• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 25, 2024

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.

23ai database is currently supported with the following limitations:

• 23ai databases can be created only on Autonomous Exadata VM Clusters (AVMCs) created on or after the launch of 23ai support, with the appropriate Tags. See 23ai Database Software Version Tag Requirements for details.
• Autonomous Databases with 23ai software version can not be cloned into an Autonomous Database with 19c version and vice-versa.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 28, 2024

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.

Refer to the following articles for more information:

• Create TLS Database Links from an Autonomous Database to another Autonomous Database
• Create Non-TLS Database Links from an Autonomous Database to another Autonomous Database
• DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN Package Reference

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 28, 2024

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.

Refer to the following articles for more information:

• Create Database Links from an Autonomous Database to a Publicly Accessible Oracle Database with a Wallet (mTLS)
• Create Database Links from an Autonomous Database to an Oracle Database on a Private Endpoint
• DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN Package Reference

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 14, 2024

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.

Refer to the following for more information:

• Attach Network File Storage to Autonomous Database
• Attach External File Storage to Autonomous Database
• DBMS_CLOUD_ADMIN Package

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 07, 2024

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.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 23, 2024

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 an Autonomous Database for more information.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 16, 2024

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.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 05, 2024

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.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 13, 2024

Customers who have subscribed to Oracle Exadata Database Service or Autonomous Database on either a Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure or Exadata Cloud@Customer can create and use Oracle 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 databases are limited in resources, so they are 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.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Decmber 05, 2023

By default, automatic backups are enabled for an Autonomous Container Database (ACD). However, you can now disable them while provisioning the ACD, and enable them anytime later. Once the automatic backups are enabled you can not disable them for an ACD. You can set the backup retention period for the backups between 7 to 95 days.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: Decmber 05, 2023

You can add resources to or remove them from an Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster (AVMC). This is called Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster vertical scaling.

This ability lets you scale up or scale down an AVMC by modifying the following resources:

• Number of CPUs per VM
• Number of Autonomous Container Databases
• Database storage

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 24, 2023

You can now choose to include or exclude a time-zone file update along with your quarterly automatic maintenance patches, either while provisioning an Autonomous Container Database (ACD) or for an existing ACD.

Updating the time-zone file would require complete downtime for the ACD and the associated Autonomous Databases. The downtime is dependent on the amount of data that is time-zone sensitive.

You can also schedule an on-demand maintenance to update RU (Release Update) along with the time-zone file or just the time-zone file for an ACD.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 24, 2023

You now have the option to choose between rolling or non-rolling maintenance methods to apply quarterly automatic maintenance patches. You can configure the maintenance method while provisioning an Autonomous Container Database (ACD) or for an existing ACD. The non-rolling maintenance method involves a full system downtime.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 10, 2023

You can monitor and track your Exadata resource allocation and usage across Autonomous Exadata VM Clusters (AVMC) and Autonomous Container Databases (ACD) with enhanced granularity and new visuals on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) console, in real time.

This release lets you get a comprehensive and clear picture of the compute and storage resources' allocation and usage at the AVMC and ACD levels from their Details page on the OCI console. Depending on your choice, you can view this information in a graphical or table view.

Understanding and knowing these details can help you optimize your resource allocation to Autonomous Databases and efficiently forecast your capacity needs.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 10, 2023

With this enhancement, you will be able to choose between ECPU or OCPU compute models while configuring your Autonomous Database resources.

During AVM creation, you will have the option to allocate CPUs to the AVM using either ECPU or OCPU. On ADB-C@C, where Multi VM is supported, you will also be able to size the AVM by assigning the number of ECPUs per Node and Memory per ECPU in the sizing widget. ACDs and ADBs will inherit the CPU type from their parent AVM. For example, if the AVM is configured using OCPU, the usage of the ACD and ADB resources in that AVM will be tracked using OCPU, such as Total/Available/Reclaimable/Provisionable OCPUs, and so on. There is no mixing of ADB CPU types inside an AVM.

• ECPU: An ECPU is an abstracted measure of compute resources. ECPU is based on the number of cores elastically allocated from a pool of compute and storage servers.

