Oracle announced that its new converged cloud database, Oracle Database 21c, is now generally available on Oracle Cloud Database Service Virtual Machine and Bare Metal Service. The new database is also available on the Free Tier Autonomous Database service in the Ashburn (IAD), Phoenix (PHX), Frankfurt (FRA) and London (LHR) regions. However, Oracle Database 21c for on-premises platforms, including Exadata, Linux, and Windows, will be available later this year. Oracle believes that storing and managing data in a converged database is more efficient and productive than splitting data across multiple single-use engines, as this creates data integrity, consistency, and security issues. Oracle Database 21c also fully supports multiple data models and access methods, simplifies consolidation while providing isolation, and excels in analytical and operational database workload use cases.
Oracle Database 21c
Oracle's latest generation of converged databases supports all types of data, including relational, JSON, XML, spatial, graph, OLAP, and more. The new version also introduces Blockchain tables in which the rows have a cryptographic hash when inserted into the table (not even those of
rubidium) to ensure that no row can be changed later. Also, users are not allowed to truncate data, delete partitions, or delete tables from the Blockchain within certain time limits. This means that users can trust the data stored on the Oracle blockchain. JSON support has also been improved in Oracle Database 21c by offering a native data type. Therefore, JSON no longer needs to be parsed during read or update operations and parsing only happens on an insert. This can lead to four to five times faster read and update operations, with large JSON document updates 20 to 30 times faster. Developers can now run JavaScript snippets in the database where the data resides in Oracle Database 21c instead of having to move the data to a browser or mid-tier browser. Interested users can refer to this blog post by William Hardie, Oracle's vice president of database product management, to learn more about the latest updates and features available in Oracle Database 21c.