In today’s data-driven landscape, the ability to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Oracle, a pioneer in database technology, has taken a significant leap forward with the unveiling of Oracle Database 23ai, the next long-term support release of its flagship database product.

Table of Content

Introduction

Oracle Database 23ai is a game-changer, offering over 300 new features that seamlessly integrate AI capabilities into the heart of data management. With a focus on AI and developer productivity, this release empowers organizations to unlock the full potential of their data and build intelligent applications that drive innovation and competitive advantage.

At the core of Oracle Database 23ai lies AI Vector Search, a groundbreaking feature that enables you to leverage the latest generation of AI models to generate and store vectors of documents, images, sound, and more. These vectors can be indexed and searched for similarity, leveraging the existing analytical capabilities of Oracle Database. This powerful combination of AI and database technology opens up new possibilities for creating sophisticated, AI-enabled applications that can quickly and accurately process and analyze vast amounts of data.

But Oracle Database 23ai is not just about AI; it’s also about empowering developers to build the next generation of applications with ease. New features, such as JSON and relational development approaches, can be used interchangeably, simplifying the development process and providing developers with the flexibility they need to create modern, scalable applications.

For organizations with stringent regulatory or performance requirements, Oracle Database 23ai introduces new RAFT protocol support, making it easier than ever before to distribute or shard your database across multiple locations.

With significant improvements to SQL and PL/SQL, including new data types and language enhancements, Oracle Database 23ai empowers you to create or improve existing OLTP or analytical applications, unlocking new levels of performance and efficiency.

In an era where data security is paramount, Oracle Database 23ai reinforces its position as the most secure database in the industry, introducing new capabilities like SQL Firewall to control and monitor the execution of SQL statements against your database.

Oracle Database 23ai: New Feature Highlights

In the rapidly evolving world of data management, Oracle has once again raised the bar with the introduction of Oracle Database 23ai. This groundbreaking release is packed with cutting-edge features that empower organizations to unlock the true potential of their data, accelerate application development, and stay ahead of the curve. The key capabilities of the AI-infused 23ai release include:

1. Harnessing the Power of AI with Oracle AI Vector Search

One of the standout features of Oracle Database 23ai is the revolutionary Oracle AI Vector Search. This game-changing capability is designed specifically for AI workloads, allowing you to query data based on semantics rather than relying solely on keywords. With AI Vector Search, you can unleash the full potential of your data by leveraging advanced AI models to generate vectors for documents, images, sound, and more. These vectors can be indexed and searched for similarity, opening up new possibilities for intelligent data analysis and decision-making.

Additionally Exadata smart storage dramatically accelerates vector search performance.

2. Bridging the Gap: JSON Relational Duality

Oracle Database 23ai introduces JSON Relational Duality, a powerful feature that enables developers to access and update data transparently as either JSON documents or relational tables. This innovative approach eliminates the need for complex Object Relational Mapping (ORM) techniques, empowering developers to tap into the strengths of both JSON and relational data models seamlessly. With JSON Relational Duality, developers can leverage the simplicity of JSON while benefiting from the robustness and performance of relational databases.

3. Unleashing Real-Time Graph Analytics with Operational Property Graphs

Graph analytics has become increasingly important in today’s data-driven landscape, and Oracle Database 23ai delivers a groundbreaking solution with Operational Property Graphs in SQL. Developers can now build real-time graph analysis applications directly within the Oracle Database, leveraging its industry-leading security, high availability, and performance capabilities. This feature allows you to harness the power of graph analytics on your operational data, enabling you to uncover valuable insights and patterns that were previously hidden.

4. Streamlining Microservices and Cross-Service Transactions

Oracle Database 23ai takes microservices support to the next level by introducing new functionality that simplifies the implementation of cross-service transactions. With this enhancement, developers can seamlessly integrate microservices into their applications, ensuring data integrity and consistency across multiple services.

5. Enhancing Data Types and SQL Capabilities

Oracle Database 23ai brings a host of enhancements to data types and SQL capabilities, empowering developers to build more powerful and efficient applications:

• SQL BOOLEAN Data Type
• Direct Joins for UPDATE and DELETE Statements
• Unicode 15.0 Support
• SELECT Without FROM Clause
• GROUP BY Column Alias or Position

6. Supporting Wide Tables with Up to 4096 Columns

Database tables now support up to 4096 columns, a significant enhancement that simplifies the development of applications requiring large numbers of attributes, such as those used in machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios.

