Oracle 9i

Oracle 9i is a version of the Oracle Database. The i stands for "Internet" to indicate that 9i is "Internet ready".

Also see Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g.

History and Support Status

Two releases are available:

Oracle 9i Release 1 (9.0.1)

Status: Desupported
Last patch-set: 9.0.1.4

End of Error Correction Support: 31-Dec-2003
End of Extended Assistance Support: 30-Jun-2006
End of Extended Maintenance Support: not offered

Oracle 9i Release 2 (9.2.0)

Status: Desupported, however, Oracle has waived their usual fees for extended support until July 2008. For more info, see http://www.oracle.com/features/hp/database-9i-support.html
Last patch-set: 9.2.0.8

Premier Support Ends: 31-Jul-2007
Extended Support Ends: 30-Jul-2010

Features introduced

The following new features were introduced with Oracle 9i:

Oracle 9i Release 2 (9.2.0) - May 2002

• Locally Managed SYSTEM tablespaces
• Oracle Streams - new data sharing/replication feature (can potentially replace Oracle Advance Replication and Standby Databases)
• XML DB (Oracle is now a standards compliant XML database)
• Data segment compression (compress keys in tables - only when loading data)
• Cluster file system for Windows and Linux (raw devices are no longer required)
• Create logical standby databases with Data Guard
• Java JDK 1.3 used inside the database (JVM)
• Oracle Data Guard Enhancements (SQL Apply mode - logical copy of primary database, automatic failover
• Security Improvements - Default Install Accounts locked, VPD on synonyms, AES, Migrate Users to Directory

Oracle 9i Release 1 (9.0.1) - June 2001

• Traditional Rollback Segments (RBS) are still available, but can be replaced with automated System Managed Undo (SMU). Using SMU, Oracle will create it's own "Rollback Segments" and size them automatically without any DBA involvement.
• Flashback query (dbms_flashback.enable) - one can query data as it looked at some point in the past. This feature will allow users to correct wrongly committed transactions without contacting the DBA to do a database restore.
• Use Oracle Ultra Search for searching databases, file systems, etc. The UltraSearch crawler fetch data and hand it to Oracle Text to be indexed.
• Oracle Nameserver is still available, but deprecate in favour of LDAP Naming (using the Oracle Internet Directory Server). A nameserver proxy is provided for backwards compatibility as pre-8i client cannot resolve names from an LDAP server.
• Oracle Parallel Server's (OPS) scalability was improved - now called Real Application Clusters (RAC). Full Cache Fusion implemented. Any application can scale in a database cluster. Applications doesn't need to be cluster aware anymore.
• The Oracle Standby DB feature renamed to Oracle Data Guard. New Logical Standby databases replay SQL on standby site allowing the database to be used for normal read write operations. The Data Guard Broker allows single step fail-over when disaster strikes.
• Scrolling cursor support. Oracle9i allows fetching backwards in a result set.
• Dynamic Memory Management - Buffer Pools and shared pool can be resized on-the-fly. This eliminates the need to restart the database each time parameter changes were made.
• On-line table and index reorganization.
• VI (Virtual Interface) protocol support, an alternative to TCP/IP, available for use with Oracle Net (SQL*Net). VI provides fast communications between components in a cluster.
• Build in XML Developers Kit (XDK). New data types for XML (XMLType), URI's, etc. XML integrated with AQ.
• Cost Based Optimizer now also consider memory and CPU, not only disk access cost as before.
• PL/SQL programs can be natively compiled to binaries.
• Deep data protection - fine grained security and auditing. Put security on DB level. SQL access do not mean unrestricted access.
• Resumable backups and statements - suspend statement instead of rolling back immediately.
• List partitioning - partitioning on a list of values.
• ETL (eXtract, transformation, load) Operations - with external tables and pipelining.
• Oracle OLAP - Express functionality included in the DB.
• Data Mining - Oracle Darwin's features included in the DB.

External links

• Oracle 9iR2 Documentation