Release Notes

SharePlex® 9.2.8

Release Notes

Revision: 7/6/2020

About SharePlex

SharePlex provides high-speed replication from Oracle database to different target databases and messaging containers on major Unix, Linux and Windows operating systems— both on-premises and in the cloud. SharePlex supports a wide variety of configurations to meet different and complex data availability needs.

SharePlex supports reliable Oracle high availability configurations where replication maintains a duplicate database in a different location that is ready for fast, seamless failover and failback in planned or unplanned mode.

You can also use SharePlex to replicate data from Oracle source to maintain a change history database in an Oracle target. Rather than updating or deleting target rows based on the source change, SharePlex inserts a new row on the target for every source change. The result is an archive that reflects the chronological history of every change made to the source database.

SharePlex also includes, at no extra charge, the compare and repair tools that you need to verify the accuracy of a target maintained by replication. These tools not only detect hidden out-of-sync conditions, but they also repair the target to restore parity of your source and target data.

SharePlex value and versatility continues to grow with the requirements and requests of our customers. Although SharePlex is a reliable, relatively low-maintenance solution, our top-rated support team is ready around the clock to help with any trouble you may have. To get you started with your deployment, our professional services team is highly experienced and readily available.

Join our community

For expert advice and the latest news about SharePlex, join the SharePlex Community at https://www.quest.com/community/products/shareplex. Take advantage of our forums, blogs, videos, and more from our own experts, as well as input from our customers and partners.

New Features

New Features in this Release

SharePlex has put bug fixes into a cumulative update rollup (denoted by third digit in the version number)—starting with the 9.2.3 release. Customers that require bug fixes which are already available in a patch update rollup will be required to apply that patch release to get the bug fix.

SharePlex 9.2.8

SharePlex 9.2.8 is a patch release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.7

SharePlex 9.2.7 is a patch release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.6

SharePlex 9.2.6 is a patch release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.5

SharePlex 9.2.5 is a patch release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.4

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Compute Virtual Machine is now supported as a target.

SharePlex 9.2.4 is a patch release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.3

SharePlex 9.2.3 is a minor release and includes resolved issues. See Resolved Issues and Enhancements for a complete list.

SharePlex 9.2.1

SharePlex 9.2.1 is a minor release and includes the following new features and enhanced functionality.

Other New Features

• Oracle 18c. This release includes support for capture from and replication to Oracle 18c.

Note: SharePlex does not support replication of DML operations on objects compressed using OLTP Compression in Oracle 18c. This limitation applies to objects in the source database.

• Kafka 1.1.x. This release includes support for replication to a Kafka 1.1.x target.

Operating System Support. This release includes support for SuSE SLES 15.

Installation

SharePlex installer packages for Linux/Unix. SharePlex installer packages for Linux/Unix are now database independent. You are no longer required to select an installer package based on the database for which SharePlex will be used (i.e., Oracle or Open Target). To install SharePlex for Oracle or Open Target, simply select the installer package for your operating system.

The SharePlex installer packages now have a slightly different naming convention:

SharePlex-release#-build#-platform-chipset.tpm

For Oracle Solaris (Sun), the operating system version is included:

SharePlex-release#-build#-platform-version-chipset.tpm

SharePlex 9.2

SharePlex 9.2 is a minor release and includes the following new features and enhanced functionality.

New Features for Oracle Source

Oracle UROWID data type. Support has been added for the Oracle UROWID data type. This support applies to Oracle-to-Oracle configurations only.

Support for SCN metadata for HANA target. This release of SharePlex supports posting the Oracle SCN to a column in a HANA target table.

Oracle replication to MySQL 5.7. SharePlex supports replication from an Oracle source to a MySQL 5.7 target on-premises.

Oracle 12c R2 Support

Support for 128-byte table and column names. In Oracle capture, SharePlex now supports table and column names that are up to 128 bytes in length. Please note the following limitations applicable to this release.

• UDT column names more than 30-bytes in length are not supported.
• Type names for UDTs and VARRAYS with names more than 30-bytes in length are not supported.
• IOT names more than 30-bytes in length are not supported.

Other New Features

Support for Windows Server 2016. Support for capture from and replication to databases on Microsoft Windows Server 2016.

Improved Performance in the Post Process.

The following enhancements were made to improve performance of the Post process.

