Release Update 19.31 Features
In-Place Conversion to Immutable Tables and Parallel CTAS Support
The following enhancements have been introduced for blockchain and immutable tables:
- In-place conversion to immutable tables: Adds DDL support to convert an existing table into an immutable table.
- Parallel CTAS support: Enables parallel execution for creating blockchain tables using the
CREATE TABLE AS SELECT(CTAS) operation.
These enhancements to blockchain and immutable tables improve both usability and performance during their creation.
Introduction of HS_IDLE_TIMEOUT for Heterogeneous Services (HS) extproc init parameter HS_IDLE_TIMEOUT
This enhancement introduces the HS_IDLE_TIMEOUT initialization parameter to provide granular control over extproc session termination. It allows administrators to either honor, override, or disable the inherited SQLNET.INBOUND_CONNECT_TIMEOUT settings. The parameter supports values ranging from 0 to 9,999 minutes.
This feature improves system stability and reduces intermittent connection failures, such as ORA-28576, by allowing tailored idle timeout configurations for external procedures. This ensures that critical long-running processes are not prematurely terminated by generic network security timeouts, while still allowing for the efficient reclamation of idle system resources.
Kerberos Constrained Delegation for DBLink
This feature enables Oracle Database links to continue working in Kerberos-authenticated environments that use Microsoft Active Directory, especially on Windows 11 / Windows Server 2025 systems where Microsoft’s newer Kerberos delegation constraints prevent the old ticket-forwarding behavior.
The feature prevents DBLink breakage for customers using Microsoft Kerberos authentication, removes dependence on Microsoft’s deprecated registry workaround, and protects critical customer deployments from functional regressions in widely used Windows identity environments.
Parallel Verification of Blockchain Tables
There is now a new PL/SQL stored procedure that performs parallel verification of blockchain tables.
This feature significantly speeds up verification of data integrity (detecting deletion or tampering) by parallelizing the process through a new PL/SQL stored procedure, allowing more frequent verifications with less impact on other database workloads.