New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2).

• Simplified Image based Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation

  Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software is available as an image file for download and installation. You must extract the image software into the directory where you want your Grid home to be located, and then run the gridSetup.sh script to start the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

  For more information, see About Image-Based Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation

• Parallel NFS Support in Direct NFS Client

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Direct NFS Client supports parallel NFS. Parallel NFS is an NFSv4.1 option that allows direct client access to file servers, enabling scalable distributed storage.

  For more information, see About Direct NFS Client Mounts to NFS Storage Devices

• Direct NFS Dispatcher Support

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Direct NFS Client supports adding a dispatcher or I/O slave infrastructure. For very large database deployments running Direct NFS client, this feature facilitates scaling of sockets and TCP connections to multi-path and clustered NFS storage.

  For more information, see About Direct NFS Client Mounts to NFS Storage Devices

• Kerberos Authentication for Direct NFS

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Database supports Kerberos implementation with Direct NFS communication. This feature solves the problem of authentication, message integrity, and optional encryption over unsecured networks for data exchanged between Oracle Database and NFS servers using Direct NFS protocols.

  For more information, see Creating an oranfstab File for Direct NFS Client

• Separation of Duty for Administering Oracle Real Application Clusters

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), Oracle Database provides support for separation of duty best practices when administering Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) by introducing the SYSRAC administrative privilege for the clusterware agent. This feature removes the need to use the powerful SYSDBA administrative privilege for Oracle RAC.

  SYSRAC, like SYSDG, SYSBACKUP, and SYSKM, helps enforce separation of duties and reduce reliance on the use of SYSDBA on production systems. This administrative privilege is the default mode for connecting to the database by the clusterware agent on behalf of the Oracle RAC utilities such as srvctl.

  For more information, see Extended Oracle Database Groups for Job Role Separation

• AL32UTF8 As the Default Database Character Set

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), the default database character set of a database created from the General Purpose/Transaction Processing or the Data Warehousing template is Unicode AL32UTF8. Oracle recommends that you use Unicode AL32UTF8 as the database character set.

  For more information, see About Character Set Selection During Installation

• Single-instance Configurations and Operations supported by Rapid Home Provisioning

  Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Rapid Home Provisioning adds support for installing and configuring single-instance Oracle Databases. These may be on nodes with or without Oracle Grid Infrastructure installed. Rapid Home Provisioning does not support single-instance databases for Oracle Restart configurations.

  Starting with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), Rapid Home Provisioning also supports Oracle Database upgrades.

  For more information, see About Deploying Oracle Database Using Rapid Home Provisioning

• Preserve Home Path during Updates with Rapid Home Provisioning

  Rapid Home Provisioning leverages a new filesystem capability which allows for separation of gold image software from the site-specific configuration changes, so the home path remains unchanged throughout updates. This capability is available starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2) and Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 2 (12.2), and combines the benefits of in-place and out-of-place patching.

  This feature does not apply to Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server or Oracle Restart configurations.

• Postinstallation Configuration of Oracle Software using the -executeConfigTools option

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), you can perform postinstallation configuration of Oracle products by running the Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer with the -executeConfigTools option. You can use the same response file created during installation to complete postinstallation configuration.

  For more information, see Installing and Configuring Oracle Database Using Response Files

The following feature is deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:

• Deprecation of the configToolAllCommands script

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), the configToolAllCommands script is deprecated and is subject to desupport in a future release. The configToolAllCommands script runs in response file mode to configure Oracle products after installation and uses a separate password response file.

  To perform postinstallation configuration of Oracle products, you can now run the Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installer with the -executeConfigTools option. You can use the same response file created during installation to complete postinstallation configuration.

For a complete list of deprecated features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

For a complete list of desupported features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

New features for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1).

• Root Scripts Automation

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Universal Installer provides options to automatically run root configuration scripts required during a grid infrastructure installation. You also have the option to manually run the root configuration scripts.

• Oracle Flex ASM

  Oracle Flex ASM enables an Oracle ASM instance to run on a separate physical server from the database servers. Many Oracle ASM instances can be clustered to support a large number of database clients.

  Oracle Database instances can be set up as clients to Oracle Flex ASM where metadata is provided to the database instance by an Oracle Flex ASM instance that may be on a different node than the database instance.

  Note that Oracle Flex ASM can apply to a collection of databases, each one a single instance but running in a Flex ASM Cluster.

  For more information about Oracle Flex ASM, see:

  Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

• Deinstallation Tool Integrated with Installation Media

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, the deinstallation tool is integrated with the database installation media and is no longer provided on a separate installation media.

  For more information, see:

  Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

• Simplified Oracle Label Security Installation

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Label Security is installed by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. You can no longer select Oracle Label Security as a custom component during an Enterprise Edition database installation.

  For more information, see:

  Oracle Label Security Administrator's Guide

• Simplified Oracle Database Vault Installation

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database Vault is installed by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. However, you can configure, enable, or disable Oracle Database Vault after the Oracle Database installation, either using Oracle DBCA, or by running SQL statements. For more information, see:

  • Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide, "Disabling and Enabling Oracle Database Vault."

  • Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide, "Registering Oracle Database Vault with an Oracle Database"

• Unified Database Audit Configuration

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, you can create named audit policies. An audit policy contains a set of audit options, which is stored in the database as an object. The advantage of creating a named audit policy is that it reduces the number of commands that are required to create a database audit policy, and it simplifies the implementation of an audit configuration for security and compliance with conditional auditing.

  This new audit policy framework is included with the database installation.

  For more information, see:

  Oracle Database Security Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c

  Oracle Database 12c introduces Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c, a web-based management tool built into Oracle Database without any need for special installation or management. Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express, you can perform basic administrative tasks such as user, performance, memory, and space management. You can also view performance and status information about your database.

  For more information, see:

  Oracle Database 2 Day DBA

  Note:

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control is no longer available. For more information, see:

  Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

• Multiprocess and Multithreaded Oracle Database

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database may use operating system threads to allow resource sharing and reduce resource consumption. For more information, see:

  Oracle Database Concepts

• Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties

  Oracle Database 12c provides support for separation of database administration duties for Oracle Database by introducing task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges that do not require the SYSDBA administrative privilege. These new privileges are: SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, and SYSKM for encryption key management. For more information, see:

  Oracle Database Security Guide

• Oracle DBCA Support for CDBs and PDBs

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (Oracle DBCA) allows you to create a a multitenant container database (CDB) or a non-CDB. You can create the CDB with zero, one, or more user-created pluggable databases (PDBs).

  You can also create a CDB with one PDB during the database installation.

  For more information, see:

  • Oracle Database Administrator's Guide

  • About Common Users and Local Users

  • Managing Common Roles and Local Roles

  • Managing Commonly and Locally Granted Privileges

• Support for NFS Version in Direct NFS Client

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c, you can specify the NFS protocol version to be used by Direct NFS Client.

The following features are deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release:

• Change for Standalone Deinstallation Tool

  The deinstallation tool is now integrated with the database installation media.

• Deprecation of -cleanupOBase

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), the -cleanupOBase flag of the deinstallation tool is deprecated. There is no replacement for this flag.

For a complete list of deprecated features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

The following features are no longer supported by Oracle:

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

• CLEANUP_ORACLE_BASE Property Removed

For a complete list of desupported features, see:

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide