What's New in Oracle9i for Windows?

This section describes new features of Oracle9i for Windows release 2 (9.2) and provides pointers to additional information.

The following sections describe the new features in Oracle9i:

• Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2) New Features in Oracle9i for Windows

• Oracle9i Release 1 (9.0.1) New Features in Oracle9i for Windows

  
  

  See Also: Oracle9i Database New Features for the list of new features, options, and enhancements of Oracle9i The README file at the root level of the documentation CD for more information about the Oracle9i Database Documentation for Windows

  
  

Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2) New Features in Oracle9i for Windows

This section contains these topics:

• Cluster File System

• Enhanced Security

• Oracle Provider for OLE DB

• Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server

• User Migration Utility

• Very Large Memory (VLM) Support

• Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0.1.0) Deprecated and Desupported Components

Cluster File System

This feature will be available in a subsequent Oracle9i release 2 (9.2) CD pack.

Cluster File System is a shared file system that is used to store Oracle home files and Oracle datafiles for Real Application Clusters on Windows NT and Windows 2000 platforms. Oracle Cluster Setup Wizard installs and starts the OracleClusterFileSystem service and creates one or two shared file systems.

Enhanced Security

SYS and SYSTEM Password Change Requirement

If you use Database Configuration Assistant to create a database, be aware that you are required to change the SYS and SYSTEM passwords at the end of the configuration process. This is a new security procedure designed to protect access to your data.

Oracle Provider for OLE DB

ADO.NET application developers can use Oracle Provider for OLE DB (OraOLEDB) through OLE DB .NET Data Provider. A connection attribute, OLEDB.NET, can be set at connection time for OraOLEDB to be compatible with OLE DB .NET Data Provider.

Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server

Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server supports .NET transactional applications with OLE DB .NET through the Oracle Provider for OLE DB and ODBC .NET through the Oracle ODBC driver.

User Migration Utility

A new command-line tool, the User Migration Utility, simplifies the conversion of local or external database users to enterprise users.

Very Large Memory (VLM) Support

Oracle9i release 2 (9.2) for Windows supports Very Large Memory (VLM) configurations in Windows 2000 and Windows XP, which allows Oracle9i release 2 (9.2) to access more than the 4 gigabyte (GB) of RAM traditionally available to Windows applications.

Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0.1.0) Deprecated and Desupported Components

The following Oracle9i Database components that were part of release 1 (9.0.1) are not available for installation with release 2 (9.2):

• Remote Method Invocation (RMI)/Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP)

• General Inter-ORB Protocol (GIOP)

• Oracle Servlet Engine (OSE)

• Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) framework and J2EE containers

• Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)

• Java Transaction API (JTA)

• Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)

• CosNaming

• servlets

• Oracle Java Server Pages (OSJP)

• Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) container

The following components will be deprecated in a future release:

• INTYPE File Assistant (IFA)

• Oracle Trace. Oracle Corporation strongly advises the use of SQL Trace and TKPROF instead.

Oracle9i Release 1 (9.0.1) New Features in Oracle9i for Windows

• Integration With Windows NT and Windows 2000

  • Oracle9i supports several versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

  • Oracle9i supports enhanced integration with Microsoft Transaction Services and Internet Information Services. The public key infrastructure (PKI) and Single Sign-On capabilities in Oracle9i have also been well integrated with Windows 2000, Active Directory, and Microsoft Certificate Store.

  • Oracle9i also provides an enhanced solution to allow the Oracle database to participate as a Resource Manager in Microsoft Transaction Server and COM+ Transactions environment, providing enhanced performance and scalability.

  • Windows security supports Oracle Wallets in the registry and Active Directory and allows Oracle products to use Microsoft Certificate Store.

    Synchronization between Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory facilitates centralized scheduling and configuration of Oracle and third party meta-directory components.

  • Customers who implement Oracle Internet Directory as their central Directory while using Active Directory to support their desktop environments can use Microsoft Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) to access Oracle Internet Directory from the Windows desktop environment.

  • Meta-directory synchronization between Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory facilitates centralized scheduling and configuration of Oracle and third party meta-directory components. Synchronization between Active Directory and Oracle Internet Directory can be achieved by deploying Oracle Directory Integration Platform and an Active Directory Synchronization agent from Siemens.

  • Oracle Fail Safe, shipping in a subsequent CD pack, provides high availability for Oracle databases and applications deployed on all Microsoft Cluster Server clusters configured with Windows NT and Windows 2000.

