Oracle8i™ New Features Summary

Features Overview
February 1999

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Oracle8i, the database for Internet computing, changes the way information is managed and
accessed to meet the demands of the Internet age, while providing significant new features for
traditional OLTP and data warehouse applications. With solutions developed and deployed with
Oracle8i, any organization is able to exploit the unlimited opportunities the Internet provides.
Oracle8i not only provides the advanced tools to manage all types of data that is found in today’s
most popular web sites, but it also to provides the performance and scalability needed to support
these large sites and other mission-critical applications.

In today’s fast-paced business climate, application developers have been pushed to produce
advanced applications not only quickly, but also with inherent flexibility to meet ever-changing
needs. Oracle8i introduces additional support for Java™ – today’s most popular and productive
programming language by including a robust, integrated, and scalable Java VM within the server.
This expands Oracle’s support for Java into all tiers of applications, allowing Java programs to be
deployed where they perform best, either in the client, server, or middle tier without recompiling
or modifying the Java code. Oracle8i also includes Oracle® WebDB, a browser-based application
development, deployment, and management toolset that makes web-enabling a business easy and
inexpensive.

Oracle8i is much more than just a simple relational data store. Oracle, having invented the
relational database, continues to lead and revolutionize the database industry by introducing iFS
(Internet File System) and interMedia with Oracle8i. iFS, the Internet file system, provides the
easy-to-use functionality of a file system combined with the advantages of all data, such as text
and web pages, in a single server – data integration with the cost savings of a single server.
Oracle8i also introduces interMedia, which allows businesses to manage and access multi-media
data, including image, text, audio/video, and spatial data.

Not only does Oracle8i introduce significant breakthrough technology, such as a Java VM and
iFS, it also has significant new features and functionality for traditional OLTP and data
warehouse applications. Oracle8i provides the scalability, availability, and performance needed
by mission-critical applications. For data warehouses, Oracle8i now provides sophisticated
summary management features to store aggregates that are commonly queried, reducing query
processing significantly. For OLTP applications, Oracle8i introduces many features that improve
the availability of the database during routine operations, such as index rebuilds, and in disaster
situations, by providing automated standby database support.

The deployment of applications is just as critical as the functionality of the application, with
performance and manageability the key to the success of the implementation. Oracle8i provides
many alternatives to the client/server implementation architecture. Oracle is reducing the
complexity of application management by providing an architecture that allows for thin-clients
that are easy to support and maintain, and by consolidating data and logic in a single or replicated
server environment.

Data can be replicated to servers that are closer to users and have only the data those users need,
providing better performance.

Finally, Oracle8i includes Oracle® Enterprise Manager, which is the comprehensive management
framework for managing the Oracle database and application environment. Oracle Enterprise
Manager includes an easy-to-use centralized console, a rich set of management tools, and the
extensibility to detect and solve any problems that may arise. It also includes several
administrative applications for performing day-to-day tasks for databases and applications, such
as scheduling backup routines.

Based on the world’s leading database technology, Oracle8i is designed for efficient application
development, superior content management, and successful application deployment on the
Internet.

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A FAMILY OF DATABASE PRODUCTS

In today’s ever-changing computing environment, new groups of users demand access to

information rapidly and efficiently. Applications that are developed to meet these needs have
their own requirements for availability, performance, and functionality. Oracle offers three
products in the Oracle8i product line:

• Oracle8i delivers unprecedented ease-of-use, power, and price/performance for workgroup or

department-level applications. Oracle8i includes a fully integrated set of easy-to-use
management tools, full distribution, replication, and web features. From single-server
environments for small businesses to highly distributed, branch environments, Oracle8i includes
all the facilities necessary to build business-critical applications.

• Oracle8i Enterprise Edition provides efficient, reliable, secure data management for high-end
applications such as high volume on-line transaction processing (OLTP) and query-intensive
data warehouse applications. Oracle8i Enterprise Edition provides the tools and functionality
to meet the demanding availability and scalability requirements required by today’s mission-
critical applications.

