Oracle 21c is Available and Oracle 21c New Features

Mehmet Salih Deveci December 12, 2020 Leave a comment

I will explain Oracle 21c is Available and Oracle 21c New Features in this post. Let’s review the Oracle 21c New Features .

Oracle 21c New Features

Oracle has released 21c after Oracle 20c. Before Oracle 18c, Oracle has released 12c, 11g and 10g and so on.

Oracle 21c New features are as follows.

Blockchain Tables
AutoML
Multilingual Engine – JavaScript Execution in the Database
Binary JSON Data Type
Per-PDB Data Guard Physical Standby (aka Multitenant Data Guard)
Per-PDB GoldenGate Change Capture
Self-Managing In-Memory
In-Memory Hybrid Columnar Scan
In-Memory Vector Joins with SIMD
Sharding Advisor Tool
Property Graph Visualization Studio
Automatic Materialized Views
Automatic Zone Maps
SQL Macros
Gradual Password Rollover

Oracle was released new major version in a every 3-5 years until Oracle 12c.

But now Oracle has started to release new major version number every year with 18c 🙂

Oracle 21c release date

Oracle has released 21c at the December 8, 2020.

Oracle 21c Documentation

Oracle has also published 21c’s documentation. You can access Oracle 21c documentation on IT Tutorial and Docs Oracle using the following link.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/21/nfcon/index.html

Which Releases of Oracle support the Direct Upgrade to Oracle 21c ?

Oracle 21c supports the minimum Oracle 12.2 version for direct upgrade.

Oracle Database 12.2.0.1
Oracle Database 18c
Oracle Database 19c

Oracle Database 21c for on-prem platforms (Exadata, Linux, and Windows) will be in 2021.

Oracle Database 21c is the latest Innovation Release. It is initially available on Oracle Autonomous Database Free Tier and Oracle Database Cloud Service.

Oracle announce that Oracle 21c will NOT be a Long Term Support release but an Innovation Release instead.

Oracle 21c Downloads

You can access Oracle 21c Clients and database setups from the following link.

https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oracle21c-linux-downloads.html

Oracle Patching End Dates for Roadmap

Release	Patching End Date	Notes and Exceptions

Oracle 21c Innovation Release	June 30, 2023	Error Correction / Patching is available until June 30, 2023. 21c is not eligible for Extended Support (ES).
19c Long Term Release	April 30, 2024 with no ES/ULA April 30, 2027 with ES/ULA	Premier Support (PS) ends April 30, 2024, Extended Support (ES) fees will be required beginning May 01, 2024 through April 30, 2027 Error Correction / Patching is available through April 30, 2027 with paid ES. Without paid ES, patching is only available until April 30, 2024
18c Innovation Release	Jun 30, 2021	Error Correction / Patching is available until Jun 30, 2021 18c is not eligible for Extended Support (ES)
12.2.0.1	March 31, 2022 (Limited Error Correction from Dec 1, 2020 through March 31, 2022)	Error Correction / Patching is available until Nov 30, 2020 Limited Error Correction (Sev 1 and Security Updates only) See Note 161818.1 for details. 12.2.0.1 is not eligible for Extended Support (ES)
12.1.0.2 Terminal Release	Jul 31, 2022 with paid ES, ULA, or EBS waiver	Premier Support (PS) ended Jul 31, 2018 and one year of free Extended Support (ES) was in effect until July 31, 2019. ES fees or a ULA was required beginning 01-Aug-2019 through 31-Jul-2022. Without paid ES or ULA, patching ends 31-Jul-2019. We have a global ES fee waiver in place for E-Business customers, see details and dates of expiration see: Extended Support Fee Waiver for Oracle Database 12.1 and 11.2 for Oracle E-Business Suite (Doc ID 2522948.1) or Technical Support Policy Document. * One additional year (01-Aug-2021 through 31-July-2022) has been added to the 12.1.0.2 DB Extended Support time frame with the following exceptions: For Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, the patching end date (Error Correction end date) is still July 31, 2021.
12.1.0.1	Aug 31, 2016	Error Correction / Patching has ended for this release 12.1.0.1 is not eligible for Extended Support (ES) 12.1.0.1 was the last release of Standard Edition (SE) and Standard Edition One (SE1)
11.2.0.4 Terminal Release for 11.2	Dec 31, 2020 (with paid Extended Support or ULA Extended Support or EBS Waiver) Dec 31, 2021 (with Market Driven Support for DB Cloud Services listed on the right) Dec 31, 2022 (with Market Driven Support (on-Premises only)) Dec 31, 2021 for the OpenVMS platform	Premier Support (PS) ended 31-Jan-2015 and one year of free Extended Support (ES) was in effect until Dec 31, 2018. ES fees or a ULA was required beginning Jan 1, 2019 through Dec 31, 2020. At the end of ES, Market Driven Support (MDS) will be available for two additional years. See https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/ds-mds-database-11g-r2.pdf Oracle has a global Extended Support Fee waiver in place for E-Business customers, see details and dates of expiration see: Extended Support Fee Waiver for Oracle Database 12.1 and 11.2 for Oracle E-Business Suite (Doc ID 2522948.1) or Technical Support Policy Document. Gen 1 and Gen 2 ExaCC, OCC DBCS, OCI DBCS,OCI ExaCS and ODA will have 3 additional months of Extended Support. The end of Extended Support for 11.2.0.4 databases on these platforms is: 31-March 2021. New instances can be created up until the end of extended support; however, Oracle makes no commitment that any 11.2.0.4 DBCS instances will continue to run after the end of Support. Market Driven Support is only available until Dec 31, 2021 for the following Database Cloud Services: Gen 1 and Gen 2 ExaCC, OCC DBCS, OCI DBCS, OCI ExaCS. New instances can be created up until the end of Market Driven Support (Dec 31, 2021). Oracle makes no commitment that any 11.2.0.4 DBCS instances will continue to run after the end of MDS support. Market Driven Support is not available for OCI-C DBCS and OCI-C ExaCS. 11.2.0.4 is the terminal release on OpenVMS. During calendar year 2021, customer will receive Severity 1 Fixes and Security Updates for no additional fees beyond standard Premier Support costs. Coverage does not extend to new certifications, third-party products, or any Java/JDK functionality including Java components embedded in the database. Coverage also excludes any updates related to cryptography and network encryption. This offering does

