Episode Details

In this episode, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham discuss improvements in time and data handling and data storage in Oracle Database 23ai. They are joined by Senior Principal Instructor Serge Moiseev, who explains the benefit of allowing databases to have their own time zones, separate from the host operating system. Serge also highlights two data storage improvements: Automatic SecureFiles Shrink, which optimizes disk space usage, and Automatic Storage Compression, which enhances database performance and efficiency. These features aim to reduce the reliance on DBAs and improve overall database management. Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-database-23ai-new-features-for-administrators/137192/207062 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. --------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00:00

Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!

00:26

Nikita: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor with Oracle University, and joining me is Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs.

Lois: Hi there! Over the past two weeks, we've delved into database sharding, exploring what it is, Oracle Database Sharding, its benefits, and architecture. We've also examined each new feature in Oracle Database 23ai related to sharding. If that sounds intriguing to you, make sure to check out those episodes. And just to remind you, even though most of you already know, 23ai was previously known as 23c.

01:04

Nikita: That's right, Lois. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the 23ai improvements in time and data handling and data storage with one of our Senior Principal Instructors at Oracle University, Serge Moiseev. Hi Serge! Thanks for joining us today. Let's start with time and data handling. I know there are two new changes here in 23ai: the enhanced time zone data upgrade and the improved system data and system timestamp data handling. What are some challenges associated with time zone data in databases?

01:37

Serge: Time zone definitions change from time to time due to legislative reasons. There are certain considerations. Changes include daylight savings time when we switch, include the activity that affects the Oracle Database time zone files. Time zone files are modified and used by the administrators. Customers select the time zone file to use whenever it's appropriate. And customers can manage the upgrade whenever it happens.

The upgrades affect columns of type TIMESTAMP with TIME ZONE. Now, the upgrades can be online or offline.

02:24

Lois: And how have we optimized this process now?

Serge: Oracle Database 23c improves the upgrade by reducing the resources used, by selectively using the updates and minimizing the application impact. And only the data that has dependencies on the time zone would be impacted by the upgrade.

The optimization of the time zone file upgrade does not really change the upgrade process, so upgrade can be