What’s New for Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless

Here’s a summary of the noteworthy Oracle Autonomous Database additions and enhancements.

See Previous Feature Announcements for 2023 announcements and older announcements.

• May 2024
  
• April 2024
  
• March 2024
  
• February 2024
  
• January 2024
  

May 2024

Feature	Description
Always Free with Oracle Database 23ai	The Oracle Database versions available for Always Free Autonomous Database are: Oracle Database 19c or Oracle Database 23ai. See Always Free Autonomous Database for more information.
Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image with Oracle Database 23ai	The Oracle Database versions available for Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image are: Oracle Database 19c or Oracle Database 23ai. See Use the Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image for more information.

April 2024

Feature	Description
Cross-Region Cloud Links	You can use Cloud Links in multiple regions, where the source region contains the data set's source database and one or more remote regions contain refreshable clones of the source database. See Register or Unregister a Data Set in a Different Region for more information.
Test Workloads Against an Upcoming Patch	Using the workload auto replay feature you can automatically capture a workload from a production database that is on the regular patch level and replay the workload on a target refreshable clone that is on the early patch level. This feature allows you to test an upcoming patch by running an existing workload that is in production against a patch before the patch reaches production. See Test Workloads Against an Upcoming Patch for more information.
Cloning Permissions	You can control and limit cloning operations on Autonomous Database with IAM permissions. See Cloning Permissions in IAM Permissions and API Operations for Autonomous Database for more information.
Data Studio Updates	The Data Studio is updated with new features and changes in the following areas: Data Load Dashboard: A new Data Load Dashboard is available which displays summaries of the recent load jobs and their status and view details about the data you load. See The Data Load Page for more information. Sentiment Analysis and Key Phrase Extraction on text-based columns: You can now perform Sentiment Analysis and Key Phrase Extraction on the Data Load tool to analyze text-based data. See Use OCI Language Service Capabilities in Data Studio for more information. Data Load support to access Amazon Web Services (AWS) Glue Catalogs: The Data Load tool of Data Studio allows you to synchronize Autonomous Database with Amazon Web Service (AWS) Glue Data Catalog metadata. See Register AWS Glue Catalog for more information. Data Load support for registration and synchronization of OCI Data Catalogs: The Data Load tool enables you to register and synchronize OCI Data Catalogs to create external tables in Autonomous Database. See Register OCI Data Catalog for more information. Data Load support to load GeoJSON files: The Data Load tool supports loading GeoJSON files in Autonomous Database. See Use GeoJSON in Data Load for more information. Data Load support to enable loading into other schemas: The Data Load tool allows an ADMIN to create and load data into other schemas. See Loading Data From Local Files for more information. Enable Resource Principal using Data Studio: You can enable Resource Principals using Data Studio to authenticate and access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources. See Manage Resource Principal using Data Studio for more information.
Manage Oracle Cloud Operator Access	Oracle Cloud Operators do not have authorization to access your data or any other information in your database schemas. When access to your database schemas is required to troubleshoot or mitigate an issue, you can allow a cloud operator to access your Autonomous Database schemas for a limited time. See Manage Oracle Cloud Operator Access for more information.
Apache Iceberg External Tables	Autonomous Database supports querying of Apache Iceberg tables stored in Amazon Web Services (AWS) or in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage. See Query Apache Iceberg Tables for more information.
Cloud Tables	You can create Cloud Tables where table data resides on Oracle managed Cloud Storage and the table data does not consume database storage. See Use Cloud Tables to Store Logging and Diagnostic Information for more information.
Cloud Links Offload Targets Without Specifying Database IDs	Cloud Links support with the optional offload_targets parameter lets you specify that access is offloaded to refreshable clones. This parameter now supports the ANY keyword, where all data set requests from consumers are offloaded to a refreshable clone. See Register a Data Set with Offload Targets for Data Set Access for more information.
Live Data Sharing Using Database Actions in Autonomous Database	Use Data Sharing to share data, as of the latest database commit, with Autonomous Databases in the same region. A Data Sharing recipient always views the latest data. See Overview of the Data Share Tool for more information.
Updated Version of Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image	A new version of the Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image is available with updates and new features. Use the Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image to run Autonomous Database in a container in your own environment, without requiring access to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console or to the internet. See Use the Oracle Autonomous Database Free Container Image for more information.

