I just finished reading the Oracle database 12.2 new features manual. I have postponed looking at 12.2 until now because for a long time 12.2 was not available for download even though it was available in Oracle’s cloud. Once the download became available I installed 12.2 in a test virtual machine but did not get any further than that. But, the first quarterly update of 12.2 is supposed to come out soon so I thought that I would at least read about the new features to start learning about it.
I wrote earlier about reading the Snowflake documentation. Reading the Oracle new features guide made me wonder about cases where both products are working on the same goals. Oracle 12.2 seems to have some new features for data analysis or analytics that relate to approximate results. Maybe these features are similar to Snowflake’s cardinality approximation routines? There are also a lot of new features related to JSON, which is a key Snowflake reality.
There are In-Memory database enhancements which is no surprise since this is a newer feature. Similarly, there are a ton of CDB and PDB database feature enhancements since multitenant was a major new feature in 12.1. Of course multitenant connects to Oracle’s cloud strategy so it is no surprise that Oracle included cloud enabling features in 12.2.
There are a ton of changes to Oracle features that I don’t use like Data Guard. I’ve seen some GGS but never used Data Guard. I recently saw a presentation at a user group meeting, I think it was at AZORA, where a presenter discussed the new 12c features of Data Guard. That user meeting plus the 12.2 new features manual together make me think that Oracle Data Guard has a massive amount of features that I am not aware of and not using.
I love the way Oracle keeps expanding their online operations. I think that 12.2 has a lot of features that would really help data warehouses. I’m also really excited about 12.2’s improvements in cross-platform migration. I have a couple of large databases that I need to migrate to Linux from HP-UX. 12.2 may have features that will help with these migrations. I’m really excited about the Data Pump parallel import of Metadata. It looks like our cross-platform database moves would need to load tens of thousands of objects. It would be awesome to do that metadata load in parallel. There are also a lot of enhancements related to Exadata. It would be nice to run a data warehouse on Exadata on 12.2.
Oracle’s sharding features make me think of Oracle trying to compete with other databases including cloud and open source systems. Oracle has everything but the kitchen sink all under one database. But, maybe less expensive databases with a subset of the features that Oracle has will work well in particular situations. It’s hard to know. I’ve been working with Oracle for 20 plus years so I think it helps to use a tool that I’m familiar with and there is no doubt that Oracle has many great features. But I wonder if Oracle is so expensive for some use cases that it makes sense to use less expensive and less capable software that fits specific needs.
I’m sorry if this post is kind of stream of consciousness writing. I reviewed the parts of the manual where I underlined something or made notes. I was pretty negative about Oracle 12.2 when Oracle announced that it would only be available in the cloud. I had a free cloud account that I could have used to mess with 12.2 but I knew that we were not going to use it until I could download it. The fact that 12.2 is available for download and that Oracle is starting to release quarterly patch updates motivated me to start looking at it. I have only just begun. I only read the new features manual. But, I am a lot more positive about 12.2 than before. It would be great if the cross-platform features were all that I hope that they are. That would help meet a real need. Anyway, I enjoyed reading about the new features in 12.2. It makes me want to get going with it to see if it can really help us.
Bobby