• Personal Oracle8i supports single user development and deployment that require full
compatibility with Oracle8i and Oracle8i Enterprise Edition. By bringing the award-winning
functionality of Oracle8i to the personal computer, Oracle offers a database that combines the
power of the world’s most popular database with the ease of use and simplicity you’d expect
in a desktop product.

These Oracle8i products are all built using the same robust and reliable database engine
architecture. Oracle8i and Personal Oracle8i are both 100 percent compatible with Oracle8i
Enterprise Edition on more than 90 different platforms, so your database applications can scale
from the laptop to the desktop to the enterprise without re-engineering.

This document describes all features and functionality found in all three Oracle8i products. For
details on each product, please consult the collateral specific to that product.

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APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

JAVA IN ORACLE8I

Java has quickly become today’s most popular programming language because it appeals to
everyone, from developers who find the language robust and object-oriented, to CIOs and
managers who see Java as reducing costs and simplifying application development and support.
Oracle8i extends Oracle’s Java strategy by integrating a scalable Java Virtual Machine (Java VM)
with the database server. Oracle8i also supports SQLJ, a syntax for embedding SQL in Java
code. Java in the database allows developers to create high performing, scalable applications
based on open, industry standards.

The Java VM in the Oracle database enables developers to write, store, and execute Java code
within the database. This means developers can create stored procedures, functions, or triggers in
Java. A Java VM within the database server also dramatically reduces the skill set required for
database programming. As opposed to C, Oracle Call Interface, PL/SQL™, and other languages,
developers can now create applications using only Java.

SQLJ provides a powerful and easy to use interface between relational databases and Java. It is
an open standard being developed by Oracle, IBM, and Sun. Using SQLJ, SQL can easily be
embedded in client or server Java code for communication with a relational database. Client-side
Java code with SQLJ statements are run through a Java pre-compiler to create executable Java
programs based on JDBC. Server-side Java code directly accesses the database, via native
interfaces.

Oracle8i also provides support for Enterprise JavaBeans™ and communication via the CORBA
communication standard, IIOP. Distributed Java objects can connect directly to Java objects in
an Oracle Data Server via native CORBA protocols.

JDeveloper™ is Oracle’s next generation component-based Java development environment.

JDeveloper allows developers to build complete Oracle and 100 percent Java business solutions.
JDeveloper supports any kind of development from a simple JavaBeans component to an
enterprise-wide application development environment.

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Oracle8i also integrates closely with Oracle Application Server, which provides an open,
standards-based architecture for developing and deploying real-world business and commerce
applications. Its scalable, distributed architecture and superior database integration are the
foundation for supporting business-critical, transaction-based applications.

ORACLE® WEBDB FOR DEVELOPING WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS

Oracle WebDB is the solution for building, deploying, and proactively monitoring web database
applications, and content-driven Web sites. By combining an intuitive, HTML interface with a
complete set of robust, browser-based HTML tools, Oracle WebDB enables users to easily and
quickly develop Web database applications. Oracle WebDB is the fastest and easiest way to web-
enable Oracle databases.

Oracle WebDB comes with all the tools necessary to build dynamic Web applications and
content-driven Web sites. Applications and Web sites developed using Oracle WebDB are
completely contained within the Oracle database. The only client software needed to develop and
deploy Oracle WebDB applications is a Web browser. There is no need to install software on
every machine being used, no need to use FTP to remotely manage files, and no need to have a
complex deployment plan every time a developer fixes a bug and needs to upgrade the system.
Oracle WebDB truly meets the demanding challenges the Internet poses to the traditional IT shop
— fast application development and simplified deployment.

PRODUCTIVE DEVELOPMENT

Oracle8i includes the powerful, flexible, scalable application development features necessary to
construct a new generation of sophisticated applications at low cost. Declarative functionality
such as constraints ensure scalable, reliable enforcement of data integrity, while minimizing
development, maintenance, and administration costs. PL/SQL, an advanced procedural 4GL
language that is tightly integrated with the Oracle8i Server, provides the power to easily express
complex business rules as stored, procedural code in the form of stored procedures or triggers.
Java is also available as an open alternative to PL/SQL. Wherever PL/SQL can be programmed,
so can Java. The Oracle8i programmatic interfaces enable 3GL programs to access and
manipulate Oracle8i data and schemas.

