Oracle CloudWorld: Oracle Unveils Database 23c Beta Supporting All Data Types, Workloads, and Development Styles

Oracle Corp. announced Oracle Database 23c Beta, the latest version of the converged database, supporting all data types, workloads, and development styles.

Database 23c, code named ‘App Simple,’ focuses on simplifying applications and development. Many additional innovations across the company‘s database services and products portfolio extend the firm‘s leadership in performance, security, and availability for mission-critical workloads.

Database 23c ‘App Simple’ delivers capabilities that enable developer productivity for applications that are written using JSON, Graph, or microservices, while also enhancing SQL to make it even easier to use and adding JavaScript as a stored procedure language. For example, Database 23c introduces a groundbreaking new approach called JSON Relational Duality for addressing the mismatch between how applications represent data vs. how relational databases store data. JSON Relational Duality simplifies application development by allowing data to be simultaneously used as application-friendly JSON documents and as database-friendly relational tables.

“Modern applications are built using new types of data such as JSON and Graph, new types of analytics such as machine learning, and new development styles such as microservices. The breadth and depth of data technologies used by modern applications can make developing and running apps increasingly complex,” said Juan Loaiza, EVP, mission-critical database technologies. “Oracle Database 23c ‘App Simple’ introduces game changing new technologies that make it dramatically easier to develop and run these modern apps.“

Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service

To enhance data protection for mission-critical Database services on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), the company also announced Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service, enabling organizations to address the challenges of ransomware, outages, and human errors more effectively. In addition, the firm introduced Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service which allows customers to configure, monitor, and manage the DR process for the full stack of technologies used to build applications – including middleware, databases, networks, storage, and compute from the OCI console.

“JSON Relational Duality in Oracle Database 23c brings substantial simplicity and flexibility to modern app dev,” said Carl Olofson, research VP, data management software, IDC. “It addresses the age-old object–relational mismatch problem, offering an option for developers to pick the best storage and access formats needed for each use case without having to worry about data structure, data mapping, data consistency, or performance tuning. No other specialized document databases offer such a revolutionary solution.” 

“With over 300 new features and enhancements, including JSON Relational Duality, Operational Graphs, Microservices support, real-time machine learning and support for new data types, the next generation Oracle Database 23c is poised to gain app developer mindshare and make it extremely simple to develop and run data-driven mission-critical apps,” said Holger Mueller, VP and principal analyst, Constellation Research. “Clearly Oracle has delivered on the ‘App Simple’ code name of its latest Database 23c, and it’ll undoubtedly be a ‘must see’ debut at CloudWorld.”

“Oracle Database 23c more than lives up to its code name – App Simple – by taking application development to unprecedented levels of task reduction, simplification, and automation,” said Marc Staimer, senior analyst, Wikibon. “Oracle Database 23c definitively ends the long running ‘relational vs. document’ debate with JSON Relational Duality delivering the best of both worlds. Data is stored as rows in relational format, while data can be accessed as JSON formats. Developers can operate on the same data without having to worry about data structure, data mapping, data consistency, or performance tuning.”

Developer productivity improvements:

• Database 23c brings new functionality to assist developers in building the next gen of mission-critical, high-performance database applications. As the only complete and simple converged database for developers, data engineers, and DBAs, it includes JSON Relational Duality, JavaScript stored procedures, property graph analysis of operational data, automated handling of distributed microservices transactions (known as sagas), enhanced Automatic Materialized Views, real-time SQL Plan Management, True Cache, ML-enhanced prediction of data statistics for optimizing SQL execution, and native replication of database shards. Additional functionality includes the ability to enable Kafka applications to run directly against Oracle Database and protection from unauthorized SQL via any execution path using the new SQL Firewall embedded in the Oracle Database. It is now available in beta globally for Oracle customers who complete the beta sign-up process.
• Oracle Database API for MongoDB provides MongoDB compatibility to Oracle
  Database for on-premises environments. The API enables MongoDB developers to build and run new MongoDB applications on Oracle Database using the MongoDB tools, drivers, and frameworks that they are familiar with, as well as the ability to migrate existing MongoDB workloads to Oracle Database without modifying their applications.

• GoldenGate 23c is certified with Database 23c and previous versions, and introduces new features that improve usability, performance, diagnostics, and security. Highlights include faster JSON replication performance, new replication support for blockchain and immutable tables, and application patching without downtime using Edition-Based Redefinition. In addition, OCI GoldenGate now supports 40+ new data connections from Oracle and non-Oracle sources across multicloud environments, including AWS and Azure, and new Stream Analytics for continuous data integration and data-in-motion analytics. 
• GoldenGate Free enables prospects, customers, developers, and students to use GoldenGate and its new user experience and entirely automated replication lifecycle for free. It is designed for development, devops, test, and production source or target databases of 20GB or less on OCI, on other clouds, or on-premises. 
• Autonomous Data Warehouse introduces capabilities enabling organizations to improve collaboration across teams by sharing data with the open-source Delta Sharing protocol and business models using in-database Analytic Views. Along with existing built-in support for Oracle Analytics and tools such as Tableau, a new Microsoft Excel add-in and a complete and embedded data integration tool with Transforms will be available. In addition, new Oracle Application Accelerators for Oracle E-Business Suite provide ready-to-use data models, KPIs, and data integration. 
• Oracle APEX 22.2 (preview) strengthens its position in low-code application development by introducing enhancements to progressive web apps to provide a virtually native mobile user experience. Also available is a new workflow approval component for integrating task management into APEX apps. In addition, developers now have access to out-of-the-box integrations with 3rd-party apps and data, providing a richer application development platform. Oracle APEX is a supported, no-additional-cost feature of Oracle Database and Oracle Autonomous Database, as well as a developer service on OCI. 
• Transaction Manager for Microservices Free enables use of distributed transactions in microservices-based applications deployed in Kubernetes. With Transaction Manager for Microservices, customers can create a global transaction that includes multiple microservices developed in various programming languages and on different application platforms. Transaction Manager for Microservices is now free for use by prospects, customers, developers, and students. 
• Tuxedo 22c provides enhancements for deploying Tuxedo applications (written in C/C++ or COBOL) in Kubernetes and cloud environments, as well as XA transaction interoperability with microservices deployed in Kubernetes using Oracle Transaction Manager for Microservices. It includes ready-to-use container images, sample Helm charts for various Kubernetes distributions, integration with native Kubernetes tools and environments, new HA enhancements, and stronger security. Used together, the combination of Tuxedo 22c and Transaction Manager for Microservices accelerates the mainframe modernization initiatives underway at many large enterprises. 

Continuous protection of mission-critical databases

• Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service provides secure backup and fast, predictable recovery for Oracle Database services and Autonomous Database running on OCI. It uses database-aware intelligence and automation to help protect transactions as they occur, reduces overhead on operational database services, validates database recoverability, and automates both backup and recovery processes. With this new service, organizations can help mitigate the impact of ransomware, outages, and human errors by restoring databases to the point-in-time just before the attack, outage, or error occurred. 
• OCI Full Stack Disaster Recovery Service allows customers to monitor and manage the entire DR process of their entire technology stack from the OCI console. With a single click, it manages DR for applications, middleware, networks, storage, and compute for a variety of DR topologies. It offers intelligent features to quickly create cross-regional relationships, DR plans, and performs comprehensive checks before a DR plan is executed to ensure success in the standby region. 

Oracle Autonomous Database support for applications

• Oracle E-Business Suite is certified to run on the Oracle Autonomous Database service on OCI, enabling organizations to further reduce database administration, optimize resource utilization, and lower costs. 

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