Oracle 7

Oracle 7 is a version of the Oracle Database.

Also see Oracle 8, Oracle 8i, Oracle 9i, Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g.

History and Support Status

First release: June 1992 (7.0)

Desupport End Dates (7.3):

• Error Correction ended on: December 31, 2000
• Extended Assistance Support ended on: December 31, 2003

Last patch-sets: 7.3.2.3, 7.3.3.6 and 7.3.4.5

Features introduced

The following new features were introduced with Oracle 7:

Oracle 7.3 - February 1996

• Partitioned Views
• Bitmapped Indexes
• Asynchronous read ahead for table scans
• Standby Database
• Deferred transaction recovery on instance startup
• Updatable Join Views (with restrictions)
• SQL*DBA no longer shipped.
• Index rebuilds
• db_verify utility introduced
• Context Option
• Spatial Data Option
• Tablespaces changes - Coalesce, Temporary/ Permanent,
• Trigger compilation, debug
• Unlimited extents on STORAGE clause.
• Some init.ora parameters modifiable - TIMED_STATISTICS
• Hash Joins, Antijoins
• Histograms
• Dependencies
• Oracle Trace
• Advanced Replication Object Groups
• PL/SQL - UTL_FILE

Oracle 7.2 - May 1995

• Resizable, autoextend data files
• Shrink Rollback Segments manually
• Create table, index UNRECOVERABLE
• Subquery in FROM clause (Inline view)
• PL/SQL wrapper
• PL/SQL Cursor variables
• Checksums - DB_BLOCK_CHECKSUM, LOG_BLOCK_CHECKSUM
• Parallel Create Table As (CTAS)
• Job Queues - DBMS_JOB
• DBMS_SPACE and DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO packages
• Sorting Improvements - SORT_DIRECT_WRITES

Oracle 7.1 - May 1994

• ANSI/ISO SQL92 Entry Level
• Oracle Advanced Replication - Symmetric Data replication
• Snapshot Refresh Groups
• Parallel Recovery
• Dynamic SQL - DBMS_SQL
• Parallel Query Options - query, index creation, data loading
• Server Manager introduced
• Read Only tablespaces

Oracle 7.0 - June 1992

• Database Integrity Constraints (primary keys, foreign keys, check constraints, default values)
• Stored procedures and functions, procedure packages
• Database Triggers
• View compilation
• User defined SQL functions
• Role based security
• Multiple Redo members - mirrored online redo log files
• Resource Limits - Profiles
• Much enhanced Auditing
• Enhanced Distributed database functionality: INSERTS, UPDATES, DELETES, 2PC
• Incomplete database recovery (e.g. SCN based recovery)
• Cost Based Optimizer
• TRUNCATE tables
• Datatype changes (i.e VARCHAR2, CHAR, VARCHAR)
• SQL*Net v2, MTS
• Checkpoint process (CKPT)
• Data replication - Snapshots

Upgrading SQL*Net v1 to v2

SQL*Net v2 (introduced with 7.0) cannot talk with SQL*Net v1, and vice versa. The only way to overcome this problem is to run SQL*Net v1 and v2 simultaneously on the same database server. You can then install SQL*Net v2 on your clients as time permits. SQL*Net v1 and v2 can coexist on the same server, or on the same client.

You can also list v1 connect strings in your TNSNAMES.ORA file. Eg: ORA1_NET1 = T:machine_name/port:database_name

Note that SQL*Net v1 was not shipped with version 7.3 of the database.