Changes in This Release for Oracle Database Net Services Reference

This preface describes the new networking features of Oracle Database 12c and provides pointers to additional information. The following topic is included in this chapter:

Changes in Oracle Net Services 12c Release 1 (12.1)

The following are changes in Oracle Database Net Services Reference for Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1):

New Features

The following are the new features in Oracle Net Services:

  • Larger Session Data Unit Sizes

    Oracle Net supports large session data unit (SDU) sizes, with a new upper limit of 2 MB. The larger SDU size can be used to achieve better utilization of available network bandwidth in networks that have high bandwidth delay products and host resources, according to application characteristics.

    See Also:

    Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide for information about configuring SDU

  • Advance Network Compression

    Advanced Network Compression is another new feature that reduces the amount of data transmitted over the network. New parameters for the sqlnet.ora file enable compression and selection of the preferred compression level. Advanced Network Compression is available as part of Advanced Compression Option.

    See Also:

    "SQLNET.COMPRESSION", "SQLNET.COMPRESSION_LEVELS", and "SQLNET.COMPRESSION_THRESHOLD"

  • Terminated Client Detection

    Terminated client detection has been enhanced to reduce the amount of time taken to detect terminated connections. The SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME parameter must be set in the sqlnet.ora file to detect terminated clients. If the system supports TCP keepalive tuning, then Oracle Net Services automatically uses the enhanced detection model, and tunes the TCP keepalive parameters.

  • Intelligent Client Connection

    This feature reduces the priority of connection attempts to unresponsive nodes in the address string of connect descriptor. No configuration changes are required to use this feature.

  • Incident Generation for Process Failures

    In case of a process failure, an incident is generated for the following Oracle Net Services components:

    • Oracle Net Listener

    • Listener control utility (LSNRCTL)

    • Connection Manager Administration (CMADMIN)

    • Oracle Connection Manager gateway (CMGW)

    An incident includes the call stack as well as diagnostic information. Incident generation works with Automatic Diagnostic Repository (ADR) to organize the dump information for critical errors into incidents. If ADR is disabled, then incident generation is also disabled.

  • Valid Node Checking for Registration

    Oracle Net Listener allows screening of service registration requests from database instances. A database instance is allowed to register services if the instance is running on a valid node. Database administrators specify a list of valid nodes and excluded nodes. The list of valid nodes specifies hosts and subnets from which instances can register services with the listener. The list of excluded nodes specifies hosts and subnets from which instances are not allowed to register services with the listener. The database administrator can also disable valid node checking.

    By default, valid node checking for registration (VNCR) is enabled, and registration is allowed from instances running on the local host. Subnets or remote hosts need to be configured in the list of valid nodes. This configuration is performed automatically for Single Client Access Name (SCAN) listeners as part of an Oracle Real Application Clusters installation.

    See Also:

    "REGISTRATION_INVITED_NODES_listener_name", "REGISTRATION_EXCLUDED_NODES_listener_name", and "VALID_NODE_CHECKING_REGISTRATION_listener_name"

Deprecated Features

The following features are being deprecated in Oracle Database. This is based on an effort to streamline configuration and use of Oracle Database.

  • NT LAN Manager (NTLM) protocol for domain authentication

    NTLM domain authentication has been deprecated from the Oracle Windows adapter. Only Kerberos authentication is used for the NTS adapter.

    NTLM is still used for local user authentication, as well as in the case in which the database service runs as a local user.

  • Oracle Restart

    Oracle Restart is provided as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure. Oracle Restart monitors and can restartOracle Database instances, Oracle Net Listeners, and Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instances. Oracle Restart is restricted to manage single instance Oracle Databases and Oracle ASM instances only, and is subject to desupport in future releases. Oracle continues to provide Oracle ASM as part of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation for Standalone and Cluster deployments. For additional information about the Oracle Restart deprecation announcement and its replacement, see My Oracle Support note 1584742.1.

The following parameter has been deprecated:

Desupported Features

Some features previously described in this book are desupported in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1). Refer to Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of desupported features.