What has changed in Oracle Database 19c?

Oracle Database 19c represents a significant milestone in the evolution of Oracle's flagship database product, offering a wealth of enhancements and new features that cater to the ever-growing demands of modern businesses for reliable, secure, and high-performance data management solutions. As the final release of the Oracle Database 12c Release 2 product family, 19c comes with long-term support, ensuring stability and extended support for users. This article delves into the key changes and improvements introduced with Oracle Database 19c, highlighting how it paves the way for a more efficient, secure, and innovative data management landscape.

Long-Term Support

One of the most critical aspects of Oracle Database 19c is its designation as a Long Term Support (LTS) release. This means Oracle will provide extended support, including security updates and bug fixes, for a longer period compared to its predecessors. This extended support ensures that businesses can rely on a stable and secure database environment for their critical applications over an extended period, without the need for frequent upgrades.

Enhanced Performance and Efficiency

Oracle Database 19c introduces several performance enhancements that streamline database processes and optimize resource utilization. Automatic Indexing, one of the standout features, harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to automatically manage and optimize indexes based on the changing access patterns of the database. This not only improves query performance but also reduces the administrative burden on database administrators.

Real-Time Statistics and High-Frequency Automatic Optimizer Statistics Collection further enhance the database's ability to adapt to workload changes, ensuring that the optimizer has access to the most current data statistics for query planning and execution.

Improved Security Features

Security is a paramount concern for Oracle, and Database 19c strengthens its commitment to safeguarding data. New security features include enhancements to Unified Auditing, which provides a comprehensive and integrated auditing capability, enabling fine-grained auditing of database activities. Additionally, Oracle Database 19c introduces stronger encryption algorithms and improved key management capabilities, fortifying the database against unauthorized access and ensuring data privacy.

Advanced Data Management

Oracle Database 19c improves upon its data management capabilities, offering more flexibility and efficiency in handling diverse data workloads. Hybrid Partitioned Tables, a new feature, allows for partitioning tables across in-database and external storage, such as Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and Big Data SQL. This enables efficient data access and management across different storage mediums, optimizing performance and storage costs.

The introduction of Active Data Guard DML Redirection allows read-write operations on standby databases, enhancing the database's availability and disaster recovery capabilities. This feature ensures that businesses can maintain operations even in the face of unforeseen disruptions, providing seamless failover and data protection.

Simplified Database Management

Oracle Database 19c aims to simplify database management and operational tasks. Features such as Database Replay, SQL Quarantine, and Automatic Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) enhancements help in proactively identifying and resolving performance issues, improving database reliability and service levels.

Furthermore, the management of Oracle Database 19c is made more straightforward with improvements to Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Database Configuration Assistant, offering enhanced automation and user-friendly interfaces for database setup, configuration, and monitoring.

Oracle Database 19c embodies Oracle's commitment to innovation, performance, and security in the data management space. With its extended support, performance optimizations, advanced security measures, and improved management features, Oracle Database 19c sets a new benchmark for enterprise database solutions. Businesses leveraging Oracle Database 19c can look forward to a more robust, efficient, and secure data management foundation, capable of supporting the dynamic and complex demands of modern digital enterprises. As we look to the future, Oracle Database 19c represents a crucial step forward in the journey toward more intelligent, automated and integrated database environments.