENABLE
ON QUERY COMPUTATION clause in the CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW command
— Creating On-Statement refresh materialized views by using the ON STATEMENT clause
in the CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW command
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