Changes in This Release for Oracle Database Installation Guide

New Features

• Oracle Home User Support for Database

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database supports the use of Oracle Home User, which can be specified at installation time. The Oracle Home User can be a Windows Built-in Account or a standard Windows User Account (not an Administrator account). This account is used for running Windows services for Oracle home. For enhanced security, Oracle recommends that you use a standard Windows User Account (instead of Windows Built-in Account).

  See Also:

  • "Recommended File System"

  • "Configuring Environment Variables for the Software Installation Owner"

  • "Managing User Accounts with User Account Control"

  • "Operating System Groups Created During Oracle Database Installation"

  • "Managing Oracle Home User" section in Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows

• Oracle ASM File Access Control on Windows

  This feature provides access control to separate the roles on Windows. With Oracle database services running as users rather than Local System, the Oracle ASM access control feature must be enabled to support role separation on Windows. In previous releases, this feature was disabled on Windows because all Oracle services run as Local System.

  See Also:

  • "Oracle Automatic Storage Management File Access Control" in Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows

  • "Managing Oracle ASM File Access Control for Disk Groups" in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

  • "Operating System Groups Created During Oracle Database Installation"

  • "Configuring Storage for Oracle Automatic Storage Management"

• Oracle Flex ASM

  Oracle Flex ASM enables an Oracle ASM instance to run on a separate physical server from the database servers. Any number of Oracle ASM servers can be clustered to support much larger number of database clients.

  Oracle Database instances can be set up as clients to Oracle Flex ASM where metadata is provided to the database instance by an Oracle Flex ASM instance that may be on a different node than the database instance.

  Note that Oracle Flex ASM can apply to a collection of databases, each one a single instance but running in a Flex ASM Cluster.

  See Also:

  Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information about Oracle Flex ASM

• Deinstallation Tool Integrated with Installation Media

  See Also:

  • "About the Deinstallation Tool"

  • "Change for Standalone Deinstallation Tool" in Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

• Simplified Oracle Label Security Installation

  See Also:

  • "Configuring Oracle Label Security"

  • Oracle Label Security Administrator's Guide

• Simplified Oracle Database Vault Installation

• Unified Database Audit Configuration

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), you can create named audit policies. An audit policy contains a set of audit options and it is stored in the database as an object. The advantage of creating a named audit policy is that it reduces the number of commands that are required to create a database audit policy, and it simplifies the implementation of an audit configuration for security and compliance with conditional auditing.

  This new audit policy framework is included with the database installation.

  See Also:

  "Auditing Activities with Unified Audit Policies and the AUDIT Statement" in Oracle Database Security Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c

• Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties

  See Also:

  • "About Job Role Separation Operating System Privileges Groups and Users"

  • "Extended Oracle Database Groups for Job Role Separation"

  • "Creating Job Role Separation Operating System Privileges Groups and Users" in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide

  • "Database Administrator Authentication" in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide

  • "Managing Administrative Privileges" in Oracle Database Advanced Security Administrator's Guide

• Oracle DBCA Support for CDBs and PDBs

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (Oracle DBCA) allows you to create either a non-CDB or a multitenant container database (CDB). You can create the CDB with zero, one, or more user-created pluggable databases (PDBs).

  You can also create a CDB with one PDB during database installation.

• Support for NFS Version in Direct NFS Client

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), you can specify the NFS protocol version to be used by the Direct NFS Client.

  See Also:

  "Enabling Direct NFS Client."

• Configuring the OraClrAgnt Service for Oracle Database Extensions for .NET

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), after installation you use the OraClrCtl.exe utility to create, start, stop, and delete the OraClrAgnt service.

  See Also:

  "Configuring the OraClrAgnt Service for Oracle Database Extensions for .NET."

Deprecated Features

The following features are deprecated in this release, and may be desupported in a future release. See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of deprecated features in this release.

• Deprecation Announcement for Oracle Restart

  Oracle Restart is a feature provided as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure. Oracle Restart monitors and can restart Oracle Database instances, Oracle Net Listeners, and Oracle ASM instances. Oracle Restart is currently 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.

  See Also:

  My Oracle Support Note 1584742.1 for more information about the Oracle Restart deprecation announcement and its replacement:

  https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1584742.1&displayIndex=1
  

• Change for Standalone Deinstallation Tool

  The deinstallation tool is now integrated with the database installation media.

  See "Deinstallation Tool Integrated with Installation Media".

• Deprecation of -cleanupOBase

  The -cleanupOBase flag of the deinstallation tool is deprecated in this release. There is no replacement for this flag.

• Windows NTS Authentication Using the NTLM Protocol

  The NTS authentication adapter no longer supports the use of the NT LAN Manager (NTLM) protocol to authenticate Windows domain users. Thus, the NTS adapter cannot be used to authenticate users in old Windows NT domains or domains with old Windows NT domain controllers. However, local connections and Oracle Database services running as a Windows Local User continues to be authenticated using NTLM. A new client-side sqlnet.ora boolean parameter, no_ntlm (default value is FALSE) allows you to control if NTLM can be used in NTS authentication. When the parameter is set to TRUE, NTLM cannot be used in NTS authentication.

Desupported Features

The following features are no longer supported by Oracle. See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of desupported features in this release.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

• CLEANUP_ORACLE_BASE Property Removed

• Oracle COM Automation

• Oracle Objects for OLE

• Oracle Counters for Windows Performance Monitor

• Raw Devices