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Oracle8i National Language Support (NLS) ensures that error messages, sort order, date format,
and other conventions automatically adapt to the native language. Parameter settings at the
Oracle8i and operating system levels determine the behavior of individual conventions

Oracle8i’s productive development features improve application performance, scalability, and

security, to support hundreds of applications and thousands of users.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT FOR THE INTERNET

The Web and the Internet bring many new challenges to organizations. Today’s Web sites are
usually a series of Web pages that take too much time and too many human resources to develop,
deploy, and manage. In addition, their infrastructure is usually not stable or robust enough to
support mission-critical applications. Everything you need to transform data into a powerful
application and content-driven Web site development environment is included with Oracle8i. It
essentially eliminates the differences between the way in which database stores data and the way
web sites store files.

ORACLE iFS (INTERNET FILE SYSTEM)

Oracle iFS combines the power of Oracle8i with the ease of use of a file system. Completely
integrated with Oracle8i, the Internet File System is a Java application that runs on the Oracle8i
Java VM.

From the end user’s standpoint, iFS appears as if it were just another volume on the network.
Whether the user accesses the contents of iFS through Windows Explorer, a Web browser, an
FTP client, or an e-mail client, the files appear the same. Relational data can appear as files; so
too can hybrid documents that combine relational and non-relational data. It also supports
intelligent text searches and queries of files and data stored in iFS.

From a developer’s standpoint, iFS is the single data store containing the data for many different
applications. And for the system administrator, iFS provides a single system for file storage and
messaging, rather than several separate systems to maintain and administer. In short, iFS is a
simpler way of storing different types of files in the database.

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As part of Oracle8i, iFS provides universal access to any data in the database. While the iFS runs
within Oracle8i, it appears as if it were simply another file system volume on the network. Any
data or files in iFS can be accessed using any of these different protocols:

• SMB for Windows 95, 98 or NT Clients - Users can drag files into and out of iFS, or edit them
directly within iFS.

• HTTP Or FTP For Web Browsers And Network Computers - The contents of iFS are displayed
as normal web pages or standard FTP directories.

• SMTP, IMAP4, POP3 - For using iFS like an e-mail system through clients like Netscape
Communicator, Eudora, Microsoft Outlook, and others.

interMEDIA

Web applications require advanced data management services that support the rich data types
used in Web repository, e-commerce, and other Internet applications. Oracle interMedia adds
support that enables Oracle8i to manage multimedia content, both for Internet, and traditional
applications that need access to image, audio, video, text, and location information. interMedia
includes the following:

Oracle’s award-winning ConText® text services, to deliver the powerful text retrieval
capabilities fundamental to Web applications. This lets users query and analyze documents
stored in document archives, online news feeds, customer call reports, and other online text
information sources. Users can query for data in the most common formats, including HTML,
Word, Excel, and Acrobat/PDF formats.

Audio, video, and image services support integrated management of audio, video, and image
information within an Oracle8i database. These services enable access to audio, video, and image
data in dozens of Internet formats from a variety of sources, both within Oracle8i and from
external locations such as Web URL sites or specialized servers. interMedia supports delivery of
video through any streaming server such as the Oracle Video Server, or RealNetworks RealAudio
and RealVideo Servers. interMedia also supports drag and drop of audio, video, and image data
through the interMedia clipboard into web applications and web authoring tools such as Oracle
WebDB, Symantec Visual Page, and Microsoft FrontPage.

Geometric locator services to support the development of Internet applications that help users
locate information, such as stores, distribution points, and events, based on their location or

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distance from a given address. interMedia locator enables Oracle8i to perform location queries,
and supports the Internet’s leading online geocoding services, including Centrus from QMSoft
and MapXtreme from MapInfo.

