What's New in Oracle Database for Windows?

This chapter describes new features of Oracle Database 10g release 1 (10.1) for Windows and provides pointers to additional information. It also retains new features information from previous releases to help those users migrating to the current release.

The following sections describe the new features in Oracle Database:

• Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) New Features for Windows

• Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Deprecated Components

Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) New Features for Windows

This section contains these topics:

• Automatic Storage Management

• Database Password Encryption

• Data Pump Import and Data Pump Export

• Instant Client

• Large Page Support

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

• Oracle Provider for OLE DB

• Oracle Scheduler

• Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server

• Components Requiring Separate Installations

• Renamed Component

Automatic Storage Management

Automatic Storage Management enables creation of a single disk group from a collection of individual disk devices.

Database Password Encryption

When a user attempts a remote login to an Oracle Database 10g release 1 (10.1) database, the password is automatically encrypted before it is sent to the remote database.

Data Pump Import and Data Pump Export

Two new utilities, Data Pump Import and Data Pump Export, offer faster transfer of files to and from Oracle databases. The previous file transfer utilities, Import and Export, are retained for use with Oracle databases created with earlier versions of Oracle software.

Instant Client

The Instant Client feature of Oracle Call Interface (OCI) simplifies OCI installation. The activation of Instant Client mode is only dependent on the ability to load the Instant Client data shared library. It requires only two dynamic link libraries to be loaded by the dynamic loader of the operating system.

Large Page Support

Large page support provides a performance boost for memory-intensive database instances running on Windows Server 2003. By taking advantage of newly introduced operating system support, Oracle Database now can make more efficient use of processor memory addressing resources.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is installed in the same Oracle home as the database and supports standalone Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J) instances.

Oracle Provider for OLE DB

Oracle Provider for OLE DB 10g release 1 (10.1) includes the following new features:

• Support for Oracle grids

  Oracle Provider for OLE DB is grid-enabled, allowing developers to take advantage of Oracle database grid support without having to make changes to their application code.

• Support for the following datatypes introduced with Oracle Database 10g release 1 (10.1):

  • BINARY_DOUBLE

  • BINARY_FLOAT

• Support for multiple Oracle homes

  You can install Oracle Provider for OLE DB in multiple Oracle homes, starting with 10g release 1 (10.1). However, being a COM component, only one instance can be active on the computer. This means that the current (latest) installation renders the previous one inactive.

  In order to make multiple homes available, some of the Oracle Provider for OLE DB files now include a version number, and the use of a HOMEID is required.

Oracle Scheduler

This release includes a new database scheduler, Oracle Scheduler, to provide enterprise scheduling functionality. You can use the OracleJobScheduler service to start external jobs. This service is disabled by default. In order to use the external jobs functionality, the administrator must set the username and password for the user account under which this service must run, and then enable the service.

Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server

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

Components Requiring Separate Installations

Several components are no longer installed from the Oracle Database installation media.

Renamed Component

The Oracle Demos were renamed to Oracle Examples.

Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) Deprecated Components

The following Oracle Database 10g release 1 (10.1) components that were part of Oracle9i release 2 (9.2.0) are not available for installation with Oracle Database 10g release 1 (10.1):

• Enterprise Login Assistant

• Migration utility

• Pro*C GUI

• Oracle Trace (use SQL Trace and TKPROF in place of Oracle Trace)