Oracle 8i

Oracle 8i is a version of the Oracle Database. The i stands for "Internet" to indicate that 8i is "Internet ready".

Also see Oracle 9i, Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g.

History and Support Status

Desupport End Dates:

• Error Correction Support (ECS): 31-DEC-2003
• Extended Support (ES): 31-DEC-2006

Latest patch-sets: 8.1.5.1, 8.1.6.3 and 8.1.7.4

Features introduced

The following new features were introduced with Oracle 8i:

Oracle 8i (8.1.7) - August 2000

• Static HTTP server included (Apache)
• JVM Accelerator to improve performance of Java code
• Java Server Pages (JSP) engine
• MemStat - A new utility for analyzing Java Memory footprints
• OIS - Oracle Integration Server introduced.
• PLSQL Gateway introduced for deploying PL/SQL based solutions on the Web
• Enterprise Manager Enhancements - including new HTML based reporting and Advanced Replication functionality included.
• New Database Character Set Migration utility included.

Oracle 8i (8.1.6) - November 1999

• PL/SQL Server Pages (PSP's)
• DBA Studio Introduced
• Statspack - used for performance monitoring (much better that UTLBSTAT/UTLESTAT)
• Many new SQL analytical functions like lag, lead and rank
• ALTER FREELISTS command (previously done by DROP/CREATE TABLE)
• Checksums always ON for SYSTEM tablespace allowing many possible corruptions to be fixed before writing to disk (DB_BLOCK_CHECKING).
• XML Parser for Java
• New PL/SQL encrypt/decrypt package introduced
• JServer Accelerator (Native Java compiler for each platform), Java programs can run as machine code, not interpreted as with 8.1.5
• Native support for Java2
• New CASE statement in SQL similar to the Decode() function
• New SQL*Plus command line options: sqlplus -MARKUP [HTML...] and -RESTRICT
• User and Schemas separated
• CURSOR_SHARING parameter - optimize SHARED POOL for applications that do not use bind variables
• Numerous Performance Enhancements

Oracle 8i (8.1.5) - February 1999

• Fast Start recovery - Checkpoint rate auto-adjusted to meet roll forward criteria
• Reorganize indexes/index only tables which users accessing data - Online index rebuilds
• Log Miner introduced - Allows on-line or archived redo logs to be viewed via SQL
• OPS Cache Fusion introduced avoiding disk I/O during cross-node communication
• Advanced Queueing improvements (security, performance, OO4O support
• User Security Improvements - more centralisation, single enterprise user, users/roles across multiple databases.
• Virtual Private Database (VPD)
• Integrated JavaVM (called Aurora) in the database kernel allowing one to execute Java stored procedures
• Integrated support for EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans)
• JSQL: a specification for Java-based SQL database statements
• Integrated Object Request Broker for standard CORBA communications between applications and the database
• Oracle iFS (Internet File System)
• Resource Management using priorities - resource classes
• Hash partitioning and Composite partitioning
• New partitioning features: merge partitions into one, updatable partition keys (allow movement of rows between partitions), can use LOBS in partitioned tables
• Single table hash clusters
• SQL*Loader direct load API
• Copy optimizer statistics across databases to ensure same access paths across different environments.
• Standby Database - Auto shipping and application of redo logs. Read Only queries on standby database allowed.
• Enterprise Manager v2 delivered - completely rewritten in Java
• NLS - Euro Symbol supported
• Analyze tables in parallel.
• Temporary tables supported (Tables that will be truncated at the end of a transaction or session).
• Net8 support for SSL, HTTP, HOP protocols
• Transportable tablespaces, copy tablespaces with datafiles between databases
• Locally managed tablespaces - automatic sizing of extents, elimination of tablespace fragmentation, tablespace information managed in tablespace (i.e moved from data dictionary) improving tablespace reliability
• Drop column on table (finally!!!!!)
• DBMS_DEBUG PL/SQL package, DBMS_SQL replaced by new EXECUTE IMMEDIATE statement
• Progress Monitor to track long running DML, DDL
• Function based indexes - NLS, case insensitive, descending, based on user defined function, etc.
• Index key compression: duplicate keys are combined to save space

External links

• Oracle 8i 8.1.7 Documentation