For more information, see DBMS_CLOUD Package Format Options and DBMS_CLOUD Package Format Options for Avro, ORC, or Parquet.

When you create Autonomous Database deployments on Exadata Cloud@Customer, you can deploy to X10M Exadata Database Machine Base system.

See Exadata X10M Systems for system specifications.

On Oracle Public Cloud deployments, you can add an Autonomous Data Guard standby database that resides in a tenancy different from the primary database. The cross tenancy standby database can be in the same region or a different region (cross region).

A cross tenancy standby database can only be added using the CLI or the Autonomous Database REST APIs. This option is not available using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console.

See Add a Cross Tenancy Standby Database for instructions.

Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure supports Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage URI formats for commercial (OC1) realms.

See Cloud Object Store URI Formats for more information.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Zero Trust Packet Routing (ZPR) protects sensitive data from unauthorized access through intent-based security policies you write for resources, such as an Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster (AVMC) to which you assign security attributes.

Security attributes are labels that ZPR uses to identify and organize resources. ZPR enforces policy at the network level each time access is requested, regardless of potential network architecture changes or misconfigurations. ZPR is built on the existing network security group (NSG) and security control list (SCL) rules. For a packet to reach a target, it must pass all NSG and SCL rules and ZPR policy. The request is dropped if any NSG, SCL, or ZPR rule or policy doesn't allow traffic.

For Autonomous Database deployments on Oracle Public Cloud, you can apply ZPR security attributes to an AVMC while provisioning it or later.

See the following pages for more information:

• About Zero Trust Packet Routing (ZPR)
• Create an Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster
• Configure Zero Trust Packet Routing (ZPR) for an AVMC

Use DBMS_CLOUD.EXPORT_DATA to export data as text. The text format export options are CSV, JSON, Parquet, or XML.

See Export Data to Object Store as Text Using DBMS_CLOUD.EXPORT_DATA for more information.

You can use Dynamic Performance Views to:

• View real-time metrics on different wait events and wait classes.
• View historical snapshots of wait class metrics.
• View real-time, historical, and summary performance metrics data.
• View resource limits and current usage.

See Dynamic Performance Views for additional information.

Autonomous Database can interact with AI service providers. Select AI now supports OCI Generative AI and Azure OpenAI Service.

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.

The DBMS_PIPE package lets two or more sessions in the same instance communicate is available in Autonomous Database.

Singleton Pipe is an addition to the DBMS_PIPE package that allows you to cache a custom message. Using a Singleton Pipe you can send and retrieve a custom message and share the message across multiple database sessions with concurrent reads.

The DBMS_PIPE package also supports persistent messaging, where messages are stored in Cloud Object Store.

See Cache Messages with Singleton Pipes, Use Persistent Messaging with Messages Stored in Cloud Object Store, DBMS_PIPE Package (Singleton Pipes), and DBMS_PIPE Package (Persistent Messaging Pipes) for more information.

You can choose to update your Autonomous Container Database using an existing custom database software image with rolling or non-rolling maintenance methods.

See Schedule a Quarterly Maintenance Update for additional information.

Oracle Workspace Manager provides an infrastructure that enables applications to create workspaces and group different versions of table row values in different workspaces. Use Oracle Workspace Manager to version-enable one or more user tables in the database.

See Using Oracle Workspace Manager on Autonomous Database for more information.

On Oracle Public Cloud and Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments, you can use an elastic pool to consolidate your Autonomous Database instances, in terms of their allocation of compute resources, and to provide up to 87% cost savings.

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. Encryption and decryption during import and export can be performed using DBMS_CRYPTO or using a user defined function.

See Encrypt Data While Exporting to Object Storage and Decrypt Data While Importing from Object Storage for additional information.

On Oracle Public Cloud deployments, you can clone an Autonomous Database instance or its backup from one tenancy (source tenancy) to a different tenancy (destination tenancy). The cloned database can be in the same region or in a different region (cross-region) and both full and metadata cloning support cross tenancy cloning.

The cross tenancy cloning option is only available using the CLI or the Autonomous Database REST APIs. This option is not available using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.

Our documentation has been updated with a new article to provide a complete overview of Autonomous Database resources. This article answers all questions about Autonomous Databases, including what an Autonomous Database is, the requirements for creating an Autonomous Database, which database features can be defined or managed using the Autonomous Database resource, the tools available to Autonomous Database users, and provides related documentation to help you create and manage Autonomous Databases.

See About Autonomous Database.

You can integrate your on-premises Oracle Key Vault (OKV) with Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure deployed on Oracle Public Cloud and use the customer-managed keys stored in Oracle Key Vault to secure your critical data. See Create Autonomous Container Database for details.

Before you can use customer-managed keys stored in Oracle Key Vault, you must perform a number of preparatory configuration tasks as described in Prepare to Use Oracle Key Vault.

