Oracle announces general availability of Oracle Database 12c

The latest generation of the world’s #1 database, Oracle Database 12c, is available for download from Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

Oracle Database 12c introduces a new multitenant architecture that simplifies the process of consolidating databases onto the cloud; enabling customers to manage many databases as one – without changing their applications.

The foundation of Oracle Public Cloud Services, Oracle Database 12c can greatly benefit customers deploying private database clouds and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors looking for the power of Oracle Database in a secure multitenant model.

Oracle Database 12c, optimized on SPARC and Intel® Xeon® processors, is a major release. It introduces 500 additional features and is the result of 2,500 person-years of development and 1.2 million hours of testing, plus an extensive beta program with Oracle’s customers and partners.

Oracle Database 12c is also co-engineered with Oracle’s world record setting SPARC T5 servers.

An Oracle Database 12c Webcast featuring SVP Database Server Technologies Andy Mendelsohn and architect Tom Kyte is scheduled for July 10, 2013 at 9:00 am PT.

New Multitenant Architecture for Database Consolidation on the Cloud

Oracle Database 12c addresses the key challenges of customers who are consolidating databases in a private cloud model by enabling greatly improved efficiency and lower management costs, while retaining the autonomy of separate databases.

Oracle Multitenant is a new feature of Oracle Database 12c, and allows each database plugged into the new multitenant architecture to look and feel like a standard Oracle Database to applications; so existing applications can run unchanged.

By supporting multi-tenancy in the database tier, rather than the application tier, Oracle Multitenant makes all ISV applications that run on the Oracle Database ready for SaaS.

Oracle Multitenant manages many databases as one and can increase server resource utilization and reduce the time and effort required for database upgrades, backup, recovery, and much more.

The multitenant architecture provides virtually instantaneous provisioning and cloning of databases, which makes it an ideal platform for database test and development clouds.

Oracle Multitenant works with all Oracle Database features, including Real Application Clusters, Partitioning, Data Guard, Compression, Automatic Storage Management, Real Application Testing, Transparent Data Encryption, Database Vault, and more.

Automatic Data Optimization

To help customers efficiently manage more data, lower storage costs and improve database performance, Oracle Database 12c introduces new Automatic Data Optimization features.

A Heat Map monitors database read/write activity enabling Database Administrators to easily identify the data that is hot (very active), warm (read-only) and cold (rarely read) stored in tables and partitions.

Using smart compression and storage tiering, Database Administrators can easily define server managed policies to automatically compress and tier OLTP, Data Warehouse and Archive data based on the activity and age of data.

Defense in Depth Security

Oracle Database 12c includes more security innovations than any other previous Oracle database release; helping customers address evolving threats and stringent data privacy regulations.

New Redaction capabilities allow organizations to protect sensitive data such as credit card numbers displayed in applications - without changes to most applications. Sensitive data is redacted at run-time based on pre-defined policies and account session information.

Oracle Database 12c also includes new Run-Time Privilege Analysis, enabling organizations to identify privileges and roles actually being used, helping revoke unnecessary privileges and enforce least privilege with confidence that business operations will not be disrupted.
Maximum Availability for Database Clouds

Oracle Database 12c introduces several high availability features, as well as enhancements to existing technologies that enable continuous access to enterprise data.

Global Data Services offers load balancing and failover to globally distributed database configurations.

Data Guard Far Sync extends zero-data-loss standby protection to any distance – not limited by latency.

Application Continuity complements Oracle Real Application Clusters and masks application failures from end-users by automatically replaying failed transactions.
Efficient Database Management

Seamless integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control enables administrators to easily implement and manage new Oracle Database 12c functionality including the new multitenant architecture and data redaction.

The comprehensive testing features of Oracle Real Application Testing can help customers validate upgrades and consolidation strategies by concurrently testing and scaling real production workloads.
Simplifying Analysis of Big Data

Oracle Database 12c enhances in-Database MapReduce capabilities for Big Data through SQL Pattern Matching that enable immediate and scalable discovery of business event sequences such as financial transactions, network logs and clickstream logs.

Data scientists can better analyze enterprise information and Big Data with new in-database predictive algorithms and with further integration of open-source R with Oracle Database 12c.