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5 Management Solutions

Diagnosability

Parent topic: Management Solutions

Enhanced Diagnosability of Oracle Database

Diagnosability of database issues is enhanced through a new attention log, as well as classification of information written to database trace files. The new attention log is written in a structured format (XML or JSON) that is much easier to process or interpret and only contains information that requires attention from an administrator. Trace files now contain information that enables easier classification of trace messages.

Enhanced diagnosability features simplify database administration and improve data security.

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Parent topic: Diagnosability

SQL*Net Improved Diagnosability

Starting with Oracle Database 21c, a connection identifier is available for each network connection. The connection identifier uniquely identifies a connection in trace and logs of different network elements and helps in correlating diagnostic data from these elements.

When a SQL*Net connection has multiple hops, such as from a client to Oracle Connection Manager (CMAN) and then to a server, correlating diagnostic information from the existing logs and traces becomes difficult. However, with the availability of a connection identifier, you can now easily correlate diagnostics, track network data traffic, and resolve connectivity errors.

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Parent topic: Diagnosability

Manageability

Parent topic: Management Solutions

Persistent Memory Database

The Persistent Memory Database (PMEM) support feature enables you to place database files directly on non-volatile memory. The underlying file store is FsDirect, a pointer-switching PMEM file system that supports atomic writes of Oracle Database data blocks. The FsDirect PMEM file store provides the external interface for map and access the Oracle database directly in persistent memory.

Queries can read directly from PMEM without first copying data into the database buffer cache, avoiding data redundancy and unnecessary I/O.

Oracle Persistent Memory Database is ideal for providing high performance with small-scale databases such as those used in Microservices, Sharding, and Read Replicas. Oracle Persistent Memory Database delivers higher transaction rates and fast response-time, achieving unprecedented levels of performance for small-scale systems.

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Parent topic: Manageability

DAX-Enabled File Systems

You must use an XFS-based Data Analytics Accelerator (DAX) file system as the file store for the Persistent Memory (PMEM) database.

You can use a PMEM file store for database data files and control files. For performance reasons, Oracle recommends that you store redo log files as independent files in the file system.

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Parent topic: Manageability

New Database Initialization Parameters for Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP)

New database initialization parameters, DRCP_DEDICATED_OPT, MIN_AUTH_SERVERS, and MAX_AUTH_SERVERS, have been added to configure Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP).

MIN_AUTH_SERVERS and MAX_AUTH_SERVERS allow the number of processes used to handle session authentication for DRCP to be configured for optimal usage. Authentication server statistics can be viewed in V$AUTHPOOL_STATS.

With DRCP, when the number of application connections to the broker is less than the maximum pool size, a "dedicated optimization" makes DRCP behave like dedicated servers. With this optimization, DRCP tends towards a one-to-one correspondence between application connections and DRCP server processes even if those processes are not currently doing database work. Setting DRCP_DEDICATED_OPT to NO turns off the optimization and reduces the tendency of the pool to grow towards its maximum size until necessary. This helps keep the number of DRCP server processes small when statement execution concurrency is low, therefore reducing memory usage on the database host.

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Parent topic: Manageability

Multi-Mount DBFS Client

DBFS (Database File System) provides a file system interface for storing files/directories in the Oracle database. dbfs_client, helps in exposing a DBFS in a database user as a mount point for the OS. The current version of dbfs_client can service only the DBFS of a single database user.

Databases can have a number of PDBs each having their own DBFS that they use to store various files (e.g trace files, import dump, user files etc). There can be about 100 PDBs and hence a 100 DBFS to be serviced concurrently. In order to cater to this environment dbfs_client needs be able to service multiple DBFS owned by different users across databases. Currently a dbfs_client instance can service only one DBFS. Hence, to service 100 DBFS the same number of dbfs_client instances would be required. Currently in DBFS, there does not exist a single point of control that can manage all these different dbfs_client instances. This could make the management and monitoring of different client instances burdensome for database administrators.

This enhanced version of dbfs_client is capable of servicing DBFS of multiple database users. This means that dbfs_client can handle multiple mount points, each mount point services DBFS under one database user. This enhanced version of dbfs_client is referred to as MUMV (Multi User Mount Version) and the earlier version of dbfs_client is referred to as SUMV (Single User Mount Version). The new version of dbfs_client can be started in SUMV mode or MUMV mode. If started in SUMV mode, its behavior is the same as the earlier version.

DBFS provides a file system interface for storing files/directories in the Oracle database. Existing single-mount DBFS clients (dbfs_client) could mount only one user’s DBFS file system. DBFS therefore required multiple DBFS client processes to support multiple file systems on the same host’s DBFS file system. This enhanced DBFS multi-mode client can manage different mount points within a single DBFS client process. DBFS client with multi-mount support provides better ease of use and improved performance. Multi-mount DBFS client scales seamlessly to 100s of PDBs and DBFS client can be started as either MUMV (Multi User Mount Version) or SUMV (Single User Mount Version) mode.

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Parent topic: Manageability

Near Zero Brownout for Planned Maintenance

Planned maintenance and unplanned outages restart the database instances, but planned maintenance allows for preparation. Near Zero Brownout for Planned Maintenance reduces reconfiguration time for an instance targeted for a planned maintenance operation.

Near Zero Brownout for Planned Maintenance increases the availability of the database during online maintenance operations.

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Parent topic: Manageability

Oracle Grid Infrastructure SwitchHome

You can use the -switchGridHome option with gridSetup.sh to switch from one Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to another.

You can use the -switchGridHome option for patching and upgrading Oracle Grid Infrastructure. Use the -switchGridHome option to switch from the source Oracle Grid Infrastructure home to the patched Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. All Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Restart services start from the patched Oracle Grid Infrastructure home automatically.

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Parent topic: Manageability

Read-Only Oracle Home Default

Read-only Oracle homes, where all configuration data and log files reside outside of the read-only Oracle home, are the default option for Oracle Database installations and upgrades.

Read-only Oracle homes enable an easy, flexible, and software-image based deployment of Oracle software that can automatically and seamlessly be distributed across multiple servers. Read-only Oracle homes also enable patching and updating of Oracle Database without extended downtime, as patching simply means replacing a given set of binaries in a defined location.

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Parent topic: Manageability