7. Improved Machine Learning Algorithms

Oracle Database 23ai introduces improvements to its in-database machine learning algorithms, making it simpler to categorize text and data while offering better performance and flexibility. These enhancements empower organizations to derive deeper insights from their data more efficiently.

8. Sharding Enhancements for Improved Data Distribution

New functionality in Oracle Database 23ai simplifies the creation and management of shard replicas, while new sharding models improve the distribution of data for shard keys with few unique values. These enhancements enable more efficient and scalable data management across distributed environments.

9. Schema Privileges for Simplified Access Control

System privileges can now be granted at the schema level, streamlining the privilege management process and making it easier to secure databases. This feature ensures that access to sensitive data is tightly controlled and managed.

10. Developer Role for Streamlined Application Development

Oracle Database 23ai introduces a new role that allows administrators to quickly assign developers the precise set of privileges they need to design, build, and deploy applications for the Oracle Database. This feature enhances developer productivity and ensures adherence to security best practices.

11. SQL Firewall for Real-Time Protection

Included in Oracle Database 23ai, the SQL Firewall provides real-time protection against common database attacks by monitoring and blocking unauthorized SQL and SQL injection attacks, regardless of the SQL execution path. This robust security feature safeguards mission-critical data from malicious threats.

12. Azure AD OAuth2 Integration for Seamless Authentication

Oracle Database 23ai offers new functionality that enables single sign-on to Oracle Database service instances or on-premises Oracle Databases from the Microsoft Azure Cloud. This integration streamlines authentication processes, enhancing security and user experience.

13. Unlocking New Possibilities with Innovative Features

In addition to these ground breaking capabilities, Oracle Database 23ai introduces a wealth of innovative features that empower developers and database administrators alike:

• Lock-Free Reservations: Reserve parts of column values without locking entire rows, enabling more efficient concurrent operations.
• Kafka APIs for TxEventQ: Leverage high-performance Transaction Event Queues (TxEventQ) with minimal code changes for Kafka applications.
• JavaScript Stored Procedures: Create stored procedures using JavaScript, tapping into the vast ecosystem of JavaScript libraries.
• Priority Transactions: Automatically abort low-priority transactions that block high-priority ones, ensuring optimal transaction throughput.
• Data Use Case Domains: Centralize and simplify data usage declarations, enhancing developer productivity and data validation.

Summary

Oracle Database 23ai is a testament to Oracle’s commitment to innovation and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in data management. With its powerful AI capabilities, developer-friendly features, and performance enhancements, this release empowers organizations to unlock new levels of insight, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

With 23ai, Oracle is aiming to make AI a core component of enterprise data management and application development rather than a separate silo. The ability to unify AI, JSON, relational, and other data models simplifies building intelligent applications on a single integrated data platform. Whether you’re a database administrator, developer, or data analyst, Oracle Database 23ai promises to revolutionize the way you work with data, combining the power of AI with the robustness and reliability of Oracle’s database technology.

FAQs

1. What is Oracle AI Vector Search and how does it work?

Oracle AI Vector Search allows you to query data based on semantics and conceptual meaning rather than just keywords. It uses advanced AI models to generate vector representations of documents, images, audio etc. These vectors are then indexed to enable fast similarity searches across your data based on conceptual content.

2. How does JSON Relational Duality benefit developers?

JSON Relational Duality lets developers work with the same data as either JSON documents or relational tables seamlessly. This provides the flexibility of JSON’s document model combined with the powerful querying and consistency of Oracle’s relational database. Developers don’t have to choose one model and can leverage the strengths of both on their data.

3. What are the advantages of Operational Property Graphs in SQL?

This new capability allows you to build real-time graph analytics applications on your operational data directly inside the Oracle Database. You get the benefits of graph queries and analysis while leveraging Oracle’s enterprise data management features like security, high availability, performance etc. It makes building graph-powered applications much simpler.

4. How does Oracle Database 23ai enhance machine learning capabilities?

The release includes improvements to Oracle’s in-database machine learning algorithms that make it easier to build text classification, data categorization models etc. The enhanced algorithms offer better performance, flexibility and simpler training processes compared to previous versions.

5. What security improvements are included in 23ai?

A key new security feature is the built-in SQL Firewall that monitors SQL traffic and blocks potential injection attacks in real-time regardless of the execution path. Additionally, system privileges can now be granted at the schema level for tighter access control. There is also Azure AD OAuth2 integration for secure SSO.

6. How does the new Developer Role simplify application building?

The new predefined Developer Role allows DBAs to grant just the right set of privileges to application developers for building database applications. Developers get all the access needed for design, coding and deployment workflows without excessive or insecure permissions.

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