  While provisioning a new database, cloning an existing database, and scaling up or down the CPU resources of an existing database:

  • The CPU count defaults to 2 ECPUs.
  • For databases that need 2 or more ECPUs, you must specify the number of assigned ECPUs in increment of 1.
  • CPU over-provisioning is not supported on ECPUs. This applies to all ADB-C@C workloads.

• OCPU: An OCPU is a physical measure of compute resources. OCPUs are based on the physical core of a processor with hyper-threading enabled.

  While provisioning a new database, cloning an existing database, and scaling up or down the CPU resources of an existing database:

  • The CPU count defaults to 1 OCPU.
  • For databases that do not need an entire OCPU, you can assign OCPU count from 0.1 to 0.9 in increments of 0.1 OCPU. This allows you to over-provision CPU at the system level and run more databases on each infrastructure instance.
  • For databases that need more than 1 OCPU, you must specify the number of assigned cores as an integer. For example, you cannot assign 3.5 OCPUs to a database. The next available number of OCPUs above 3 is 4.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: September 13, 2023

Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer has been extended to support X10M system.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: August 22, 2023

The In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) stores tables and partitions in memory using a columnar format optimized for rapid scans. Oracle Database uses a sophisticated architecture to manage data in columnar and row formats simultaneously.

When you enable an IM column store, the SGA manages data in separate locations: the InMemory Area and the database buffer cache. For more information, see In-Memory Column Store Architecture.

With this enhancement, you can:

• Enable IM column store during creation or enable/disable IM column store on an existing ADB without any downtime or restarts as long as a minimum of 4 OCPUs are allocated.
• Select any memory ratio between 5%-70% and adjust this dynamically without any downtime.
• Alter or create new objects and specify they are stored in the IM column store.
• Manually scale up or down the OCPU for an ADB running In-Memory. The In-Memory size will adjust following the percentage specified and does not require an ADB restart

In-Memory Initialization Parameters

Several initialization parameters control the behavior of the IM column store.

• INMEMORY_QUERY: Specifies whether In-Memory queries are allowed.

• OPTIMIZER_INMEMORY_AWARE: Controls the optimizer cost model enhancements for Database In-Memory.
• INMEMORY_OPTIMIZED_ARITHMETIC: Controls whether NUMBER columns are stored in an In-Memory optimized format.

For more information, see:

• In-Memory Initialization Parameters in the Oracle® Database In-Memory Guide
• Initialization Parameters in the Oracle® Database Reference

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 11, 2023

Create Data Guard associations across regions within your tenancy. This will help you implement an effective disaster recovery plan to protect your data against natural calamities.

With this enhancement, you can:

• create Autonomous Data Guard associations between Autonomous Container Databases in two different control plane regions
• clone Autonomous Databases across regions, for example, clone an Autonomous Database from an Autonomous Container Database in Region A to an Autonomous Container Database in Region B

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 23, 2023

With this enhancement, you can:

• view tenancy's limits, quotas, and usage in the OCI console for Oracle Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer
• set Compartment quotas using Policy statements

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 18, 2023

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure comes in different infrastructure shapes to support workloads of different sizes. In this release, the capability of Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure has been extended to support Base shape.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 11, 2023

This feature lets you use your CA-signed server-side Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) or Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates while rotating the security certificates of your AVMC resource.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 28, 2023

This enhancement enables you to use Kerberos to authenticate database users centrally along with your choice of directory service for user management.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 07, 2023

With this enhancement, you can take an on-demand backup that lives outside of the defined ACD retention period. In a range of 90 days to 10 years, you can specify any number of days, months, or years.

• In Data Guard environments, long-term backups will happen on the primary or standby database wherever the action was initiated. So, you must make two separate requests to back up the primary and standby databases, if desired.
• A long-term backup will be available as long as the ADB is available either in a running or stopped state (not terminated).
• You can use a long-term backup only to create a new database. You cannot use it for an in-place/PITR restore.
• Long-term backups include all the necessary data files, archive logs, control file, and server parameter file (SPFILE) to restore the database on the same or different ADB-D infrastructure.
• You can delete a long-term backup whenever you want.
• Creating an ADB from a long-term backup will always be upgraded to the currently supported version (target ACD version).

