This section describes new features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET and provides references to additional information. New features information from previous releases is also retained to help those users migrating to the current release.
The following sections describe the new features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET:
New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 11.1.0.6.20
New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.2.0.3
New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.2.0.2
New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.1.0.3
New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 9.2.0.4
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 11.1.0.6.20 includes the following:
Oracle XCopy
Oracle XCopy provides system administrators with an ODP.NET client that is smaller in disk size than the standard ODP.NET client and is easily configurable. Oracle XCopy makes embedding ODP.NET in customized deployment packages much simpler.
See Also:
"XCopy"Support for Oracle User-Defined Types
ODP.NET has the ability to represent Oracle UDTs defined in the database as custom types in .NET applications.
Bulk Copy Operations
ODP.NET supports the Bulk Copy operations to load a large amount of data efficiently.
Additional Connection Pool Optimizations for Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Oracle Data Guard
ODP.NET now cleans up the connection pool when the database down event is received from Oracle RAC or Oracle Data Guard. This is in addition to the events that ODP.NET already cleaned up the connection pool for: node down, service member down, and service down events.
Windows-Authenticated User Connection Pooling
Operating system-authenticated connections can now be managed as part of ODP.NET connection pools
See Also:
"Operating System Authentication"Connection Pool Performance Counters
ODP.NET publishes performance counters for connection pooling, which can be viewed using the Windows Performance Monitor.
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 11.1 includes the following:
ODP.NET Configuration
Developers can now configure ODP.NET using configuration files, including application config, web.config, or machine.config.
Settings in the machine.config override the registry settings.The settings in the application config or the web.config override the values in the machine.config.
See Also:
"ODP.NET Configuration"Performance Enhancements
The following performance enhancements have been made:
Improved Parameter Context Caching
This release enhances the existing caching infrastructure to cache ODP.NET parameter contexts. This enhancement is independent of database version and it is available for all the supported database versions. This feature provides significant performance improvement for the applications that execute the same statement repeatedly.
This enhancement is transparent to the developer. No code changes are needed to use this feature.
Efficient LOB Retrieval with SecureFiles
When using SecureFiles, this release improves the performance of small-sized LOB retrieval by reducing the number of round-trips to the database. This enhancement is available only with Oracle 11g release 1.0 or later database versions.
This enhancement is transparent to the developer. No code changes are needed to use this feature.
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.2.0.3 includes the following:
64-bit ODP.NET for Windows x64 and Windows Itanium
ODP.NET natively supports the 64-bit .NET Framework for both 64-bit Windows platforms:
Windows x64 for AMD64 and Intel EM64T processors
64-bit Windows for Intel Itanium
64-bit systems allow for more scalable and better performing ODP.NET applications.
Configuring FetchSize Through the Windows Registry
This feature enables applications to specify the default result set fetch size through the registry.
Local Transaction Support for System.Transactions
This feature enables System.Transactions to use local transactions rather than distributed transactions. This can be specified either through the registry or through a connection string attribute.
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.2.0.2 includes the following:
Support for Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0, including.
Provider Factory Classes and Base Classes
Simplifies data access code to access multiple data sources with a provider generic API.
Connection String Builder
Makes creating connections strings less error-prone and easier to manage.
Data Source Enumerator
Enables the application to generically obtain a collection of the Oracle data sources that the application can connect to.
Support for Schema Discovery
Permits application developers to find and return database schema information, such as tables, columns, and stored procedures.
System.Transactions Support
ODP.NET supports implicit and explicit transactions using the System.Transactions namespace models.
Batch Processing Support
Enables batch processing when the OracleDataAdapter.Update method is called.
See Also:
"ADO.NET 2.0 Features"Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.2 includes the following:
Server-Side Features
Server-side features for Oracle Data Provider for .NET provide data access from .NET stored procedures. Such procedures are enabled by Oracle Database Extensions for .NET, a new feature included with Oracle database on Windows.