HIGH-END DATA WAREHOUSING AND OLTP

Oracle8i expands upon the high-end functionality of release 8.0 and includes new features for
managing multi-user data warehouses, more partitioning options, better interaction with on-line
analytical processing (OLAP) tools, and a fast and easy mechanism for moving data between
identical Oracle databases.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Managing CPU and disk resources in a multi-user data warehouse or OLTP application is
challenging. As more users require access, contention for resources becomes greater. Oracle8i
introduces resource management functionality to provide greater control of system resources
assigned to users. Important online users, such as order entry clerks, can be given a high priority,
while other users — those running batch reports — receive lower priorities. High priority users
are given more system resources than lower priority users. Users are assigned to resource classes,
such as “order entry” or “executive,” and each resource class is then assigned an appropriate
percentage of machine resources.

PARTITIONED TABLES AND INDEXES

Partitioning stores large tables and indexes in pieces, instead of as one large monolithic object.
Partitions are a “divide and conquer” technique which provides scalable performance with a large
amount of data. Oracle8 introduced range partitioning which provides better manageability,
availability, and performance. Oracle8i introduces two new partitioning types: hash and
composite. Hash partitioning provides an easy-to-use mechanism for evenly striping data across
devices, retaining the benefit of performance. Composite partitioning combines the best of both
approaches. Data is first partitioned by a range of values, then each partition is sub-partitioned
into several hash partitions.

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Hash partitioning provides a very simple way to break data up into evenly sized containers to be
spread across multiple I/O devices, or even multiple machines in a shared-nothing cluster. Query
performance is improved by spreading I/O across multiple devices. Manageability is simple if
the number of partitions doesn’t change, which makes this approach inappropriate for rolling
change windows of historical data.

Composite partitioning provides the superior manageability and availability benefits of range
partitioning with the data distribution advantages of hash partitioning. Administrators can specify
ranges of values for the primary partitions of the table or index, then specify a number of hash
sub-partitions. Data skew is unlikely because sub-partitions can always be added or dropped
within a partition to maintain even distribution of each container. Administrators can also easily
maintain rolling change windows of historical data by adding/dropping primary partitions without
affecting sub-partitions in other primary partitions.

All partitioning techniques are transparent to applications and standard DML statements run
against partitioned tables. The optimizer is partition-aware, and partitions which do not contain
any data for a query are eliminated from the search, often resulting in a substantial performance
increase.

SUMMARY MANAGEMENT

OLAP tools, such as Oracle® Express® Analyzer, provide superior performance while allowing
substantial flexibility in viewing data in multiple ways. The tools require a multidimensional data
model to provide acceptable performance as the data dimensions are changed. Oracle8i provides
a mechanism for storing multiple dimensions and summary calculations of a table. So, when a
query requests a summary of detail records, the query is transparently re-written to access the
stored aggregates, rather than summing the detail records every time the query is issued, resulting
in dramatic query performance improvements. These summaries are automatically maintained
from data in the base table. Oracle8i also provides summary advisory functions that assist
database administrators (DBAs) in choosing where summary tables will be the most effective,
depending on actual workload and schema statistics. Oracle8i also includes the CUBE and
ROLLUP operators for OLAP analysis via SQL.

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TRANSPORTABLE TABLESPACES

Moving data from a data warehouse to a data mart or from an OLTP system to a staging area for a
data warehouse can be cumbersome and time consuming. Direct path loading via SQL*Loader®
or parallel DML makes the task faster, but the process should be simpler for data movement
between identical databases. Oracle8i provides a mechanism for copying tablespaces (datafiles)
between identical systems and allowing the same data to be accessed by both systems. Now data
movement can be as fast as simply transferring the file between machines. This greatly improves
performance and operational simplicity of transferring data.

DIRECT PATH LOAD API

Oracle8i provides an API to the direct path load mechanism. This provides a way for ISVs and
system management tool partners to create easy-to-use and high-performance data loading tools.
Access to all load functionality is available through the API. Performance of any third party data
loading tool can therefore be comparable to SQL*Loader.