  • For Windows developers, Oracle9i offers an enhanced native OLE DB provider. XML, database events, and Oracle9i extensions are supported through Oracle Objects for OLE. The COM Automation Feature now supports Java stored procedures.

• iSQL*Plus

  iSQL*Plus is a browser-based implementation of SQL*Plus. You can use iSQL*Plus over the Internet to connect to an Oracle database and perform the same actions as you would through the SQL*Plus command line. The iSQL*Plus implementation uses a Web browser, an Oracle HTTP Server with the iSQL*Plus Server, and an Oracle Database Server.

• Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS)

  The following table describes some of the new features in Microsoft Transaction Server for Oracle9i.

  Better performance	Communication between the Microsoft Transaction Server application and the Oracle Service for MTS is no longer required.
  High availability	The Oracle database is no longer dependent on the Oracle Service for MTS. Previously, if the Oracle Service for MTS was stopped, the Oracle database was unable to participate in Microsoft Transaction Server transactions.
  Improved scalability	The code that allows an Oracle database to participate in Microsoft Transaction Server transactions is now embedded in each Microsoft Transaction Server application process.
  Easier configuration	Previous versions required a Windows service named Oracle Service for MTS to be created for each Oracle database, enabling the database to participate in Microsoft Transaction Server transactions. Moreover, only one Oracle Service for MTS was supported for each Oracle database. This release no longer requires this service.

  
  
  
  

  See Also: Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server Developer's Guide

  
  

• Oracle COM Automation

  Oracle COM Automation Feature is now available for Java as well as PL/SQL. While the general functionality is parallel, the developer's guide indicates those areas where functionality, setup, and architecture differ.

  For this release, Oracle has renamed the com81.dll to orawpcom.dll. Users migrating from Oracle8i must rerun comwrap.sql to continue using Oracle COM Automation feature for PL/SQL.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle COM Automation Feature Developer's Guide

  
  

• Database Configuration Assistant Improvements

  Database Configuration Assistant has been redesigned to include database definitions saved as templates. The templates can generate databases. Users can define new templates, modify existing templates, or use the ones Oracle provides. When creating a database with Database Configuration Assistant, users can include Oracle's new Sample Schemas.

• Oracle DBA Studio Integration into the Enterprise Manager Console

  Oracle DBA Studio is no longer available as a separate application. The functionality of this component has been integrated with Oracle Enterprise Manager Console.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide

  
  

• Oracle Internet Directory Administration Improvements

  Administration of Oracle Internet Directory replication server has been improved with the addition of new replication queue management and reconciliation tools.

• Oracle Objects for OLE

  Oracle Objects for OLE supports the creation of temporary binary large objects (BLOBs) or character large objects (CLOBs) that can be manipulated and then bound into SQL statements or PL/SQL blocks, or copied into permanent LOBs.

  Oracle Objects for OLE supports database events. This asynchronous notification is modeled along the same lines as the failover handler; thus a client can subscribe to one or more database events and can continue with other processing. Each database event that the client is interested in is stored as a subscription by Oracle Objects for OLE.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle Objects for OLE Online Help

  
  

• Oracle OLAP Services

  Oracle OLAP Services provides a Java OLAP API and an analytical engine. Using OLAP Services, developers can build analytical applications that support complex statistical, mathematical, and financial calculations along with predictive analytical functions such as forecasting, modeling, consolidations, allocations, and scenario management. Because the OLAP API is all Java, OLAP Services supports deployment of analytical applications to large, geographically distributed user communities on the Internet. Oracle OLAP Services is installed with Oracle9i Enterprise Edition.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle9i OLAP Services Concepts and Administration Guide

  
  

• Oracle Personal Edition for Windows 98

  Oracle9i release 1 (9.0.1.1.1) is the terminal release of Oracle Personal Edition for Windows 98.

• Oracle Real Application Clusters

  Oracle Real Application Clusters is a new, breakthrough software architecture with scalability and high availability features that exceed the capabilities of previous Oracle cluster-enabled software releases.

  The following table describes some of the features in Oracle Real Application Clusters for Oracle9i.