• Implemented multi-threading for SQL Server and PostgreSQL targets: The Transaction Concurrency component of Post Enhanced Performance has been extended to support SQL Server and PostgreSQL targets. A new parameter, SP_OPX_THREADS, controls this feature. When set to a value of 2 or greater, Post runs with the specified number of threads (concurrent operations).
• Batch similar operations: To maximize its performance when applying SQL operations to the target, the Post process groups smaller replicated operations into one larger batched operation. Post groups replicated operations when the operations are identical and the SQL is similar. A new parameter, SP_OPX_BATCH_ENABLE, controls this feature and is enabled by default. Another new parameter, SP_OPX_MAX_BATCH_MBYTES, controls the maximum size of the batched DML operation that Post applies to the target. This supports databases, such as Teradata, that have a maximum transaction size and can be used for other purposes where batch size must be changed.

New jobs status database

• This release includes a new jobs status database. This database resides in the data sub-directory of the SharePlex variable-data directory. The parameter SP_SYS_JOB_HISTORY_SIZE allows you to control the size of this database. Use this parameter to specify the maximum size (in kB) allowed for the database.

Simplified SharePlex Installation Process on Windows

• When installing on Windows, you are no longer required to specify the Oracle database version or specify whether or not you are installing in a non-Oracle environment.
• You no longer need to manually change the default setting for Global Resources memory in the MKS Toolkit after you install SharePlex on a Windows system. The setting is now modified automatically during installation.

Data Type Mapping

This release of SharePlex includes a new typemap command, as well as changes to the default data type mappings. Review the following details.

• Use the typemap show command to display all default data type mappings. Use typemap show source-target to display the mapping for the specified source-target combination, for example oracle-sqlserver. See the SharePlex 9.2 Reference Guide for more information about using the typemap command.
• Use the typemap command instead of the data type option of the target command. (The data type option of the target command has been discontinued in this release.)
• For a list of supported data types, see Supported data types: Oracle to Open Targets or .

Other Changes in SharePlex

TLS 1.2 (or later) required for TLS connections. If you intend to use TLS connections in SharePlex, TLS 1.2 or later is required.

Resolved Issues and Enhancements

The following is a list of issues addressed and enhancements implemented in this release of SharePlex.

NOTE: All Resolved Issues and Enhancement from SharePlex 9.2.7 and older are included in this release.

SharePlex 9.2.8

SharePlex 9.2.7

SharePlex 9.2.6

SharePlex 9.2.5

SharePlex 9.2.4

SharePlex 9.2.3

SharePlex 9.2.1

Basic system requirements

This chapter contains the basic system requirements for SharePlex. See also:

System Requirements for Oracle Capture

System

Before installing SharePlex, ensure that your system meets the minimum hardware and software requirements.

• SharePlex processes are all 64-bit and can exceed 4 GB.

• Per process memory of greater than or equal to 256 MB is required. Depending on how you configure SharePlex, there can be one or more of the following processes on a system:

  Capture

  Read

  Export

  Import

  Post

• See the Preinstallation Checklist in the SharePlex Installation Guide for additional system and/or database requirements.

Communications Protocols

SSL/TLS

For TLS connections, SharePlex supports TLS 1.2 (or later) only.

Internet Protocol

SharePlex supports IPv4 and IPv6 internet protocols. The following table shows the operating systems for which SharePlex was tested with IPv6.

Note: If the SP_SYS_HOST_NAME environment variable is set to an IPV6 address on the source system, SharePlex on the target system must be version 9.0 or later.

Interoperability between versions

Refer to the following guidelines if the system where you are installing SharePlex is in a configuration where one or more other systems will continue to use an older version of SharePlex. An example is when installing or upgrading SharePlex on a target, but the source will continue to use SharePlex 8.6.x.

Versions with full interoperability

The following SharePlex versions are fully interoperable, including the Compare/Repair feature:

8.6.x

9.0.x

9.1.x

9.2.x

9.4.x

To support replication from a higher to a lower version, set the SP_SYS_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY parameter on the source system to the lower SharePlex version. If Capture is running, restart it.

Important: Downgrading from a higher to a lower version of SharePlex is not supported.

Notes:

• The older version of the SP_SYS_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY parameter, SP_OCT_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY, was deprecated in version 9.0. If your source SharePlex is currently replicating to a lower SharePlex version on the target and you have SP_OCT_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY set to the lower version, SharePlex will continue to use that value after you upgrade to the current version.

• If you upgrade the target to the current release at a future time, issue a reset for SP_OCT_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY on the source system to remove it from the SharePlex environment. Going forward, SharePlex will use the setting of the new SP_SYS_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY parameter, which defaults to the current version.

  To reset SP_OCT_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY

  1. Stop Capture.

     sp_ctrl> stop capture

  2. In sp_ctrl on the source system, issue the following command:

     sp_ctrl>reset param SP_OCT_TARGET_COMPATIBILITY

  3. Restart Capture.

     sp_ctrl>start capture