PLSQL Gateway introduced for deploying PL/SQL based solutions on the Web

Enterprise Manager Enhancements - including new HTML based reporting and Advanced Replication functionality included.

New Database Character Set Migration utility included.

Oracle 8i (8.1.6) - November 1999

PL/SQL Server Pages (PSP's)

DBA Studio Introduced

Statspack - used for performance monitoring (much better that UTLBSTAT/UTLESTAT)

Many new SQL analytical functions like lag, lead and rank

ALTER FREELISTS command (previously done by DROP/CREATE TABLE)

Checksums always ON for SYSTEM tablespace allowing many possible corruptions to be fixed before writing to disk (DB_BLOCK_CHECKING).

XML Parser for Java

New PL/SQL encrypt/decrypt package introduced

JServer Accelerator (Native Java compiler for each platform), Java programs can run as machine code, not interpreted as with 8.1.5

Native support for Java2

New CASE statement in SQL similar to the Decode() function

New SQL*Plus command line options: sqlplus -MARKUP [HTML...] and -RESTRICT

User and Schemas separated

CURSOR_SHARING parameter - optimize SHARED POOL for applications that do not use bind variables

Numerous Performance Enhancements

Oracle 8i (8.1.5) - February 1999

Fast Start recovery - Checkpoint rate auto-adjusted to meet roll forward criteria

Reorganize indexes/index only tables which users accessing data - Online index rebuilds

Log Miner introduced - Allows on-line or archived redo logs to be viewed via SQL

OPS Cache Fusion introduced avoiding disk I/O during cross-node communication

Advanced Queueing improvements (security, performance, OO4O support

User Security Improvements - more centralisation, single enterprise user, users/roles across multiple databases.

Virtual Private Database (VPD)

Integrated JavaVM (called Aurora) in the database kernel allowing one to execute Java stored procedures

Integrated support for EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans)

JSQL: a specification for Java-based SQL database statements

Integrated Object Request Broker for standard CORBA communications between applications and the database

Oracle iFS (Internet File System)

Resource Management using priorities - resource classes

Hash partitioning and Composite partitioning

New partitioning features: merge partitions into one, updatable partition keys (allow movement of rows between partitions), can use LOBS in partitioned tables

Single table hash clusters

SQL*Loader direct load API

Copy optimizer statistics across databases to ensure same access paths across different environments.

Standby Database - Auto shipping and application of redo logs. Read Only queries on standby database allowed.

Enterprise Manager v2 delivered - completely rewritten in Java

NLS - Euro Symbol supported

Analyze tables in parallel.

Temporary tables supported (Tables that will be truncated at the end of a transaction or session).

Net8 support for SSL, HTTP, HOP protocols

Transportable tablespaces, copy tablespaces with datafiles between databases

Locally managed tablespaces - automatic sizing of extents, elimination of tablespace fragmentation, tablespace information managed in tablespace (i.e moved from data dictionary) improving tablespace reliability

Drop column on table (finally!!!!!)

DBMS_DEBUG PL/SQL package, DBMS_SQL replaced by new EXECUTE IMMEDIATE statement

Progress Monitor to track long running DML, DDL