Oracle Database Release Roadmap

There are two types of Oracle Database releases: Long Term Release and Innovation Release.

Long Term Release:

Oracle Database Long Term Releases are ideal for use cases that benefit from less frequent upgrades to newer releases. Long Term Releases offer the highest level of stability and the longest length of error correction support. These releases have 5 years of Premier Support followed by 3 years of Extended Support. When combined with Extended Support, customers typically have almost 4 years to upgrade from one Long Term Release to the next Long Term Release.

Innovation Release:

In between Oracle Database Long Term Releases, Oracle delivers Oracle Database Innovation Releases that include many enhancements and new capabilities which will also be included in the next Long Term Release. Innovation Releases are designed to enable customers to continuously use leading-edge technologies to rapidly develop or deploy new applications or augment existing applications. Support for Innovation Releases includes 2 years of Premier Support, but there is no Extended Support. Production workloads can be deployed on Innovation Releases if upgrading within 2 years to a newer release is factored into the deployment plan.

To help you plan ahead, below is a visual roadmap that captures Oracle Database Releases from 11.2 onward, showing the lifetime support stages (Premier, Extended) and the Error Correction windows for each release. Note, not all releases are eligible for Extended Support (i.e. 12.2.0.1, 18c).

Oracle 20c release date

Firstly, Oracle has released 18c at the 2018, and released 19c at the 2019.

Now, Oracle will release 20c at the end of 2020 year for all platforms, now it is available on only Oracle Cloud.

Actually, I don’t like these so many versions but we will have to get used to this situation 😉

Well, What are the new features of Oracle 20c ?

the non-CDB architecture will be desupported with Oracle 20c
The usage of Multitenant architecture will be mandatory.
A New JSON Datatype for SQL and PL/SQL in 20c
Lots of machine learning algorithms
AutoML
Native Blockchain tables

Oracle 21c, 20c, 19c Life Time – Release and Support Timelines

As soon as Oracle released 21c, I will install it and write Oracle 21c Installation article.

Do you want to learn Oracle database 19c Installation, then read the following articles.

Oracle Database 19c on Linux 7.6 Step by Step Installation -2

Do you want to learn Oracle Database for Beginners, then Click and read the following articles.

Oracle Database Tutorials for Beginners ( Junior Oracle DBA )

IT Tutorial IT Tutorial | Oracle DBA | SQL Server, Goldengate, Exadata, Big Data, Data ScienceTutorial