After I had got the question last week, I realized that I have been talking about the new features but never summarize them in a convenient place for you to look at them all together. Let me summary Oracle GoldenGate 12.1 new features here.
Before we talk about new features, it is helpful for you to know that so far there have been several Oracle GoldenGate 12.1 releases. The first version is Oracle GoldenGate 12.1.2 (12.1.2.0.0). Then, the next major release is Oracle GoldenGate 12.1.2.1 (12.1.2.1.0) published in August 2014, and Oracle GoldenGate 12.1.2.1.1 was provided at a later time. Now, there also have been many patch releases for this version (please check the latest patch at support.oracle.com). As of today, the latest patch is Oracle GoldenGate 12.1.2.1.170117. It's always recommended to use the latest version.
Do I need to use Oracle GoldenGate 12.1 if I start a new Oracle GoldenGate project?
Answer: NO, if you start a new project, the recommendation is to use Oracle GoldenGate 12.2 instead.
In summary, Oracle GoldenGate 12.1 has the following most important features across all the platforms [1] [2]:
Hope this helps.
- Coordinated Replicat - runs replicat in a coordinated mode and applies transactions in parallel in a multi-threaded process.
- Built-in Credential Stores - provides built-in credential stores and allows you to use an alias to manage user name and password for Oracle GoldenGate configurations.
- Access Rule - secures your Oracle GoldenGate replication by preventing unauthorized access to Oracle GoldenGate Manager processes and the processes under its control. You need to install Oracle GoldenGate with 12.1.2.1.10+ and 12.2+ versions to get this feature. (Blog - Oracle GoldenGate Security: ACCESSRULE provides the details.)
- SOCKS5 Proxy - allows you Oracle GoldenGate to deliver data over the network via an SOCKS5 Proxy. (Blog - Oracle GoldenGate Security: SSH Tunneling provides an overview. Blog - How to Create an SOCKS5 Proxy for Oracle GoldenGate Cloud Service provides the details.)
- Source Character Set Info In Trail - includes the source character set in the trail after the extract and allows replicat to use the character set without requiring users to specify the session character set. (Blog - Oracle GoldenGate Globalization Overview provides some insights)
- Native DDL Replication for Oracle Database - Oracle GoldenGate only supports DDL replication for Oracle Database. After Oracle GoldenGate 12.1.2, you no longer need to run the SQL scripts such as marker_setup.sql and ddl_setup.sql to set up the DDL replication. Using the GoldenGate Integrated Capture for Oracle Database, the native DDL replication is very easy to setup. (Blog - GoldenGate 12.1 New Feature: Native DDL Replication provides the details.)
- Capture and apply to Multi-tenant Database - Extract has to operate in integrated capture mode. Replicat can operate in any of its modes.
- Integrated Delivery - is a parallel replicat with automatic dependency process.
- Capture Active Data Guard (ADG) Standby - allows Oracle GoldenGate classic capture to capture from ADG standby database.
- Data Guard FSFO (Fast Start Fail Over) Integration - provides automated and transparent fail-over of Oracle GoldenGate when database switch-over/fail-over happens
Hope this helps.