March 2024

Feature	Description
Refreshable Clone Automatic Refresh Option	When you enable the automatic refresh option Autonomous Database automatically refreshes a refreshable clone with data from the source database. See Refreshable Clone with Automatic Refresh Enabled and Edit Automatic Refresh Policy for Refreshable Clone for more information.
Invoke External Procedures	You can invoke external procedures written in the C language from Autonomous Database as SQL functions. You do not install external procedures on Autonomous Database. To use an external procedure, the procedure is hosted remotely on a VM running in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Virtual Cloud Network (VCN). See Invoke External Procedures as SQL Functions for more information.
Network File System (NFS) NFSv4 Support	You can attach a Network File System to a directory location in your Autonomous Database. This allows you to load data from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure File Storage in your Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) or from any other Network File System in on-premises data centers. Depending on the version of the Network File System you want to access, both NFSv3 and NFSv4 are supported. See Access Network File System from Autonomous Database for more information.
Support for Regular Expressions in DBMS_CLOUD Procedures	The format option regexuri is supported with the following DBMS_CLOUD procedures: COPY_COLLECTION, COPY_DATA, CREATE_EXTERNAL_TABLE, CREATE_EXTERNAL_PART_TABLE, and CREATE_HYBRID_PART_TABLE. See DBMS_CLOUD Package Format Options for more information
Encrypt or Decrypt Data	For greater security you can encrypt data that you export to Object Storage. When data on Object Storage is encrypted you can decrypt the data you import or when you use the data in an external table. See Encrypt Data While Exporting or Decrypt Data While Importing for more information.
JOB_QUEUE_PROCCESSES Initialization Parameter	You can set the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES initialization parameter. Setting this parameter to 0 disables non-Oracle supplied Scheduler jobs. See JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES for more information.
Pre-Authenticated Request URLs Access Information	You can generate and manage Pre-Authenticated Request (PAR) URLs for data on Autonomous Database and Autonomous Database provides views that allow you to monitor PAR URL usage. See Monitor and View PAR URL Usage for more information.
UTL_HTTP allows HTTP_PROXY Connections	With UTL_HTTP, when the Autonomous Database instance is on a private endpoint you can call UTL_HTTP.set_proxy and both HTTPS and HTTP_PROXY connections are allowed. See Submit an HTTP Request to a Private Host and PL/SQL Packages Notes for Autonomous Database for more information.

February 2024

Feature	Description
Pre-Authenticated Request URLs for Read Only Data Access	You can generate and manage Pre-Authenticated Request (PAR) URLs for data on Autonomous Database. See Use Pre-Authenticated Request URLs for Read Only Data Access on Autonomous Database for more information.
Replicate Backups to a Cross-Region Disaster Recovery Peer	You can enable replication of automatic backups from a primary database to a cross-region disaster recovery peer. Up to seven days of automatic backups are available in the remote region when this feature is enabled. See Replicating Backups to a Cross-Region Autonomous Data Guard Standby and Replicating Backups to a Cross-Region Backup Based Disaster Recovery Peer for more information.
Select AI with OCI Generative AI	Autonomous Database can interact with AI service providers. Select AI now supports OCI Generative AI, Azure OpenAI Service, OpenAI, and CohereAI. This feature supports having LLMs work with Oracle database by generating SQL from natural language prompts. This allows you to talk to your database. See Use Select AI to Generate SQL from Natural Language Prompts for more information.

January 2024

Feature	Description
ECPU Compute Model for all Workload Types	Autonomous Database offers two compute models when you create or clone an instance: ECPU and OCPU. Previously only the workload types Data Warehouse and Transaction Processing supported the ECPU compute model. Now all workload types support the ECPU compute model, including JSON and APEX. See Compute Models in Autonomous Database for more information.
Manage Time Zone File Updates	Autonomous Database provides several options to automatically update time zone files. See Manage Time Zone File Updates on Autonomous Database for more information.
Custom Kerberos Service Name Support for Kerberos Authentication	You can use a custom Kerberos service name when you configure Kerberos to authenticate Autonomous Database users. Using a custom service name you can use the same Keytab files on multiple Autonomous Database instances when you enable Kerberos authentication (you do not need to create and upload different Keytab files for each Autonomous Database instance). See Configure Kerberos Authentication with Autonomous Database for more information.
Clone Database to Change Workload Type	You can create a clone of an Autonomous Database and select a different workload type for the cloned database. See Clone Autonomous Database to Change Workload Type for more information.