Oracle Database Monthly News, the first edition in 2026 is available!
As usual, the various topics can be found in the following categories:
- Database & Cloud Database News
- Upcoming Events
- Release & Patch Updates
- Videos, Tutorials, Posting & Publications
- General Information and What’s New Links
The PDF slide version can be found here.
Database & Cloud Database News
Multicloud News
- Multicloud Resilience Without the Complexity: Autonomous Data Guard Across OCI and AWS: announcement
- Oracle Database@Azure new
- Availability of Oracle GoldenGate service in Switzerland, Singapore, California, Virginia, and Tokyo region
- Availability of Base Database Service in California, Paris, Iowa, Berlin, and New South Wales region
- Availability of Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastruktur in Sweden and Paris region
Oracle Autonomous AI Database Serverless (ADB-S) January news: e.g.:
- Select AI Proxy Integration
- Online restart option for Autonomous AI Database
- Incremental refresh of materialized views over cloud links
- Improved Outbound Connection options for Private Endpoints
Oracle Exadata Database Services
- Ability to create a new database from backup using point-in-time-recovery for ExaDB-D and ExaDB-XS: news
- Database Update Enhancement: Skip Datapatch and Run Independently Later for ExaDB-D and ExaDB-C@C: news
- Configure Backup Scheduling and Backup Retention options for Automatic Backups on ExaDB-C@C: news
General
- GA of Oracle AI Database 26ai for Linux x86-64 on-premises platforms: announcement
- Release Update New Features for 26ai (23.26.1): documentation
- Announcing Oracle AI Database Private Agent Factory: documentation
Events
- Ask Tom Office Hours events
- DOAG Events (German)
- February 2: Upgrade Workshop (Berlin)
- February 3: Upgrade Workshop (Munich)
- February 4: Develop Oracle Autonomous AI Database Agentic AI Applications using the dbms_cloud_ai_agent Package (Developer Coaching)
- February 10: ora2know: noon2noon – KI für den DBA (Hannover)
- February 24: Exadata meets the Experts
- April 22: ora2know: Upgrade Workshop (Düsseldorf)
- May 5: DB Masters Event 2026 (Vienna)
- May 18./19.: DOAG Database (Heide Park Soltau)
- May 18.-20.: APEX Connect (Heide Park Soltau)
- 2026: Oracle AI World Tour
Release & Patch Updates (*) Changes in bold
- Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory – January 2026
- Release Schedule of Current Database Releases:
(PNEWS1360) Release Schedule of Current Database Releases (742060.1)
(PNEWS1470) Oracle AI Database Cloud-First, Developer-First Strategy for the 26ai Release
(3068039.1)
(KB112119) Oracle Database (RDBMS) Releases Support Status Summary (161818.1) - Database Release 23.26.1.0.0, 21.21.0.0.260120, 19.30.0.0.260130: (KB106822) Primary Note for Database Quarterly Release Updates (888.1)
- Enterprise Manager 24.1.0.7, 13.5.0.28: (PNEWS1689) Overview of the Enterprise Manager Proactive Patch Program (822485.1)
- Exadata Storage Server 25.2.6.0.0, 25.1.13.0.0, 24.1.19.0.0: (KB153930) Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions (888828.1)
Exadata System Software Updates – January 2026 - Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) 19.29: Oracle Database Appliance Documentation
- Data Pump Bundle Patch:
- 19.30,19.29 (Win only): (KB107134) Data Pump Recommended Proactive Patches For 19.10 and Above (2819284.1)
- 23.26.1: (KB160561) Data Pump Recommended Proactive Patches For 23ai / 26ai (3056856.1)
- AutoUpgrade 25.6.20251016: (KB123450) AutoUpgrade Tool (2485457.1)
- OPatch 12.2.0.1.49: Patch 6880880
- Oracle Autonomous Health Framework (AHF) 25.11.0: (KB858617) Autonomous Health Framework (AHF) – Including Trace File Analyzer and Orachk/Exachk (2550798.1)
- DBSAT 4.1.0: (KB101686) Oracle Database Security Assessment Tool (DBSAT) (2138254.1)
