Oracle Spatial - Amazon Relational Database Service
PrerequisitesBest practicesAdding the Oracle Spatial optionRemoving the Spatial option

Oracle Spatial

Amazon RDS supports Oracle Spatial through the use of the SPATIAL option. Oracle Spatial provides a SQL schema and functions that facilitate the storage, retrieval, update, and query of collections of spatial data in an Oracle database. For more information, see Spatial Concepts in the Oracle documentation.

Important

If you use Oracle Spatial, Amazon RDS automatically updates your DB instance to the latest Oracle PSU when any of the following exist:

  • Security vulnerabilities with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 9+

  • Other announced security vulnerabilities

Amazon RDS supports Oracle Spatial only in Oracle Enterprise Edition (EE) and Oracle Standard Edition 2 (SE2). The following table shows the versions of the DB engine that support EE and SE2.

Oracle database version Enterprise Edition Standard Edition 2

21.0.0.0, all versions

Yes

Yes

19.0.0.0, all versions

Yes

Yes
Note

In Oracle Database 19c, Spatial patch bundles are separate from the database Patch Set Updates (PSUs) and Release Updates (RUs). RDS for Oracle doesn't support applying Spatial batch bundles.

Prerequisites for Oracle Spatial

The following are prerequisites for using Oracle Spatial:

  • Make sure that your DB instance is of a sufficient instance class. Oracle Spatial isn't supported for the db.t3.micro or db.t3.small DB instance classes. For more information, see RDS for Oracle DB instance classes.

  • Make sure that your DB instance has Auto Minor Version Upgrade enabled. This option enables your DB instance to receive minor DB engine version upgrades automatically when they become available and is required for any options that install the Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Amazon RDS uses this option to update your DB instance to the latest Oracle Patch Set Update (PSU) or Release Update (RU). For more information, see Modifying an Amazon RDS DB instance.

Best practices for Oracle Spatial

The following are best practices for using Oracle Spatial:

Adding the Oracle Spatial option

The following is the general process for adding the SPATIAL option to a DB instance:

  1. Create a new option group, or copy or modify an existing option group.

  2. Add the option to the option group.

  3. Associate the option group with the DB instance.

If Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is not installed on the DB instance, there is a brief outage while the SPATIAL option is added. There is no outage if Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is already installed on the DB instance. After you add the option, you don't need to restart your DB instance. As soon as the option group is active, Oracle Spatial is available.

Note

During this outage, password verification functions are disabled briefly. You can also expect to see events related to password verification functions during the outage. Password verification functions are enabled again before the Oracle DB instance is available.

To add the SPATIAL option to a DB instance

  1. Determine the option group that you want to use. You can create a new option group or use an existing option group. If you want to use an existing option group, skip to the next step. Otherwise, create a custom DB option group with the following settings:

    1. For Engine, choose the Oracle edition for your DB instance.

    2. For Major engine version, choose the version of your DB instance.

    For more information, see Creating an option group.

  2. Add the SPATIAL option to the option group. For more information about adding options, see Adding an option to an option group.

  3. Apply the option group to a new or existing DB instance:

Removing the Oracle Spatial option

After you drop all objects that use data types provided by the SPATIAL option, you can drop the option from a DB instance. If Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is not installed on the DB instance, there is a brief outage while the SPATIAL option is removed. There is no outage if Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is already installed on the DB instance. After you remove the SPATIAL option, you don't need to restart your DB instance.

To drop the SPATIAL option

  1. Back up your data.

    Warning

    If the instance uses data types that were enabled as part of the option, and if you remove the SPATIAL option, you can lose data. For more information, see Backing up, restoring, and exporting data.

  2. Check whether any existing objects reference data types or features of the SPATIAL option.

    If SPATIAL options exist, the instance can get stuck when applying the new option group that doesn't have the SPATIAL option. You can identify the objects by using the following queries:

    SELECT OWNER, SEGMENT_NAME, TABLESPACE_NAME, BYTES/1024/1024 mbytes
FROM   DBA_SEGMENTS
WHERE  SEGMENT_TYPE LIKE '%TABLE%'
AND    (OWNER, SEGMENT_NAME) IN
       (SELECT DISTINCT OWNER, TABLE_NAME 
        FROM   DBA_TAB_COLUMNS
        WHERE  DATA_TYPE='SDO_GEOMETRY'
        AND    OWNER <> 'MDSYS')
ORDER BY 1,2,3,4;

SELECT OWNER, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME
FROM   DBA_TAB_COLUMNS 
WHERE  DATA_TYPE = 'SDO_GEOMETRY' 
AND    OWNER <> 'MDSYS' 
ORDER BY 1,2,3;

  3. Drop any objects that reference data types or features of the SPATIAL option.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • Remove the SPATIAL option from the option group it belongs to. This change affects all DB instances that use the option group. For more information, see Removing an option from an option group.

    • Modify the DB instance and specify a different option group that doesn't include the SPATIAL option. This change affects a single DB instance. You can specify the default (empty) option group, or a different custom option group. For more information, see Modifying an Amazon RDS DB instance.