Support for Client Identifier
Oracle Data Provider for .NET exposes the OracleConnection.ClientId property, thus providing support for Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) and application context. Client identifier makes configuring VPD simpler for the developer.
See Also:
"Client Identifier"Connection Pool Optimizations for Real Application Clusters (RAC)
Oracle Data Provider for .NET optimizes connection pooling for Oracle RAC databases by balancing work requests across Oracle RAC instances, based on the load balancing advisory and service goal. Furthermore, the ODP.NET connection pool can be enabled to proactively free resources associated with connections that have been severed due to a down Oracle RAC service, instance, or node.
Database Change Notification Support
Oracle Data Provider for .NET provides a notification framework that supports Continuous Query Notification. This enables applications to receive notifications when there is a change in a query result set or a change in the state of the database.
Connection Pooling Management
Oracle Data Provider for .NET connection pool management provides explicit connection pool control to ODP.NET applications. Applications can explicitly clear connections in a connection pool or all the connection pools.
See Also:
"Connection Pool Management"Better LOB performance and functionality with Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) and later
See Also:
"InitialLOBFetchSize"Support for IN and IN/OUT REF CURSOR Objects
This feature enables applications to retrieve REF Cursors from a PL/SQL procedure or function and pass them to another stored procedure or function.
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.1.0.3 includes the following:
This feature provides and manages a cache of statements for each session. The developer can control which statements are cached and how many. This improves performance and scalability.
See Also:
"Statement Caching".NET Framework 1.1 Enhancements
These enhancements expose new ADO.NET functionality that was introduced in Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1.
See Also:
Support for Command Cancellation and Timeout
These two new features relate to command cancellation. The CommandTimeout feature cancels the execution of a command when a specified amount of time elapses after the execution, while the Cancel method can be called explicitly by the application to terminate the execution of a command.
See Also:
DeriveParameters Method
This method populates the parameter collection for the OracleCommand that represents a stored procedure or function by querying the database for the parameter information.
See Also:
"DeriveParameters"LOB Retrieval Enhancement
Entire LOB column data can be retrieved even if the select list does not contain a primary key, ROWID, or unique key. This enhancement is available by setting the InitialLOBFetchSize property value to -1 for CLOB and BLOB objects.
See Also:
"Setting InitialLOBFetchSize to -1"LONG Retrieval Enhancement
Entire LONG column data can be retrieved even if the select list does not contain a primary key, ROWID, or unique key. This enhancement is available by setting the InitialLONGFetchSize property value to -1.
See Also:
"Setting InitialLONGFetchSize to -1"Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.1 includes the following:
ODP.NET is grid-enabled, allowing developers to take advantage of Oracle Database Grid support without having to make changes to their application code.
Support for BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE data types in the database
ODP.NET supports the new database native types BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE
ODP.NET can be installed in Multiple Oracle Homes.
In order to make multiple homes available, some of the ODP.NET files include a version number, and the use of a HOMEID is required.
Support for Schema-Based XMLType in the Database
ODP.NET supports the native schema-based XMLType.
Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 9.2.0.4, which was released on Oracle Technology Network (OTN), included the following:
XML Support in ODP.NET
With XML support, ODP.NET can now:
Store XML data natively in the database as Oracle Database native type, XMLType.
Access relational and object-relational data as XML data from an Oracle Database instance into a Microsoft .NET environment, process the XML using the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Save changes to the database using XML data.
See Also:
"ODP.NET XML Support"Support for PL/SQL Associative Array Binding
ODP.NET supports PL/SQL Associative Array (formerly known as PL/SQL Index-By Tables) binding.
An application can bind an OracleParameter, as a PL/SQL Associative Array, to a PL/SQL stored procedure using OracleParameter properties.
See Also:
"PL/SQL Associative Array Binding"Support for InitialLOBFetchSize property on OracleCommand and OracleDataReader objects
See Also:
"Obtaining LOB Data"