  Cache Fusion	A breakthrough technology that guarantees cache coherency among multiple cluster nodes without incurring disk I/O costs.
  Cluster Configuration	The Oracle9i release of Oracle Real Application Clusters on Windows provides for easier cluster configuration: Oracle Operating System Dependent clusterware (Oracle OSDs) are provided in this release. The OSDs serve as communication links between the operating system and Oracle Real Application Clusters software. The Oracle Cluster Setup Wizard creates a cluster or adds a node to an existing cluster.
  Centralized Node Information	Centralized Cluster Database Configuration Information: Easier configuration through a centralized configuration information repository. Use Oracle Enterprise Manager or the srvctl utility to add manage instances, including adding or removing their static configuration information. Add or delete an instance to or from a cluster database dynamically by using Database Configuration Assistant.

  
  
  
  

  See Also: The Oracle Real Application Clusters documentation set for additional new features The Oracle Real Application Clusters Guard for Windows documentation set for information about separately installable, Windows-specific enhancements to Oracle Real Application Clusters. This documentation is on the Oracle Fail Safe and Oracle Real Application Clusters Guard component CD, shipping in a subsequent CD pack.

  
  

• Oracle Ultra Search

  Oracle Ultra Search, a new feature of Oracle9i, provides an "Out-of-the-Box" solution that can find your information wherever it is located. Ultra Search provides the following features:

  • Searches content regardless of location—in Oracle and non-Oracle databases, on Web servers, in files on disk, or on corporate mail servers.

  • Uses a "crawler" to crawl, index, and make searchable your corporate Intranet; the documents stay in their own repositories and the crawled information builds an index that stays within your firewall in a designated Oracle9i database.

  • Provides a Web-style search with intuitive search menus and self-service access. There is no need to code against hard-to-use low level APIs. For advanced users, however, APIs are also exposed.

  • Organizes and categorizes your content by extracting valuable metadata that can be used in portal applications.

  • Provides effective search capabilities by returning more relevant hits.

    
    

    See Also: Visit the OTN Ultra Search Web page to learn more about the technology at: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ultrasearch/index.html

    
    

• Oracle Workflow

  Oracle Workflow now provides the Business Event System, a new application service that leverages the Oracle Advanced Queuing infrastructure to communicate business events among systems within an enterprise and between enterprises. The Business Event System includes the Event Manager, for registering subscriptions to significant events, and event activities, for modeling business events within workflow processes. This support allows Oracle Workflow users to deal with business objects, and E-business integration flows powerfully and flexibly, with minimal intrusion into core applications.

• Oracle9i on Windows 2000

  There are some differences between using Oracle9i on Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0.

  
  

  See Also: "Using Oracle9i on Windows 2000" in Oracle9i Database Getting Started for Windows

  
  

• Windows XP Support

  Oracle9i release 1 (9.0.1.1.1) for Windows is certified on Windows XP Professional Edition.

  Oracle Corporation provides support information for components on various platforms, lists compatible client and database versions, and identifies patches and workaround information. Find the latest certification information at

  https://metalink.oracle.com/

  You must register online before using OracleMetaLink. After logging into OracleMetaLink, select Product Lifecycle from the left-hand column.

• Workspace Manager

  Workspace Manager provides a long-transaction framework built on a workspace management system. It uses a series of short transactions and multiple data versions to implement a complete long-transaction event that maintains atomicity and concurrency. Changes are stored in the database as different workspaces. Users are permitted to create new versions of data to update, while maintaining a copy of the old data. The ongoing results of the long transaction are stored persistently, ensuring concurrency and consistency.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle9i Application Developer's Guide - Workspace Manager

  
  

Oracle9i release 1 (9.0.1) Deprecated and Desupported Components

The following components that were part of 8.1.7 are not available for installation with release 1 (9.0.1):

• Database user INTERNAL

  CONNECT INTERNAL and CONNECT INTERNAL/PASSWORD are not supported in Oracle9i. Use the following instead:

  CONNECT / AS SYSDBA

  CONNECT username/password AS SYSDBA

  
  

  See Also: Oracle9i Database Administrator's Guide

  
  

• Logical Unit Type 6.2 (LU6.2) Protocol Support

  LU6.2 protocol is not supported for Oracle9i. Migrate or upgrade to TCP/IP-based protocols.

• Server Manager

  Server Manager is no longer available. Use SQL*Plus instead. Most Server Manager scripts should work in a SQL*Plus environment, but some scripts need to be modified.

  
  

  See Also: Oracle9i Database Migration for information about modifying Server Manager scripts

  
  

• Windows 95

  Windows 95 is not supported for Oracle9i.

• Very Large Memory (VLM)

  Very Large Memory (VLM) configurations are not supported for this release.