It’s time for a new release. And as of this morning, Oracle Database 21c is available in the cloud – plus documentation is accessible as well. This is just the first blog post about Oracle Database 21c – more will follow within the next days. Stay tuned 🙂
Photo by Sam Pearce-Warrilow on Unsplash
Oracle Database 21c
Oracle Database 21c is now available on Always Free Autonomous Database (only in the following regions: IAD, PHX, LHR, FRA) and Database Cloud Service (RAC and single-instance on VM; single-instance on Bare Metal).
In addition, you can download the 21c client from the database software download page.
Documentation Oracle 21c
Please find the documentation here:
What you need to know
At first, I always check the New Features Guide at first – and I realize, it has been renamed to “Learning Database New Features“.
The things you may recognize at first:
- Only the CDB architecture is available and supported from Oracle 21c onwards
.
You will find this sentence in the Database Upgrade Guide Oracle 21c:
- Read-Only Oracle Homes are now the default
I will write more about the new features within the next weeks.
Which Releases support direct upgrade to 21c?
As you can see in the Database Upgrade Guide, direct upgrades are supported from source databases:
- Oracle Database 12.2.0.1
- Oracle Database 18c
- Oracle Database 19c
And this brings me directly to the next topic.
Oracle Database 21c is an Innovation Release
Please be aware that Oracle Database 21c is NOT a Long Term Support release but an Innovation Release instead.
Read more about Long Term Support vs Innovation Releases here.
According to MOS Note 742060.1, it will be under Premier Support until end of June 2023.
Even though this may sound very long, keep in mind that this is just 2.5 years from now on with no Extended Support availability. So potentially Oracle Database 21c will be a release to test and try out new exciting features, test the application etc. But your production estate should go to Oracle Database 19c now, and most likely to the next Long Term Support Release.
What happens to Oracle Database 20c??
Please note, that Oracle Database 20c was a preview release only. The features you may have seen in 20c are all in 21c as well as far as I’m aware. But Oracle Database 20c will not be available anymore in the cloud.
More Information and Links
- Learning Database New Features Oracle 21c
- Database Upgrade Guide Oracle 21c
- MOS Note 742060.1
- Long Term Support vs Innovation Releases
- Database Blog on blogs.oracle.com about 21c
Client Downloads
- https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oracle-database-software-downloads.html
- https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/instant-client/linux-x86-64-downloads.html
–Mike
