You can now use Oracle Application Express 20.2 to develop applications for an Autonomous Database. Only newly created Autonomous Container Databases have access to Oracle Application Express 20.2. All the existing Autonomous Container Databases will continue with Oracle Application Express 19.1.

See Creating Applications with Oracle Application Express on Autonomous Database.

You can now define additional security to your Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure deployments on Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer by setting up network Access Control Lists (ACLs) with specific IP addresses or CIDR blocks. An ACL allows you to formulate a fine-grained access control policy by limiting your Autonomous Database's network access to specific applications or clients.

See Set Access Control List for Dedicated Autonomous Database.

Use Autonomous Data Guard to protect against disasters and failures

You can now create Autonomous Container Databases with Autonomous Data Guard enabled. This feature enables you to keep your critical production databases available to mission critical applications despite failures, disasters, human error, or data corruption.

To provide this capability, it creates creates and maintains two completely separate copies of your database: a primary database that your applications connect to and use, and a standby database that is a synchronized copy of the primary database. Then, should the primary database become unavailable for any reason, Autonomous Data Guard automatically converts the standby database to the primary database and, as such, it begins servicing your applications.

See Configure and Manage Autonomous Data Guard for more information.

Manage your own encryption keys

Normally, Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure creates manages the encryption keys used to your protect data.

Now, Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure can instead use keys you create and manage in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault service or Oracle Key Vault, depending on whether you are deploying Oracle Autonomous Database on Oracle Cloud or on Exadata Cloud@Customer.

See Manage Master Encryption Keys for more information.

X8M-2 systems available on Exadata Cloud@Customer deployments

When you create dedicated Autonomous Database deployments on Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer you can now deploy to X8M-2 Exadata Database Machine systems.

For details about the capacities and characteristics of the X8M-2 systems supported by Autonomous Database, see Characteristics of Infrastructure Shapes.

In-database support for Microsoft Active Directory users

You can configure an Autonomous Database to authenticate and authorize Microsoft Active Directory users. This allows Active Directory users to access the database using their Active Directory credentials.

See Use Microsoft Active Directory with Autonomous Database for more information.

Manage upcoming maintenance events

You can now manage the actual timing of scheduled maintenance events on Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure and Autonomous Container Database resources, even to the point of performing the activity immediately or of skipping it altogether. For more information, see:

• View and Manage Scheduled Maintenance of an Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure Resource
• View and Manage Scheduled Maintenance of an Autonomous Container Database

Assess security of your database using Data Safe

You can now use Oracle Data Safe to identify and protect sensitive and regulated data in Autonomous Databases.

Oracle Data Safe helps you understand the sensitivity of your data, evaluate risks to data, mask sensitive data, implement and monitor security controls, assess user security, monitor user activity, and address data security compliance requirements.

For details about using Data Safe with your Autonomous Databases, see Use Data Safe to Assess and Protect Data.

Autonomous Database now available on Exadata Cloud@Customer

For more information, see Introduction to Autonomous Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer.

New Performance Hub features

• A Blocking Sessions tab you can use to view and, if necessary, kill sessions that are waiting or are blocked by sessions that are waiting.
• The ability to generate and download an AWR (Automatic Workload Repository) report that shows data captured between two points in time (called snapshots).
• The ability to change the time zone that Performance Hub uses when selecting timespans and displaying data.

For more information, see Use Performance Hub to Monitor Databases.

Full rack Exadata Database Machines now supported

Previously, you could create Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure resources only on quarter-rack or half-rack Exadata Database Machine systems. Now, you can create Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure resources on full rack Exadata Database Machine systems as well.

For details about the capacities and characteristics of these systems, see Characteristics of Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure Resources.

Oracle Extensions for IDEs support Autonomous Databases

You can now use these IDE extensions to connect to, browse, and manage Autonomous Databases directly from within the IDE:

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Toolkit for Eclipse
• Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio
• Oracle Developer Tools for VS Code

For more information, see Use Oracle Extensions for IDEs to Develop Applications.

Auto scaling of databases now available

You can now enable auto scaling of Autonomous Databases. When auto scaling is enabled, the database can automatically use additional CPU and IO resources without any manual intervention if the database workload requires, up to three times the OCPU count assigned to the database.

You can enable auto scaling when you create a database, as described in Create a Dedicated Database, or after it has been created, as described in Enable or Disable Auto Scaling of a Dedicated Database.

Clone a database to a different Autonomous Container Database

When you create a new Autonomous Database by cloning an existing one, you can now choose to create the cloned database in a different Autonomous Container Database from the source database.

For instructions, see Clone a Dedicated Autonomous Database.

Monitor your database using Autonomous Database metrics

You can monitor the health, capacity, and performance of your databases with metrics, alarms, and, notifications. You can use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console or Monitoring APIs to view metrics.

For more information, see Use Autonomous Database Metrics to Monitor Databases.

More Oracle Exadata Database Machine options

Previously, you could create Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure resources only on quarter-rack Exadata Database Machine X7-2 systems. Now, you can create Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure resources on quarter-rack or half-rack Exadata Database Machine X7-2 or X8-2 systems.

For details about the capacities and characteristics of these systems, see Characteristics of Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure Resources.

Support for DBMS_CLOUD subprograms

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure now supports many of the subprograms available in the DBMS_CLOUD PL/SQL package. Thus, you can now perform tasks like loading data from files in the cloud, query externally stored data, and export data to other Oracle Database deployments.

For more information, see Load Data from Files in the Cloud, Querying External Data with Autonomous Database and Exporting Data to Other Oracle Databases.

For detailed information about all the supported DBMS_CLOUD subprograms, see DBMS_CLOUD Package Reference.

Store files in directories in your database

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure now provides you the ability to create directories where you can store files in your database, much like you can do in an OS file system.

For more information, see Creating and Managing Directories.

Support for work requests

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure is now integrated with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Work Requests feature. Work requests allow you to monitor long-running operations like the creation of an Autonomous Database.

For a list of Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure operations that create work requests, see Work Requests Integration. For general information on using work requests in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, see Work Requests and Work Requests API.

Restart your database in one step

Previously, to restart your database you had to stop it, wait for it to stop, and the start it. Now, you can perform a restart in a single operation.

For more information, see Restart a Dedicated Database.

Support for compartment quotas

Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure on dedicated infrastructure now supports the compartment quotas feature of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Using this feature you can restrict, on a compartment by compartment basis, the availability of dedicated infrastructure resources in your tenancy.

For more information, see Compartment Quotas to Manage Resource Availability. For general information about the compartment quotas feature, see Compartment Quotas.

Custom maintenance schedules for Autonomous Container Databases

Previously, the maintenance schedule for an Autonomous Container Database was determined by the maintenance schedule of the Autonomous Exadata Infrastructure resource hosting it. Now, you can specify a custom maintenance schedule for an Autonomous Container Database.

For more information, see Change the Maintenance Schedule of an Autonomous Container Database.