You can create Key Stores using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console to integrate your on-premises Oracle Key Vault deployment with Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure. These Key Stores let you create and manage your own the master keys using Oracle Key Vault.

See Create and Manager Key Stores for instructions.

You can configure an Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication and authorization to allow IAM users to access an Autonomous Database with IAM credentials.

As of this release, (IAM) authentication and authorization:

• Will be enabled on all the newly provisioned Autonomous Container Databases (ACDs) and Autonomous Databases by default.
• Cannot be used with Autonomous Databases configured with Autonomous Data Guard.

See Use Identity and Access Management (IAM) Authentication with Autonomous Database for more details.

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD ) users can now connect to an Autonomous Database deployed on Exadata Cloud@Customer using Azure OAuth2 access tokens.

See Authenticate and Authorize Microsoft Azure Active Directory Users for Autonomous Database for more information.

You can provision 23ai Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure on Oracle Public Cloud and Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments , allowing you to take advantage of all the new features that Oracle Database 23ai offers.

You can create TLS and Non-TLS database links from Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure to a target Autonomous Database using the DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN package sub-programs.

You can create database links from Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure to a target Oracle database that is either on a public endpoint or a private endpoint using the DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN package sub-programs.

Our documentation has been updated with a new article to provide a complete overview of Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster resources. This article answers all questions about Autonomous Exadata VM Clusters, including what an AVMC is, the requirements for creating an AVMC, which database features can be defined or managed using the AVMC resource, and provides related documentation to help you create and manage AVMCs.

See About Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster.

You can attach external NFS devices provided by the customer on an NFSv4 server to Autonomous Database, using the DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN procedures. Depending on the version of the Network File System you want to access, both NFSv3 and NFSv4 are supported.

You can use a presigned URL in any DBMS_CLOUD procedure that takes a URL to access files in Amazon Simple Storage Service, without the need to create a credential.

See Amazon S3 Compatible URI Format for more information.

Our documentation is updated with a use case demonstrating how to quickly configure your Autonomous Database resources on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure for developing proof of concept (POC) applications.

If you are looking to quickly create an Autonomous Database POC environment, see Use Case: Configure Autonomous Database for Proof of Concept (POC).

We have added a new article that demonstrates how to submit a request to increase your service limits using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console to add Exadata Infrastructure resources - Database Servers and Storage Servers to the tenancy.

See Request a Service Limit Increase for details.

When customer contacts are set, Oracle sends announcements, operational notifications, and unplanned maintenance notifications to the specified email addresses.

You can add email contacts while provisioning Autonomous Databases. You can also view and modify customer contacts for an existing Autonomous Database using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console.

See Manage Customer Contacts for more information.

You can choose the latest Oracle Database software version, its immediate predecessor, or a custom database software image as the Container Database software version while provisioning an Autonomous Container Database.

See Create an Autonomous Container Database for instructions.

You can create Autonomous Database software images and use them as standard images for provisioning Autonomous Container Databases.

See Create an Autonomous Database software image for instructions.

You can view and copy a list of one-off patches from the Autonomous Container Database Details page.

See Service Maintenance of Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure for more details.

You can customize your service maintenance preferences to skip patching a Release Update (RU) for one quarter. You cannot skip the maintenance updates for two consecutive quarters.

See Update Autonomous Container Database Maintenance Preferences for more details.

You can use DBMS_CLOUD_PIPELINE to create data pipelines for loading and exporting data in the cloud. This package supports continuous incremental data load of files in object store into the database, as well as continuous incremental export of table data or query results from the database to object store based on a timestamp column.

See DBMS_CLOUD_PIPELINE Package for more information.

You can use DBMS_CLOUD_REPO to use and manage cloud hosted code repositories from Oracle Database. This package is a single interface for access to Multicloud Code repositories and allows you to upload SQL files to Git repositories or install SQL scripts directly from Cloud Code Repositories. This package also allows you to use a Cloud Code Repository to manage code versions for SQL scripts and to install or patch application code from Git repositories.

Supported code repositories include GitHub, AWS CodeCommit, and Azure Repos.

See About DBMS_CLOUD_REPO for more information.

Our documentation is updated with a use case demonstrating how to configure an Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure to leverage its capabilities better.

See Use Case: Configure Autonomous Database with Reference Architecture for a comprehensive and recommended configuration that involves setting up separate development and production Autonomous Database environments.

You can connect your database applications or tools to an Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure without a wallet. Connecting an application without a wallet (TLS) provides security for authentication and encryption, and security is enforced using a security certificate that is trusted by the client operating system (OS).

See Prepare for TLS Walletless Connections for more information.