  For example, a 5-year-old backup may not have 19c available and Oracle will upgrade the database to 23c. However, the ADB thus created will not guarantee that an application will work just because the data is available.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: February 15, 2023

Stack is a collection of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources corresponding to a given Terraform configuration. Each stack resides in the compartment you specify, in a single region; however, resources on a given stack can be deployed across multiple regions. For more information, see stack.

With this enhancement, while provisioning an Exadata Infrastructure, VM Cluster, Autonomous VM Cluster, Autonomous Container Database, and Autonomous Database, you can save resource configuration as a stack. Use the stack to install, configure, and manage the resource through the Resource Manager service. For requirements and recommendations for Terraform configurations used with Resource Manager, see Terraform Configurations for Resource Manager. To provision, the resources defined in your stack, follow the steps outlined in Creating an Apply Job.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: February 14, 2023

Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster node subsetting enables you to allocate a subset of database servers to new Autonomous Exadata VM Clusters to enable maximum flexibility in the allocation of compute (CPU, memory, local storage) resources.

Consider reviewing the points below that will assist you in subsetting Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster nodes.

• Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster node subsetting capability is available for new Autonomous Exadata VM Clusters in Gen2 Exadata Cloud@Customer service.
• All VMs across an Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster will have the same resource allocation per VM irrespective of whether the VM was created during cluster provisioning or added later by extending an existing Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster.
• Any Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster should have a minimum of 2 VMs even with the node subsetting capability. We currently do not support clusters with a single VM.
• Each Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster network is pre-provisioned with IP addresses for every DB Server in the infrastructure. One cluster network can only be used by a single Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster and is validated to ensure the IP addresses do not overlap with other cluster networks.

Maximum number of clusters across the infrastructure depends on the resources available per DB Server and is subject to the per DB Server maximum VM limit.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: February 07, 2023

Autonomous Container Database (ACD) is provisioned with the latest Oracle Database version and it is constantly patched with production fixes and the latest Release updates (RU) every quarter. When you provision an ACD, the new version update that is pushed to production becomes the default. You will not have the option of choosing a database version while provisioning an ACD.

With this enhancement, while provisioning an ACD, you can choose a database version of your choice.

Additionally, you can create an ACD using the previous Oracle Database version. If the latest database version supported for creating ACD is 19.15, then you can select Oracle Database version 19.14.

The enhancement also implements Oracle Application Name Tags for database deployments. Oracle Database deployments for an Oracle application may require specific database versions. Setting an appropriate application tag key in the Oracle-ApplicationName tag namespace while deploying an Autonomous Database will ensure that the certified database version is deployed for that particular application.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: February 07, 2023

With these enhancements, you can:

• Change the protection mode from Maximum Performance to Maximum Availability or vice versa on ACDs.
• Change Fast-Start Failover (FSFO) lag limit in increments of 1. Minimum: 5 and Maximum: 3600 seconds. Default: 30 seconds
• Convert physical standby to snapshot standby and vice versa

• Services: Database
• Release Date: November 15, 2022

• Services: Database
• Release Date: August 09, 2022

With this enhancement, you can clone an ADB from an ACD in one Exadata Infrastructure to an ACD in another Exadata Infrastructure within the same region.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 17, 2022

This feature enhancement enables you to specify the database character set and the national character set while creating an ADB.

• While creating an ADB, you can choose only the character sets supported. To get the complete list of supported character sets, use ListAutonomousDatabaseCharacterSets API.
• You cannot change the character set after creating an ADB.
• You can only set the character sets while creating an ADB. Character set selection is not supported for cloning (meta or full) or creating from a backup.
• The CDB will remain using AL32UTF8 for the database character set and AL16UTF16 for the national character set.
• Each ADB in an ACD can have different combinations of database/national character sets.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 10, 2022

Identify where the reclaimable OCPUs are located to reclaim them to create new database resources or for scaling automation when a certain threshold is reached.