ADDITIONAL DATA WAREHOUSE ENHANCEMENTS

Oracle8i also includes many new features that improve the management and performance of data
warehouse applications. Index rebuilds can now be done online, without interrupting inserts,
updates, or deletes that may be occurring on the base table. Function-based indexes can be used
to index expressions, such as arithmetic expressions or functions that modify column values.
Indexes can now also be created as descending indexes, which provides fast access when rows
returned by the index need to be sorted in descending order. Progress of long running operations,
such as an index build or backup operation, can now be monitored by users to determine an
approximate completion time. The sample function has been introduced to allow queries run and
only access a specified percentage of the rows or blocks of a table, useful for getting meaningful
aggregate amounts, such as an average, without accessing every row of a table. Finally,
optimizer statistics can be copied from one database to another and execution plans can be stored
so that they remain the same across Oracle releases, database changes, or other factors which
could cause the cost-based optimizer to choose another access path.

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MAINFRAME-CALIBER OLTP

Demanding OLTP applications benefit from a number of new features which improve
availability, scalability, performance, and manageability.

AUTOMATED STANDBY DATABASE

Oracle8i improves upon the standby database features introduced in Oracle7™ release 7.3. Redo
log files are now automatically shipped and applied to the standby database. This greatly
simplifies the administration of the standby system and allows it to be quickly available in the
event of a failure at the primary site.

Optionally, Oracle8i allows for performing read-only operations on the standby database.
Administrators can halt the application of the redo log files to perform queries and produce
reports on the standby so as not to consume resources on the primary system. Once the reports
are complete, automatic application of redo log files can resume.

ADVANCED QUEUING/BUSINESS EVENTS

Advanced queuing adds direct support in the database for high performance queuing or
messaging operations. This capability adds asynchrony and eliminates the dependency on
external systems for applications requiring high scalability. The enqueue and dequeue operations
may also be used to shift processing from within a transaction to a background process,
improving the transaction response time.

In Oracle8i, advanced queuing has been improved with a robust rule-based publish/subscribe
model for automatic forwarding of messages to registered clients. Applications can subscribe to a
queue using a rule to determine what queue messages they are “interested” in. With a business
event framework, integrated applications that subscribe to messages for seamless communication
can be created. New event triggers now allow a database event, such as a database startup or user
login, fire a trigger to execute an operation.

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ORACLE® PARALLEL SERVER IMPROVEMENTS

Numerous enhancements in Oracle Parallel Server improve performance, scalability, and

manageability.
Oracle Parallel Server provides Cache Fusion technology for transparently scaling non-partitioned
applications such as enterprise resource planning applications and Internet applications in a highly
available computing environment. Cache Fusion is a superior parallel cache management scheme that
uses the cluster interconnect for establishing cache coherence, across nodes, and eliminates disk I/O.
Cluster load balancing features with Oracle Parallel Server enable large numbers of user
connections to be balanced across cluster nodes, enhancing transaction throughput and
maintaining system response. These features make Oracle8i a powerful platform for deploying
Internet applications that have thousands of on-line users.

Oracle Parallel Server presents the cluster computing environment as a single management entity.
This enables “perform once and replicate cluster-wide” features such as installation and
configuration of the cluster database. System monitoring is more effective because the Database
Administrator (DBA) is able to view aggregate statistics charts for the entire cluster and then drill
down a particular node of the cluster.

EXTENDED BACKUP/RECOVERY SUBSYSTEM

Recovery Manager has been enhanced in Oracle8i to provide significant manageability

improvements. Recovery Manager now has an integrated media management layer so that it can
direct the media management software to perform the copy operation on Oracle’s behalf.
Recovery Manager also cross checks its catalog with the media management software’s catalog
and marks deleted backups as “expired.” Recovery Manager also allows the administrator to
preview a planned restore/recovery, thus allowing them to know what will happen before the
restore/recovery starts. For multiple copies of backups, Recovery Manager now allows for
duplexing backup sets to multiple I/O devices.

