We are writing to tell you some news of interest to Oracle customers running on the OpenVMS platform. In this update, we have information covering i6 certification, recent product shipments, Oracle Database on OpenVMS and Oracle Rdb customer events, and Oracle Rdb Training.

i6 (Kittson) Certifications:

Oracle Database:

Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 on Itanium was certified in May on the VMS Software Inc (VSI) OpenVMS 8.4-2L1 release on Intel Itanium i6 (Kittson). Oracle Database 10.2.0.5 on Itanium was certified on this same platform configuration in June. These certification are listed on My Oracle Support on the ‘hp Itanium OpenVMS Certification Matrix’ (Doc ID377470.1).

Oracle Rdb:

Oracle Rdb 7.3.2.1 and 7.3.3 were certified on Intel Itanium i6 Integrity servers in March, 2018 and May, 2018 respectively. Look for the latest Oracle Rdb certification updates on the My Oracle Support article entitled ‘RDBPROD: Comprehensive Rdb Versions and Compatibility Matrix’ (MOS Doc ID 66729.1).

Oracle CODASYL DBMS:

Oracle CODASYL DBMS 7.3.1.0 was certified in May on OpenVMS 8.4-2L1 on Intel Itanium i6 Integrity servers. Look for the latest Oracle CODASYL DBMS certification updates on the My OracleSupport article entitled ‘RDBPROD: Comprehensive CODASYL DBMS Versions and Compatibility Matrix’ (MOS Doc ID 66767.1).

Recent Releases:

Oracle Rdb 7.3.3.0 has shipped!

Oracle Rdb 7.3.3.0 first shipped on May 29, 2018 but due to a fundamental wrong results problem reported to Oracle Support shortly afterwards, we withdrew the kit from My Oracle Support. All customers who downloaded the kit were contacted and an Alert was issued by Oracle Support (MOS Doc ID2408303.1). A corrected kit was re-released on MOS under the same patch numbers on June 14, 2018. Please make sure that you are using this later version of the kit before beginning your own testing and eventual deployment in production.

This release includes many new product features as well as bug fixes.

A partial list of the new features include:

• New SQL Built-in Functions
• Optimizer Enhancements
• Enhanced String Comparisons
• New Aggregate Functions
• New Show Statistics Screens and Capabilities
• New GENERATED Column Support
• New CONSTRAINT Naming for Domain Constraints
• Enhancements to INCLUDE Statement
• New Support for DEFAULT Index NODE SIZE Calculation
• New LANGUAGE Support From RMU Extract Command
• Enhancements for CREATE and ALTER MODULE Statements
• New RMU Dump Symbols Command
• New Options to SET SQLDA Statem

Problems fixed include corrections for wrong results, bugchecks, alignment faults, slow query performance,access violations, hangs, RMU errors, SQL errors and Statistics Collection errors to name a few.

A full description of all the enhancements made in this release and the problems fixed can be found in the release notes. We are also now in the process of incorporating details on these new features into new and updated SQL Reference and RMU Reference manuals which will be made available shortly.

You can download the kit from My Oracle Support under patch numbers 28076644 for Itanium and 28076635 for Alpha.

Oracle Rdb Developer Tools for Visual Studio 7.3.6.0

With this version, made available in March, 2018, integration with Visual Studio2017 was added. You can download the kit from My Oracle Support under patch number 27647428.

Oracle JDBC for Rdb 7.3.5.1

This version of Oracle JDBC for Rdb shipped in March, 2018. It is a feature and patch update to 7.3.5.0 which shipped last August and was the first Rdb JDBC version to support Java 8. Java 8 on OpenVMS became available for production use from HPE last year (see https://www.hpe.com/global/java/download/
ivms/1.8.0/jdk8.0_down.html ).

New features included in 7.3.5.1 are:

• A Pool Balancing option PoolOrder that tells the pool server to select the first pooled server in the pool that has not yet reached its maximum client limit instead of using the default round-robin search.
• Additional Connection options. See the section Connection Options of your Oracle JDBC for Rdb User guide for more details.

