Thom Kyte gave an entertaining, as usual, talk yesterday on the top 12 features in 12c. Don't know if I'll make it to tommorrows talk (tough schedule placement after Wednesday night!). Here are the highlights along with my snarky comments
#1 embedded PL/SQL - I applaud the uses in the simple cases Thom showed, I shudder to think about how this will be abused.
#2 improved defaults - Given all the new functionality, will this make things less bewildering for beginners? Don't think so.
#3 increased size limits for datatypes (32K) - Creating ever more oppourtunity to slow things down instead of using the proper datatypes and indexes.
#4 Top-N and pagination queries - Yeah!! Now if only the caches work properly when users do screwy things.
#5 row pattern matching (time series use case explained) - Now were talking. This is incredible cool.
#6 Adaptive Execution plans (switching join types dynamically) - Cool - but why wasn't this done already?
#7 Enhanced Stats (query planning) - Proof is in the queries - didn't get enough detail.
#8 Temp Tables not generating redo/undo - Duh!
#9 Data Temp/Tiering - Probably my favorite feature of all
#10 App Level Continuity - Is this new?
#11 Data Redaction - Seems to make sense but will folks really use this vs. app code?
#12 Single Instance of Oracle running - need to see footprint...until then, no bigger claim than server only runs ESXi....
All and all, a strong release -much more focus on the ops guys than new business functionality but with EMC and VMware competing with Oracle for share of wallet with more strength than SAP, thats to be expected.