The PL/SQL package DBMS_CLOUD offers parallel execution support for bulk file upload, download, copy, and transfer activities, which streamlines the user experience and delivers optimal performance for bulk file operations.

You can create a text index on the Object Storage files specified at the location_uri location with the DBMS_CLOUD. CREATE_EXTERNAL_TEXT_INDEX procedure. The index is refreshed at regular intervals, for any new additions or deletions done with files on location URI.

See CREATE_EXTERNAL_TEXT_INDEX and DROP_EXTERNAL_TEXT_INDEX for reference.

Our documentation has been updated with a new article to provide a complete overview of Autonomous Container Database resources. This article answers all questions about Autonomous Container Databases, including what an ACD is, the requirements for creating an ACD, which database features can be defined or managed using the ACD resource, and provides related documentation to help you create and manage ACDs.

See About Autonomous Container Database.

Customers who have subscribed to Oracle Exadata Database Service or Autonomous Database on either Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure or Exadata Cloud@Customer can create and use Autonomous Database for Developers instances.

Autonomous Database for Developers instances are free Autonomous Databases that developers can use to build and test new applications.

With Autonomous Database for Developers instances, you can try new Autonomous Database features for free and apply them to ongoing or new development projects. Developer database comes with limited resources and is, therefore, not suitable for large-scale testing and production deployments. When you need more compute or storage resources, you can transition to a paid database licensing by cloning your developer database into a regular Autonomous Database.

Refer to Autonomous Database for Developers for more details.

Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure supports Shared Server Configuration for maintaining legacy applications designed without connection pooling. You can enable shared server configuration while provisioning an Autonomous Container Database.

For more details, see the Shared Server Configuration section in Special-Purpose Connection Features.

Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure lets you configure the following attributes to a value that is most appropriate for your database while provisioning an Autonomous Container Database (ACD):

• Database split threshold (CPU)
• Node failover reservation (%)
• Distribution affinity

This capability improves your resource management ability to either consolidate more databases or have the highest database availability.

See Create an Autonomous Container Database for more details.

You can use the DBMS_CLOUD.EXPORT_DATA procedure to export data from an Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure to a directory or cloud Object Store. The export options are CSV, JSON, or XML.

On Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments, you can enable Autonomous Data Guard and add a standby Autonomous Container Database (ACD) to ACDs provisioned already.

For more information, see Enable Autonomous Data Guard on an Autonomous Container Database.

Autonomous Database can interact with AI service providers including: OpenAI and CohereAI to provide access to Generative AI capability from Oracle Database that uses Large Language Models (LLMs). One way LLMs can work with Oracle Database is by generating SQL from natural language prompts that allow you to talk to your database.

See Use Select AI to Generate SQL from Natural Language Prompts for more information.

To get a list of AI profiles and their attributes created in your Autonomous Database or schema, you can use the DBMS_CLOUD_AI views.

See DBMS_CLOUD_AI Views for more information.

On Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments, you have the capability to send messages, alerts, or the output of a query from Autonomous Database to a Microsoft Teams Channel.

See Send Microsoft Teams Notifications from Autonomous Database for more information.

On Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments, you have the capability to send Slack notifications from Autonomous Database. This feature enables you to send messages to a Slack channel or share the results of a query to a Slack channel.

See Send Slack Notifications from Autonomous Database for more information.

With the rolling rotation of database SSL certificates, your existing database SSL certificate is not invalidated immediately after rotating it.

Within two weeks from the certificate rotation, you can connect to your databases using the Autonomous Database client wallet you downloaded before or after the certificate rotation.

After two weeks from the certificate rotation:

• The database wallet downloaded before the certificate rotation is invalidated and can not be used to connect to your databases.
• The database wallet downloaded within two weeks from the certificate rotation remains active and can be used to connect to your databases.
• Any new database wallet downloaded after two weeks from the certificate rotation can be used to connect to your databases.

Refer to Certificate Management for complete details.

You can get notified when your Autonomous Container Database's backup destination uses 80% of the storage space, runs out of storage space, has incorrect permissions set, or returns to a healthy state.

To subscribe to event notifications, see Use Events and Notifications to Watch Resource Activity.

Refer to Events for Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure for a complete list of events emitted by the Autonomous Database resources.

On Oracle Public Cloud, you can use the DBMS_CLOUD_NOTIFICATION procedures to send messages and query results as email.

See Send Email on Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure for more information.

On Oracle Public Cloud, you have the capability to send messages, alerts, or query results from an Autonomous Database to a Microsoft Teams Channel.

See Send Microsoft Teams Notifications from Autonomous Database for more information.

On Oracle Public Cloud deployments, you have the capability to send Slack notifications from an Autonomous Database. This feature enables you to send messages or share the results of a query to a Slack channel.

See Send Slack Notifications from Autonomous Database for more information.