The kit is available on MyOracle Support as Patchset number 27638830 for Itanium and 27638813 for Alpha.

Oracle Rdb Connectivity Manager (ORCM) 7.3.2.0

Oracle Rdb Connectivity Manager (ORCM) is a graphical user interface (GUI) that provides a server management utility from any platform where Java is available, to manage SQL/Services and JDBC servers running on OpenVMS server systems. This latest version of the ORCM was a major release and shipped in August, 2017. It brings a suite of new features, including:

• A new RMU Menu category
• The ability to display RMU Statistics from the tool
• A fast and easy way to identify differences between database schemas
• External tool enhancements

The kits are available on MyOracle Support with the following patch set numbers: 26667279 (ORCM for Windows) and 26667304(ORCM generic kit).

OracleRdb Extension for SQL Developer Release 7.3.3.0

This latest version of the Oracle Rdb Extension for SQL Developer was released in May, 2018. It adds support for Oracle SQL Developer 17.4 and it also fixes a number of known problems found in earlier releases. Oracle SQL Developer is a graphical version of SQL*Plus that gives database developers a convenient way to perform basic tasks. Using the Oracle Rdb Extension for SQL Developer, you can connect to any target Oracle Rdb database.

The kit is available on My Oracle Support with the following patch set numbers 28135854 (under Generic Platform).

Oracle 11.2.0.4 PatchSet Updates (DB PSU)

11.2.0.4.180417

PSU 11.2.0.4.180417 was released in April, 2018. This is the 11th PSU we have released since shipping 11.2.0.4 on OpenVMS July, 2015. PSU’s are cumulative. Newer ones supersede older ones. New fixes were made in the areas of Configuration Assistance, High Availability, SQL and Performance among others.

To download the PSU from MyOracle Support (MOS, https://support.oracle.com) search for patch id 27338049)

11.2.0.4.180116

PSU 11.2.0.4.170718 was released in January, 2018. This was the 10th PSU we released since shipping 11.2.0.4 on OpenVMS July, 2015. PSU’s are cumulative. Newer ones supersede older ones. In addition to security enhancements, new fixes were made in the areas of Automatic Storage Management, Buffer Cache Management, High Availability, Space Management and Server Manageability.

To download the PSU from MyOracle Support (MOS, https://support.oracle.com) search for patch id 26925576)

Recent Customer Events:

Oracle Database on OpenVMS and Oracle Rdb Engineering recently spoke at the following customer events:

• May 14-16: Connect IT-Symposium 2018, Leipzig, Germany
• May 21: Swedish OpenVMS SIG, Stockholm, Sweden
• May 23: UK OpenVMS SIG, London, England

Planning for other 2018 events in North America, EMEA and Japan is underway.

What about the Oracle Forums?

It was recently announced by VMS Software that the next OpenVMS Boot Camp will be held on April 7-10, 2019. The venue information for the Boot Camp has not yet been announce but we expect it will be held in the Boston, MA, USA area as usual. Assuming these dates do not change, we will plan to hold the next Oracle Database on OpenVMS and Oracle Rdb Technical Forum immediately following the Boot Camp on April 11-12, 2019 at our Oracle offices in either Nashua, NH or Burlington, MA. Forums in other locations will follow after that. Look for announcements from us with more details in the coming months.

Oracle Rdb Training:

Oracle Rdb training is provided by our training partner JCC Consulting. For an overview of the training offered, go to http://jcc.com/services/training.Courses can be customized for delivery at customer sites or other public venues. The course schedule is established based on expressed needs and all courses are given by experienced seminar leaders who are also experts on the topics. To indicate your needs, please go to http://jcc.com/seminar-request.

Questions?

If you have any product questions, please contact Oracle Support or send us an email at infordb_us@oracle.com.

Sincerely,

Oracle Database on OpenVMS and Oracle Rdb Engineering