Changes In This Release for Oracle Real Application Clusters

Standard Edition Replacement

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1(12.1.0.2), Standard Edition 2 (SE2) replaces Standard Edition. Standard Edition 2 can run on systems with up to two sockets and can support a two-node Oracle RAC cluster.

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Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC Support for the Diagnosability Framework

The Diagnosability Framework enables Oracle products to use a standardized and simplified way of storing and analyzing diagnosability data.

See Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide for information about locating Oracle RAC trace files.

Automatic Installation of Grid Infrastructure Management Repository

The Grid Infrastructure Management Repository is automatically installed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2).

IPv6 Support for Public Networks

Oracle RAC 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2) on Windows supports IPv6-based public IP and VIP addresses.

IPv6-based IP addresses have become the latest standard for the information technology infrastructure in today's data centers. With this release, Oracle RAC and Oracle Grid Infrastructure support this standard. You can configure cluster nodes during installation with either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses on the same network. Database clients can connect to either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. The Single Client Access Name (SCAN) listener automatically redirects client connects to the appropriate database listener for the IP protocol of the client request.

See Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide.

Database Upgrade Automation Using DBUA

There are three areas that are being enhanced for upgrade ease-of-use. First, in the pre-upgrade phase, the existing manual steps are eliminated and give more explicit advice or even generate a fixup script to find issues identified in the pre-upgrade phase. Second, in the post-upgrade phase, there is a post-upgrade health check that indicates that the upgrade was successful. Finally, partner documents (such as SAP) and major customer upgrade documents are used to further identify manual steps that may be automated and generalized to a wider customer base.

Automating the upgrade process provides major improvements in usability and ease-of-use. There is also better integration of database upgrade with Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster and Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control.

See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide.

Oracle Home User Support for Oracle RAC on Windows

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database supports the use of an Oracle Home User, which can be specified at installation time. The Oracle Home User is associated with a Windows domain user. The Windows domain user should be a standard (non-Administrator) account to ensure that the Oracle Home User has a limited set of privileges, thus ensuring that the Oracle Database services have only those privileges required to run Oracle products.

Windows Administrator user privileges are still required to perform Oracle software maintenance tasks including install, upgrade, patching and so on. Oracle Database administrative tools have been enhanced to ask for the password of the Oracle Home User, if needed. In Oracle RAC environments, you can store the password for the Oracle Home User in a secure wallet. If such a wallet exists, then the Oracle Database administrative tools automatically use the password from the wallet and do not require the user to enter the password for the Oracle Home User.

See Oracle Database Platform Guide for Microsoft Windows.

Oracle Home User Control Utility

This release introduces a new Windows utility called Oracle Home User Control. This is a command line tool that displays the Oracle Home User name associated with the current Oracle Home. This utility also enables you to modify the Windows Services used by Oracle to use a new password when the password for Oracle Home User is changed.

Oracle ACFS Auditing and Support for Importing Auditing Data into Oracle Audit Vault Server

This feature provides auditing for Oracle ACFS security and encryption. In addition, this feature also generates an XML file containing Oracle ACFS audit trail data which can be imported by Oracle Audit Vault Server.

See Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide.

DBCA Support for Multitenant Container Database and Pluggable Database Configurations

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

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

See "Introduction to Pluggable Databases" in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c

Oracle Database 12c introduces Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express (Oracle EM Express), a web management product built into Oracle Database without any need for special installation or management. Using Oracle EM Express, you can perform administrative tasks such as managing user security, and managing database memory and storage. You can also view performance and status information about your database.

See Oracle Database 2 Day DBA for information about Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express.

Policy-Based Cluster Management and Administration

Oracle Grid Infrastructure allows running multiple applications in one cluster. Using a policy-based approach, the workload introduced by these applications can be allocated across the cluster using a policy. In addition, a policy set enables different policies to be applied to the cluster over time as required. Policy sets can be defined using a web-based interface or a command-line interface.

Hosting various workloads in the same cluster helps to consolidate the workloads into a shared infrastructure that provides high availability and scalability. Using a centralized policy-based approach allows for dynamic resource reallocation and prioritization as the demand changes.

See Oracle Clusterware Administration and Deployment Guide.

Simplified Oracle Database Vault Installation

Oracle Database Vault installs by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. You can also configure, enable, or disable Oracle Database Vault after completing the Oracle Database installation, either by using Oracle DBCA, or by running SQL statements.

See Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for your platform and "Managing Administrative Privileges" in Oracle Database Security Guide.

Simplified Oracle Label Security Installation

Oracle Label Security installs by default as part of the Oracle Database installation. You can also configure Oracle Label Security after the Oracle Database installation using Oracle DBCA.

See Oracle Label Security Administrator's Guide.

Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties

Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) provides support for separation of administrative duties for Oracle Database by introducing task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges that do not require the SYSDBA administrative privilege. These new privileges are: SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, and SYSKM for encryption key management.

See Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for your platform and "Managing Administrative Privileges" in Oracle Database Security Guide.

Unified Database Audit Configuration

Starting with Oracle Database 12c, you can create named audit policies. An audit policy contains a set of audit options, which 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 "Auditing Activities with Unified Audit Policies and the AUDIT Statement" in Oracle Database Security Guide.

Single-letter SRVCTL command-line interface (CLI) options

All SRVCTL commands have been enhanced to accept full-word options instead of the single-letter options. All new SRVCTL command options added in this release support full-word options, only, and do not have single-letter equivalents. The use of single-letter options with SRVCTL commands might be desupported in a future release.

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.

Standalone Deinstallation Tool

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

See Section 7.3.1, "About the Deinstallation Tool."

The -cleanupOBase flag of the deinstallation tool

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

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express replaces Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control.

A deinstall option using Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) replaces the standalone deinstall utility.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

CLEANUP_ORACLE_BASE property removed

Deinstall standalone utility

Oracle Counters for Windows Performance Monitor

Oracle Cluster File System for Windows (OCFS for Windows)

LREG (listener registration process) replaces the PMON (process monitor) for notifying listeners about instances, services, handlers and endpoints.

Oracle RAC is supported on Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2.