For easy rollout of multiple identical databases, Recovery Manager allows administrators to
restore duplicate databases and restore a database in multiple locations, for example, for the
purpose of deploying a distributed database.

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Recovery Manager also improves the performance of massively parallel processing (MPP)
systems by being aware of disk affinity on each node. Recovery Manager will attempt to perform
local read-and-write operations as opposed to remote operations.

Oracle8i introduces the LogMiner™ feature which allows DBAs to view the contents of the
transaction log files, allowing them to view what SQL DML and DDL operations were executed,
by whom, and at what time. It also creates the SQL necessary to “backout” any operation that
was inadvertently executed by a user, such as many inserts statements to re-create records that
were accidentally deleted from a table.

DBAs now have the means to control the time required for instance and crash recovery, allow
them to enforce a desired bounded recovery time. This feature allows the DBA to specify an
upper limit on the number of blocks that require recovery during instance recovery.

ORACLE ENTERPRISE MANAGER ENHANCEMENTS

Oracle Enterprise Manager Version 2 is delivered with Oracle8i. The latest version of Oracle's
management framework includes many enhancements to improve its scalability, reliability, and
usability. The architecture is now 3-tier, greatly improving scalability and providing automatic
load-balancing and failover for critical management services. This architecture also provides
support for multiple EM administrators using different consoles to share real-time management
information stored in a common repository. The Oracle Enterprise Manager console is now a
Java-based application that can be run as an installed Java application or run from a browser.

OPERATIONAL SIMPLICITY

Oracle8i dramatically improves the installation, configuration, and manageability of Oracle

applications. Oracle Universal Installer and the Database Configuration Assistant are Java-based
applications used to install, pre-tune, and configure an Oracle8™ database environment by
detecting hardware characteristics and prompting for information, such as the number of
concurrent users the database will support. The installation and management of Oracle Parallel
Server has been dramatically improved since Oracle Universal Installer is cluster-aware and
distributes and installs software on all nodes in the cluster.

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EXTENSIBILITY

Oracle8 release 8.0 included cartridges for most popular datatypes, such as images, video, text,
and spatial data. Oracle8i includes a comprehensive set of APIs for data cartridge developers.
This allows partner-developed data cartridges to have the same internal access mechanisms as
Oracle-developed data cartridges. New data cartridges have low-level access to memory, the
optimizer, indexing, and other database internals. Partners can develop highly-customized data
cartridges and meet performance goals of demanding multimedia applications.

SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS

Oracle8i introduces fine-grained access control and an improved security model for multitiered
environments. Fine-grained access control uses a parameter-driven, extensible application
context to allow applications to control users’ access based on a user attribute, such as their
customer number. For example, in a web application, an administrator may wish to give access
to external customers, but allowing them access only their own orders. Using fine-grained access
control, this can be easily accomplished without the administrative overhead of views, by using
the context area to store the customer number and a security policy to determine what rows can
be accessed.

Currently, in multi-tier architectures, the middle tier is typically insecure and can perform any
action on behalf of any user. Middle-tiers, especially web servers or application servers, may
often sit on or outside a firewall, so limiting their access and auditing their actions is important.
Oracle8i provides the ability to limit which users a middle tier can connect and the ability to audit
the middle-tier as a particular user.

REPLICATION

Oracle8i Advanced Replication contains major performance improvements and significant new
functionality specifically targeted at users deploying front-office automation applications.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Oracle8i continues moving more of the replication code into the database kernel, further
improving replication performance. Just as the triggers used to capture replication changes were

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internalized with release 8.0, the generated packages used to apply these replicated transactions at
the remote locations have now been internalized. Not only does this significantly improve data
propagation performance and reduce instantiation times, but it improves manageability as well.

Internal packages are secure from user tampering and do not require regeneration. Snapshot
refresh performance has also been improved. While the “push” phase is able to take advantage of
the performance improvements provided by internal packages, the performance of the “pull”
phase has been dramatically improved by greatly reducing the number of round-trips required.
This optimization is especially beneficial to users of large refresh groups.

