New (some undocumented) Parameters in Oracle 12.1.0.2

Every release offers some surprises – even to myself 😉

Right now Roy and I are in the final steps to refresh our big slide deck to the new layout, but more important, to have Oracle 12.1.0.2 information included as well (were necessary). So I did my usual “compare parameters” query between releases – getting unusual surprises this time.

This is the list of new parameters introduced with the patch set Oracle Database 12.1.0.2. Where applicable I have added the link to the doc.

But as you may recognize not all of them are explained in the doc 😉

• DBFIPS_140
  • Default: FALSE
  • DBFIPS_140 enables Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and DBMS_CRYPTO PL/SQL package program units to run in a mode compliant to the Federal Information Processing Standard (subsequently known as “FIPS mode”)
• COMMON_USER_PREFIX
  • Default: c##
  • Specifies a prefix that the names of common users, roles, and profiles in a multitenant container database (CDB) must start with. If COMMON_USER_PREFIX is set to an empty string, Oracle will not enforce any restrictions on the names of common or local users, roles, and profiles.
• DB_PERFORMANCE_PROFILE <<updated Dec 16>>
  • Undocumented
  • See bug17861171, bug18406144 and bug19817284 – IORM feature on Exadata only
• ENABLE_GOLDENGATE_REPLICATION
  • Default: FALSE
  • Controls services provided by the RDBMS for Oracle GoldenGate (both capture and apply services). Set this to true to enable RDBMS services used by Oracle GoldenGate
  • Introduced with Oracle 11.2.0.4 and Oracle 12.1.0.2
• EXCLUDE_SEED_CDB_VIEW
  • Undocumented
  • Per feedback by the Multitenant team:
    • Default: TRUE
    • Setting this parameter to FALSE would return results for the seed
      database when querying against the CDB views
• INMEMORY_CLAUSE_DEFAULT
  • Default: an empty string
  • Enables you to specify a default In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) clause for new tables and materialized views. If the INMEMORY_CLAUSE_DEFAULT parameter is unset or set to an empty string (the default), only tables and materialized views explicitly specified asINMEMORY will be populated into the IM column store. Setting the value of the INMEMORY_CLAUSE_DEFAULT parameter to NO INMEMORY has the same effect as setting it to the default value.
• INMEMORY_FORCE
  • Default: DEFAULT
  • Allows you to specify whether tables and materialized view that are specified as INMEMORY are populated into the In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) or not. The default value is DEFAULT. When this value is in effect, the IM column store is populated only with tables and materialized views specified as INMEMORY. If OFF is specified, then even if the IM column store is configured on this instance, no tables or materialized are populated in memory.
• INMEMORY_MAX_POPULATE_SERVERS
  • Default: Half the effective CPU thread count or the PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET value divided by 512M, whichever is less.
  • Specifies the maximum number of background populate servers to use for In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) population, so that these servers do not overload the rest of the system
• INMEMORY_QUERY
  • Default: ENABLE
  • Used to enable or disable in-memory queries for the entire database at the session or system level. This parameter is helpful when you want to test workloads with and without the use of the In-Memory Column Store (IM column store)
• INMEMORY_SIZE
  • Default: 0
  • Sets the size of the In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) on a database instance. If a database does not have automatic memory management enabled, this parameter must be set to a nonzero value that reserves the amount of memory to use for the database’s IM column store. The default value is 0, which means that the IM column store is not used. The database must be restarted after setting this parameter to enable the IM column store. The minimum size to which this parameter can be set is 100 MB.
• INMEMORY_TRICKLE_REPOPULATE_SERVERS_PERCENT
  • Default: 1
  • Limits the maximum number of background populate servers used for In-Memory Column Store (IM column store) repopulation, as trickle repopulation is designed to use only a small percentage of the populate servers. The value for this parameter is a percentage of the INMEMORY_MAX_POPULATE_SERVERS initialization parameter value
• OPTIMIZER_INMEMORY_AWARE
  • Default: TRUE
  • Enables or disables all of the optimizer cost model enhancements for in-memory. Setting the parameter to false causes the optimizer to ignore the in-memory property of tables during the optimization of SQL statements. This behavior can also be achieved by setting theOPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE initialization parameter to values lower than 12.1.0.2
• PDB_LOCKDOWN
  • Undocumented
  • Per feedback by the Multitenant team:
    • Not functional in Oracle 12.1.0.2
• PDB_OS_CREDENTIAL
  • Undocumented
  • Per feedback by the Multitenant team:
    • Not functional in Oracle 12.1.0.2
    • May be functional with a future PSU allwoing then OS user
      verfication/validation for PDBs

–Mike

PS: Forgot to mention this single parameter which has disappeared in Oracle 12.1.0.2:

• PARALLEL_FAULT_TOLERANCE_ENABLED
  • Undocumented in Oracle 12.1.0.2
  • Disappeared in Oracle 12.1.0.2 but did exist in Oracle 12.1.0.1