1. Database Development Guide
  2. Changes in Oracle Database Release

Changes in Oracle Database Release

The following are changes in Oracle Database Development Guide for Oracle Database Release 18c, version 18.1:

New Features in Oracle Database 18c

  • Oracle Database supports Oracle RAC Sharding that provides performance and scalability benefits with minimal application changes, improved cache locality and reduced inter-node synchronization, and block pings.

    See Also:

    Oracle RAC Sharding

  • Oracle Database provides additional memory location in the SGA memory location to support high frequency data query and data insert operations.

    See Also:

    Memoptimize Pool
  • DBMS_HPROF API creates necessary tables and structures to collect and analyze raw profiler output as an alternative to the raw profiler data file.

    See Also:

  • Oracle database provides a proxy that provides a scalable, secure, and manageable foundation between database clients and database instances

    See Also:

    Oracle Connection Manager in Traffic Director Mode

Deprecated Features

Security Update for Native Encryption

Oracle provides a patch that you can download to address necessary security enhancements that affect native network encryption environments in Oracle Database release 11.2 and later.

This patch is available in My Oracle Support note 2118136.2.

The supported algorithms that have been improved are as follows:

  • Encryption algorithms: AES128, AES192 and AES256
  • Checksumming algorithms: SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512

Algorithms that are deprecated and should not be used are as follows:

  • Encryption algorithms: DES, DES40, 3DES112, 3DES168, RC4_40, RC4_56, RC4_128, and RC4_256
  • Checksumming algorithm: MD5

If your site requires the use of network native encryption, then you must download the patch that is described in My Oracle Support note 2118136.2. To enable a smooth transition for your Oracle Database installation, this patch provides two parameters that enable you to disable the weaker algorithms and start using the stronger algorithms. You will need to install this patch on both servers and clients in your Oracle Database installation.

An alternative to network native encryption is Transport Layer Security (TLS), which provides protection against person-in-the-middle attacks.

See Also: