OCI - Oracle9i Database Release 2 New Features


OCI Session Pooling

Session Pooling is a new feature in Oracle 9i Database Release 2. An application can now maintain a pool of
sessions and use a session from the pool when it needs it. This saves the time consuming process of initiating a
connection and authentication every time the process needs a new session. Session Pooling is useful,

especially when a large number of stateless sessions are required for a very short time.
In a web scenario, where many users are connected for a short time, and the primary operation is accessing data, it is a costly operation
to start up a new session every time. In such a scenario, session pooling could boost up the
performance.


OCI Statement caching
Client-side statement caching is also introduced in Oracle9i Database Release 2. This
feature can be enabled at the time of session creation. It allows
users to have a cache of

statements per session. On the server, this means having cursors that ready
to be used, without the need to parse the statements again, and thus improving performance
significantly. With this feature enabled, applications do not have to
keep a track of the statements themselves, as the OCI layer will do it
for them. In addition, a
tagging feature is provided, which users can use as a key to save and

search for statements.