You can create multiple AVMCs on an Exadata Infrastructure resource. The OCPUs that you allocate while provisioning the AVMC resource will be the Total OCPUs available for its Autonomous Databases. When you create multiple AVMCs, each AVMC can have its own value for total OCPUs.

At an AVMC or ACD level, the total number of OCPUs available for creating databases is called Available OCPUs.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 03, 2022

The length of the database name has been extended from 14 characters to 30 characters. Specify a user-friendly name that you can use to identify the database. The database name must contain only the permitted characters.

Review the following guidelines when selecting a database name:

• maximum of 30 characters
• contain only alphanumeric characters
• begin with an alphabetic character
• must not contain spaces

• Services: Database
• Release Date: April 12, 2022

Restore an Autonomous Database (ADB) backup to an Autonomous Container Database (ACD) on the same or a different Autonomous Virtual Machine (AVM) running on the existing or different Autonomous Exadata Cloud@Customer system.

Prerequisites and Limitations

• If you are using customer-managed keys, then the target AVM/ACD will require access to the source Oracle Key Vault (OKV) for the keys.
• The target AVM must have access to the backup destination of the source for the restore to be possible.
• You can only use the Full Clone option to create a database clone.
• You cannot use disk-based backups to create ADB instances from backups.
• Target ACD must be on the same or higher version as the source.
• One ADB restore per AVM. The limit applies only to the target AVM.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: March 15, 2022

Multi-VM Cluster supports heterogeneous computing environments in which Autonomous and Non-Autonomous VM clusters can coexist on an Exadata Infrastructure.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: January 18, 2022

With Fast-Start Failover (FSFO), the system automatically detects the failure of the primary Autonomous Container Database and then fails over to a designated standby Autonomous Container Database.

Automatic failover is optional while configuring Autonomous Data Guard. You can enable or disable automatic failover after configuring Autonomous Data Guard.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: September 28, 2021

Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer comes in different infrastructure shapes to support workloads of different sizes. In this release, the capability of Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer has been extended to support X9M-2 system.

For more information, see Available Exadata Infrastructure Hardware Shapes.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 15, 2021

Create Autonomous Databases with less than 1 OCPU count using fractional units from 0.1 to 0.9 OCPU and GB sizing between 32 GB and the maximum usable storage for your Exadata shape.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 15, 2021

Integrate your on-premises Oracle Key Vault (OKV) with Autonomous Data Guard enabled Autonomous Databases on Exadata Cloud@Customer and use customer-managed keys stored in Oracle Key Vault to secure your critical data.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: May 04, 2021

ADB-Dedicated maintenance involves patching Exadata Infrastructure(EI) Autonomous VM Cluster, and Autonomous Container Database (ACD).

• Services: Database
• Release Date: January 26, 2021

An access control list (ACL) provides additional protection to your database by allowing only the clients with specific IP addresses to connect to the database. You can add IP addresses individually, or in CIDR blocks.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: December 15, 2020

You can monitor the health, capacity, and performance of your Autonomous Databases with metrics, alarms, and notifications. You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console or Monitoring APIs to view metrics.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: November 17, 2020

Enabling Autonomous Data Guard on an Autonomous Container Database on dedicated Exadata infrastructure creates a standby (peer) Autonomous Container Database that provides data protection, high availability, and facilitates disaster recovery for the primary database.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: November 10, 2020

An access control list (ACL) provides additional protection to your database by allowing only the clients with specific IP addresses to connect to the database. You can add IP addresses individually, or in CIDR blocks.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: October 27, 2020

Integrate your on-premises Oracle Key Vault (OKV) with Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer to secure your critical data on-premises.

Oracle Key Vault integration enables you to take complete control of your encryption keys and store them securely on an external, centralized key management device.

• Services: Database
• Release Date: September 25, 2020
• Release Notes: ADB-D on Exadata Cloud@Customer: X8M-2 System Support

• Services: Database
• Release Date: July 21, 2020
• Release Notes: Exadata Cloud@Customer: Per-Second Billing for Autonomous Database OCPU Usage

• Services: Database
• Release Date: June 23, 2020
• Release Notes: Exadata Cloud@Customer: Oracle Autonomous Database