- SQL Developer 24.3.1: oracle.com/sqldev
- Oracle SQL Developer Extension for VSCode 25.4.0: download
- SQLcl 25.4.0: oracle.com/sqlcl
Oracle SQLcl Support Timeline - ORDS 25.4: oracle.com/ords
Oracle REST Data Services Support Timeline - APEX 24.2.11: https://www.oracle.com/tools/downloads/apex-downloads/
- Python Driver 3.4.1: python-oracledb Release Notes
- Node.js Driver 6.10: oracle.github.io/node-oracledb
- Instant Client Linux 23.26, 21.20, 19.29:
oracle.com/de/database/technologies/instant-client/downloads.html - Instant Client Windows 23.26, 21.20, 19.29:
oracle.com/de/database/technologies/instant-client/downloads.html
Videos, Tutorials, Posting & Publications
- GA of Oracle AI Database 26ai for Linux x86-64 on-premises platforms (William Hardie)
- Oracle AI Database 26ai Enterprise Edition now GA for on-premises Linux x86-64 (Gerald Venzl)
- Oracle Redefines the AI and Data Relationship With Oracle AI Database 26ai (Constellation Research paper)
- New Features and Oracle Database Release Updates (Ulrike Schwinn)
- Oracle Database Mission Critical Technologies – Blog List Compilation (Celine Wang)
- Announcing the Oracle Autonomous AI Database MCP Server (Mark Hornick)
- Did you know? Summarizing latest & greatest MCP updates. (Jeff Smith)
- APEX Newsletter January 2026
- Great free software from Oracle (Gerald Venzl)
- Mini-blog series: Oracle Data Guard 26ai new features (Ludovico Caldara)
- Implement Disaster Recovery with Data Guard across Oracle Database@Azure and Oracle Cloud (Sinan Petrus Tomas, Sebastian Solbach)
- Intelligent Data Storage? – Deal Me In! (Steve Kilgore)
- Deploying VMs on Exadata with Exascale volumes (Peter Fusek, Alex Blyth)
- Upgrade Oracle Database 19c CDB to Oracle AI Database 26ai (Daniel Overby Hansen)
- Upgrade Oracle Database 19c Non-CDB to 26ai and Convert to PDB (Daniel Overby Hansen)
- Upgrade Oracle Database 19c Non-CDB to 26ai and Convert to PDB Using Refreshable Clone PDB (Daniel Overby Hansen)
- Important Things after Upgrading to Oracle AI Database 26ai (Daniel Overby Hansen)
- Support for Transportable Tablespaces on Oracle Autonomous AI Database Serverless – Testing with OCI Object Storage (Alex Zaballa)
- Deploy Oracle Key Vault quickly and easily on Oracle Database Appliance (Shruti Sriram, Peter Wahl, Paul Tsien, Carlos Ortiz)
- Deploy a FREE Private Agent Factory (Adrian Png)
- Oracle AI Database Private Agent Factory (Harry Snart)
- Tiny but mighty new SQLcl feature (Gerald Venzl)
- What’s new with MLE 23.26.0 – support for PL/SQL Collections and Records Pt 2 (Martin Bach)
General Information and “What’s New” Links
General Information
- Oracle Multicloud Capabilities App
- Oracle Database@AWS
- Oracle Database@Azure
- Oracle Database@Google Cloud
- Oracle Technology Products (Oracle Lifetime Support Policy)
- Client / Server Interoperability Support Matrix for Different Oracle Versions (Doc ID 207303.1)
- OCI Status for all Services
- Oracle Autonomous Database Third-Party Applications—Validation and Compatibility
“What’s New” Links
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation / Release Notes
- What’s New in Oracle Base Database Service
- What’s New for Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless
- What’s New in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure
- Oracle Autonomous Database on Dedicated Exadata Infrastructure
- What’s New in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Dedicated Infrastructure
- What’s New in Oracle Exadata Database Service on Cloud@Customer
- What’s New for Oracle Data Safe
- New Features in Enterprise Manager by Release Update
- New Features in 19c Release Updates
- Oracle AI Database 26ai Release Updates
- What’s New for Oracle AI Vector Search