REPLICATION AUTOMATION

Many of the features in Oracle8i are designed to aid users implementing front-office automation
applications, especially mass deployment applications, such as field service and sales-force
automation applications. Snapshot refresh group templates, additional monitoring capabilities in
Oracle Replication Manager, and improved off-line instantiation allow administrators to centrally
define and administer hundreds of remote snapshot sites. Snapshot refresh group templates allow
master-side definition of remote snapshots. The snapshot definitions can contain multiple
parameters, yielding the greatest flexibility in defining snapshots.

Additionally, these snapshots can be partitioned both horizontally, as well as vertically, to deploy
the minimum amount of data needed by a remote site. Vertical partitioning provides protection
from changes at the master site. When adding a column to a master table (or dropping a column
not in use by a dependent snapshot), the snapshot can continue to perform fast refreshes, without
being affected by the DDL change. Because all of these new Oracle8 Advanced Replication
features are also supported by Oracle Lite, organizations are free to deploy their applications on a
lightweight, mobile database, without sacrificing any functionality.

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OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATABASE

Oracle8 release 8.0 made a major leap in data management technology with the introduction of an
object-relational paradigm. Oracle8i completes some of the functional areas introduced in release
8.0, and improves upon many of the features. Object types can now be columns of partitioned
tables and can be loaded using SQL*Loader. Parallel queries can now operate on tables with
object type columns or object tables. There are also several performance improvements when
using object types and LOB columns. Variable-width character sets are supported in CLOB and
NCLOB columns. Also, the client-side object cache has been improved to allow tracing and
debugging, as well as supporting optimistic locking.

NETWORKING

Oracle8i provides advances in networking performance and administration and introduces the
Oracle Internet Directory. Network administration has been simplified by automating the
™
configuration of Net8 and by integrating administrative functions with Oracle Enterprise
Manager.

Oracle Internet Directory is an LDAPv3-compliant, hierarchical data repository for storing

enterprise user information, including X.509 certificates, enterprise roles, and Oracle Wallets.
Online schema management permits schema enhancements, extending the already extensive
predefined directory schema. OSD implements Secure Socket Layer (SSL) v3 for authenticated
access and data privacy. OSD tightly integrates with the Oracle family of products, including
Oracle Application Server and Internet Messaging.

Oracle8i, along with Net8, allows sites to leverage investments in existing applications while at
the same time exploit new major Internet standards, such as Java, IIOP, and SSL.

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OTHER ENHANCEMENTS

Oracle8i also contains improvements in several other areas. National Language Support (NLS),
ANALYZE performance and functionality, space management, and diagnostic tools have also
been improved.

NLS has been improved to support Unicode UCS2 character sets in Oracle Call Interface, ODBC,
and the pre-compiler products. Functional indexes now support a linguistic-sorted index on
column data. Also, the Euro currency symbol is now supported. NT environments also have
support for new character sets, and new defined territories in Europe (Belgium, Ireland,
Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), Asia Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore), and
Africa (South Africa).

ANALYZE functionality has been improved and extended to analyze tables in parallel as well as
have more granularity and gather subsets of statistics.

Space management has been improved to allow for defined tablespaces to use bitmaps to indicate
free blocks, resulting in more efficient storage management.

Temporary tables can now be created where the rows are only exist for the duration of the session
or transaction, simplifying applications that may need to store temporary results in a table. Also,
Oracle8i adds the functionality to drop a column from a table.

Oracle8i also contains advanced diagnostic tools to be used in conjunction with World Wide
Support in analyzing and troubleshooting.

MIGRATION AND INTEROPERABILITY

A simple and fast migration script allows organizations to upgrade from release 8.0.x to Oracle8i.
The migration utility is enhanced to allow migration from 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 directly to Oracle8i.
Oracle8i includes a COMPATIBILITY parameter which can be set to a previous release to
disallow any new functionality.

Export and Import are also supported to move data to and from previous versions to Oracle8i.

