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Introduction

Each chapter in this addendum represents a book in the generic server documentation set. However, not all of the books in the documentation set are represented by the chapters here. Rather, there are a number of the generic server books being released in their entirety due to the volume of new information.

Many new features, as well as changes due to bug fixes and developer feedback, are described in these chapters. Note that this addendum is not a summary of all the new features for this release. Instead, it is a collection of chapters, each representing a single book, that have been impacted by various features new for this release.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Summary of New Features

• How This Addendum Is Organized

Summary of New Features

The following list describes new features for this release:

• Enhanced Support of Internet Applications
  • Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache as the default HTTP listener for serving static HTML and stateless servlets. The database can now receive direct HTTP calls without the need for an application server or an outside listener.

• PL/SQL Gateway
  • An embedded PL/SQL Gateway is included, which provides native, out-of-the-box support in the Oracle server for deploying PL/SQL-based database applications on the web.

• Java Enhancements
  • Oracle8i JVM (formerly known as Oracle JServer), is Oracle's Java Virtual Machine in both the database and the new Oracle Internet Application Server (iAS). With its new features and containers, Oracle 8i JVM is a comprehensive enterprise Java platform that can be used to implement all layers of a typical enterprise Java application.

  • Oracle8i JVM Accelerator. The JVM Accelerator allows a Java program to be translated, compiled, and deployed as native C compiled code, thereby improving Java performance.

  • Shared Read Only Objects. Read-only objects can now be shared across sessions. In other words, all sessions now point to the same bits.

  • Oracle Servlet Engine. The Oracle Servlet Engine is Servlet 2.2 compliant and supports stateful Servlets where each Web client gets a database session.

  • Oracle JavaServer Pages Engine (JSPs). Oracle8i JVM embeds a JSP engine (JSP 1.1 compliant) within this release.

  • Enterprise Java Beans 1.1 Support. This release fully complies with the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) 1.1 specification, which mandates Entity EJB support (bean-managed and container-managed) and XML deployment descriptors (both standard and provider-specific).

  • Java Transaction API (JTA Support). This release supports the Java Transaction API (JTA) standard, including support for both server-side and client-side transaction demarcation.

  • Enhanced Support of JDBC and SQLJ. In this release JDBC drivers have complete production support for JDBC 2.0. This release adds support for XA Resource API, PL/SQL tables of scalars, and support for basic statement caching that minimizes cursor creation and teardown overhead.

• Enhanced XML Support

  XML as an enabling technology for internet application development has been significantly expanded. Components include:

  • XML Parsers, which enable programmatic access to XML documents supporting W#C DOM 1.0 and SAX 1.0 standards

  • XSL Processors, transforming any XML document to another or other text-based format such as HTML conforming with the W3C XSLT and XPath 1.0 standards

  • XML Class Generators, generating class files for the creation of XML documents from DTDs for use in applications, applets, and Java Server Pages

  • XML Java Beans, adding visual and non-visual XML functionality, including viewing, parsing, and transforming XML documents

  • XSQL Servlets, which produce dynamic XML or HTML documents from SQL queries over the internet with support for SQL operations and action handlers

  • In addition to the XDKs, this release also includes the XML SQL Utility (XSU) for Java and PL/SQL. This component enables applications to directly serve XML documents from the results of SQL queries.

• Security Enhancements
  • This release supports longer encryption keys for RC4 (256-bit) and Triple DES (Data Encryption Standard), providing more secure and robust security.

  • SSL encryption of HTTP connections and strong encryption for thin JDBC connections

• Managed Standby Enhancements
  • You can now use the DUPLICATE statement to create a standby database.

  • Recovery Manager (RMAN) backup and recovery is supported on a standby database.

  • You can now create a standby control file within RMAN.

  • You can now create a complete standby database without first creating an RMAN backup.

• Replication Enhancements
  • Replication no longer requires a quiesce to create a single master site or add objects to a single master group.

• Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) Enhancements
  • Raw partition tablespace size requirements have increased.

  • Procedures for configuring secondary instance connections are simplified.

  • Procedures for connecting Recovery Manager (RMAN) to target databases in OPS clusters have been modified.

  • There is a new parameter, OPS_INTERCONNECTS, which provides information about additional cluster interconnects for use in OPS environments. Oracle uses information from this parameter to distribute traffic among interfaces.

• NLS Enhancements
  • Unicode 3.0 is supported in the Oracle character sets UTF8 and UTFE. It is synchronized with ISO/IEC 10646-1 second edition, and includes an additional 10,307 code points.

  • The new Hong Kong government character set coding standard (HKSCS) is now supported.

  • A new utility, the Database Character Set Migration Utility, reports on the feasibility of migrating to a new database character set. It scans the data in the database (data dictionary and application data) and provides an analysis of the current data, highlighting data that will be replaced during the migration.

