Oracle(r) Database 10g Release 2 and much faster sorting

Dear List,

Recently I've read Oracle Database 10g Release 2 announcement and few points in this announcement seems interesting:

• New sorting techniques will greatly improve the performance of all operations doing sorting, such as queries and index creation, and may eliminate the need for costly pre-load sort operations.
• The collection of performance statistics directly from memory allowing the diagnosis of very slow or even hung environments;

Has anybody heart about this features? Regarding to the second feature I assume that Oracle will provide some tools to do Direct Memory Access in similar way like it was described by Kyle Hailey in "Tales of the Oak Table".

But how does Oracle plan to "speed up" sorts?

You can read full story at:
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2004_dec/open12.html

-- 
 Edgar
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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l