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ORACLE8I NEW FEATURES • MERGE partition operation

• Top “n” query optimization

Application Development
Transaction Processing
• Java VM in the database
• Publish and subscribe capabilities
• Java stored procedures, functions, and
triggers • Database event triggers

• Seamless interaction between Java, SQL, • Autonomous transactions

and PL/SQL • Single-table hash cluster
• SQLJ: embedded SQL in Java code
• Object type columns in partitioned tables
• Enhanced JDBC driver
• LOBs in partitioned tables
• WebDB to build, deploy, and monitor
• Partitioned index-organized tables
Web applications
• Stable optimizer execution plans

Content Management
Oracle Parallel Server
• interMedia
• Cache Fusion technology for scaling non-
• iFS
partitioned applications.
• Installation and Configuration Wizards
Data Warehousing • Automatic connection load balancing

• Summary management • Job execution forced on specific node

• Hash and composite partitioning

• Resource management
• Transportable tablespaces
• Functional index and virtual columns
• Online index build and rebuild
• Descending indexes
• Automated parallel query degree
• Join index and DML-aware
single table summary
• Read-only standby database
• Direct path load API
• New bitmap index features
• Sample function
Object Relational Database
• Temporary LOBs
• Collection unnesting
• Enhancement of object views
• Enhancements to object cache
• Enhancing SQL*Loader to support loading
of objects, collections, and LOBs
• LOB performance enhancements
• LONG to LOB data migration
• User-defined object identifiers and nested
table identifiers
• Analyze detects dangling REFs

• Parallel and fine-grained ANALYZE

• Disable validate constraint state
• Copy statistics

Oracle8i New Feature Summary 18

February 1999
Security Replication/Front Office Automation

• Fine-grained access control • Snapshot templates for easier

• Extensible and parameter-driven
application context specification
• LDAP integration
• N-tier authentication/authorization
• SSL and X.509v3 support
• RADIUS adapter
Systems Management and Ease of
Use
mass deployment
• Off-line instantiation
• Column-level subsetting in
updatable snapshots
• Internalized apply packages
• Snapshot refresh performance improvements
• Distributed query optimizations
• Security model enhancements
• Oracle Lite support

• Multi-user, Java-based Oracle

Enterprise Manager PL/SQL Improvements
• Java-based Oracle Universal Installer
• Manipulate multiple data items with one
• Java-based Database SQL statement in PL/SQL (bulk binds)
Configuration Assistant • Parameter passing by reference in PL/SQL
• Automatic instance registration
• Embedded dynamic SQL in PL/SQL
with listeners
• PL/SQL code coverage for tools vendors
• Parallel recovery of parallel transactions
• Unlimited PL/SQL package size
• Drop column

• Progress monitor for

long-running operations Extensibility
• Recovery Manager
• Extensible indexing
performance improvements
• Extensible optimizer
• Recovery Manager awareness of
disk affinity • Data cartridge services
™
• Automated standby database • Pro*C external procedures
• Bounded recovery time for • Oracle Call Interface callback registrations
instance recovery
• Secondary indexes on
• Detection and repair of corrupted blocks index-organized tables
• Locally-managed tablespaces • Support for objects in external procedures

• Multiple archive processes and destinations

• Simplification of tablespace
point-in-time recovery

Oracle8i New Feature Summary 19

February 1999
Other ORACLE8i OPTIONS
• Euro currency symbol support *Some functionality and features described
• Temporary tables in this document may require licensing a
• Subprogram execution under separate option at an additional cost.
invoker’s security context
• Microsoft Transaction Server integration
• HTTP protocol adapter for Net8
• Performance improvements to the
RETURNING clause

Oracle8i New Feature Summary 20

February 1999
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Copyright © Oracle Corporation 1999

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This document is provided for informational purposes only, and

the information herein is subject to change without notice.
Please report any errors herein to Oracle Corporation. Oracle
Corporation does not provide any warranties covering and
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document.

Oracle, ConText, Oracle Express Analyzer, and SQL*Loader are

registered trademarks, and Oracle8i, PL/SQL, JDeveloper,
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