Oracle Database 23.6 Free multi-platform images are now available on container registries docker.io/gvenzl/oracle-free and ghcr.io/gvenzl/oracle-free.
As Oracle continues to release more regular updates for Oracle Database Free, something the user community highly sought after, I had to rethink my methodology of (re)building these images. There are only so many hours on the weekend, and building an Oracle Database image (installing the Oracle Database and then trimming the installation) does take time. After that, every single image must go through the image tests before I consider uploading it to the registry. By now, these images are so widely used in CI/CD pipelines and local development environments – which makes me very proud – that a broken uploaded image impacts dozens, if not hundreds, of users right away. And up until now, most of the build and test steps can only happen in serial on my laptop.
Hence, it is no longer feasible to rebuild every single image variation. Just one database version produces 12 images, including 3 image flavors (full, [regular], slim), 2 image types ([regular], faststart), and 2 arch types (amd64 and arm64). Multiply that by 5 current Oracle Database Free versions (23.2 – 23.6), and you can see how quickly you end up with just too many images to maintain.
Which is the reason why I have introduced a support matrix for gvenzl/oracle-free images.
What are the implications to you?
Your safest bet is to always use the tags with no version identifier: full, latest, slim. These tags will always be present and have continued support. However, if there ever is a next version of Oracle Database, let’s say an Oracle Database 27 Free, these tags would also automatically point to that new version.
Your next safest bet is to use the major version tags, starting with (just) 23: 23-full, 23, 23-slim. These will always point to the latest Oracle Database 23 Free update, currently 23.6. These images are currently supported and receive regular updates and fixes. They are currently supported because when enough newer Oracle Database Free major versions have been introduced, this version will eventually be deprecated and unsupported. But many years will have to go by for this to happen, so you probably don’t need to worry too much about them.
If you are using a version-specific tag, .e.g. 23.4-slim or 23.2-faststart, you will see that one of them is deprecated and three of them unsupported. I will always try to keep these images up to date with the latest Oracle Database Free releases and you have my guarantee that when that happens, the prior version will continue to receive bug fixes so that if you are using that version in your project and encounter an issue, you will not be forsaken. However, older image versions will go to unsupported and I will no longer update them. If you want changes to any of these images, you will not get them anymore. Instead, I kindly ask you to move to a newer, supported image version. Unsupported images may also eventually disappear from the registry altogether. That is purely down to how much storage space I continue to have on these registries (which I do not know). The moment that I cannot upload a newer version into the registry because I’m out of space will be when the oldest image will have to make way and disappear.
Overall, I don’t think that this is a bad thing. After all, one should always try to use the latest software version, especially when using these to test and build new applications against them. For now, I have not seen any indication that I will go out of space any time soon, but be aware that it might happen someday!
What’s in Oracle Database 23.6 Free?
As to what new features came in 23.6, you can check out the Oracle Database New Features Guide documentation. Most of the changes are related to AI Vector Search. Still, there are also new JSON Collection Views and my personal favorite: Sessionless Transactions, a hidden gem with the potential to be a killer feature.
- AI Vector Search: New Vector Distance Metric
- Hybrid Vector Index
- Partition-Local Neighbor Partition Vector Index
- Persistent Neighbor Graph Vector Indexes
- Sparse Vectors
- Transactional Support for Neighbor Graph Vector Indexes
- Vector Format Output for Feature Extraction Algorithm
- GoldenGate Replication of JSON-Relational Duality Views
- JSON Collection Views
- JSON Replication
- JSON Search Index Path Subsetting
- Replication Support for JSON Collection Tables
- Enhancements to Oracle Data Redaction
- Sessionless Transactions
Enjoy Oracle Database 23.6 Free and docker/podman pull away!
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Hi Gerald Venzl, I’m not sure if this is your responsibility, but maybe you can at least forward it to the right people. I wonder why the file name for the Oracle Linux versions of the ’23ai free’ database on https://www.oracle.com/database/free/get-started/ is always the same, even if the version changes. While the name of the Windows version ‘WINDOWS.X64_237000_free.zip’ tells you directly when the 23.5 has been replaced by a 23.7, the name of the Linux version for Oracle Enterprise Linux 9 is always ‘oracle-database-free-23ai-1.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm’ for all the different versions and you can only recognise by comparing the sha256 checksum when something has changed. And what is the purpose of this kind of ‘version number’ 1.0-1 in this file name if it does not change at all – although a speaking version number like Windows would be even better.
Hi Ulrich,
Thanks a lot for your input!
Unfortunately, I’m not in direct control of this. However, I fully agree with you and I have just forwarded your comment to the right folks as another input data point from a user confirming that this situation is not ideal.
You may have just helped convincing them, thank you very much for that!
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