  • Users can now view Traditional Chinese data on Traditional Chinese clients and Simplified Chinese data on Simplified Chinese clients, regardless of the type of Chinese data (Traditional or Simplified) being stored on the database.

• Other Enhancements
  • Object DDL can now be viewed; DDL actions can be logged; database object reports are now available.

  • Resource Management Wizard is available to assist in configuring and managing the Database Resource Manager

  • Customization of the content and formatting of enhanced notifications (paging and email) is now supported.

  • The Paging Server can be configured from the Enterprise Manager console.

  • Multiple nodes can be refreshed at the same time from the Oracle Enterprise Manager console.

  • New interMedia Audio, Image, and Video Java classes and Visual Information Retrieval Java classes are provided. interMedia Audio, Image, and Video and Visual Information Retrieval have been enhanced to support image, audio, and video export from a database to a file.

  • New interMedia Locator generic geocoding interface to third-party geocoding software for batch geocoding is provided.

  • Oracle Spatial has been enhanced to support projection management (coordinate systems), linear referencing, and R*tree indexing.

  • Oracle Internet Directory has been enhanced to support the use of different algorithms for encrypting directory passwords.

  • Oracle Objects for OLE includes full support for Unicode (UTF8), a new Code Wizard for Stored Procedures to speed development time, and execution of SQL and PL/SQL statements in non-blocking (asynchronous) modes.

How This Addendum Is Organized

This book contains chapters that represent specific books in the Oracle generic documentation set. Specifically, each chapter represents a specific book, and contains new features that would appear in that book if it were released in its entirety. For example, all of the new information that would appear in Net8 Administrator's Guide for this release appears in Chapter 5, "Net8" of this addendum.

The following chapters (or books) are included in this addendum:

Chapter 1, "Introduction" briefly describes the organization of this book and release 8.1.7 documentation sources.

Chapter 2, "interMedia Text" describes the new and updated features for interMedia Text for release 8.1.7.

Chapter 3, "New Character Set Scanner Utility" introduces the Character Set Scanner Utility, a National Language Support utility in release 8.1.7 for checking data before migrating character sets.

Chapter 4, "Oracle Parallel Server"describes the changes to Oracle Parallel Server for release 8.1.7.

Chapter 5, "Net8" describes new and changed features for Net8 for this release.

Chapter 6, "PL/SQL Supplied Packages" describes new packages for this release.

Chapter 7, "Recovery Manager" new features and changes for Recovery Manager.

Chapter 8, "Reference" includes parameters, data dictionary views, and dynamic performance views that have been revised to include new features or changes as a result of documentation corrections.

Chapter 9, "Replication"describes new features in Oracle replication. This chapter also describes changes to existing replication features, in addition to documentation additions and corrections.

Chapter 10, "Replication Management API Reference" includes changes to the DBMS_REPCAT_INSTANTIATE and DBMS_REPCAT_RGT packages as well as some documentation additions.

Chapter 11, "Oracle Label Security Error Messages" includes all new and revised Oracle Label Security error messages for this release.

Chapter 12, "Standby Database" describes new and changed features for standby databases for this release.

Chapter 13, "Using Oracle Trace" describes changes to Oracle Trace.

Other Books Being Released for 8.1.7

In addition to the chapters in this addendum, the Master Index and the following books have been revised in their entirety:

Oracle8i Server and SQL*Plus

• Oracle8i Migration

• Oracle8i SQL Reference

• SQL*Plus Getting Started for Windows

• SQL*Plus Quick Reference

• SQL*Plus User's Guide and Reference

Oracle8i Server Application Development

• Oracle8i Application Developer's Guide - XML

• Oracle8i Supplied Java Packages Reference

• Oracle8i XML Reference

Oracle8i Directory, Networking and Security

• Oracle Advanced Security Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Internet Directory Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Internet Directory Application Developer's Guide

Oracle8i interMedia, Spatial, Time Series, and Visual Information Retrieval Options

• Oracle Spatial User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle Visual Information Retrieval User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle Visual Information Retrieval Java Classes User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle interMedia Audio, Image, and Video User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle interMedia Locator User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle interMedia Audio, Image, and Video Java Classes User's Guide and Reference

Oracle8i Integration Server

• Oracle Integration Server Overview

• Oracle Workflow Guide

• Oracle Message Broker Administrator's Guide

Oracle8i Java Documentation

• Oracle8i Java Tools Reference

• Oracle8i Java Developer's Guide

• Oracle JavaServer Pages Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle8i Enterprise JavaBeans Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle8i CORBA Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle8i JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle8i SQLJ Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle8i Oracle Servlet Engine User's Guide

Oracle Enterprise Manager

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Concepts Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Configuration Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Messages Manual

• Oracle Intelligent Agent User's Guide

• Oracle SNMP Support Reference Guide