Oracle Spatial - Amazon Relational Database Service
How Spatial Patch Bundles (SPBs) workPrerequisitesBest 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. Amazon RDS supports Oracle Spatial in all editions of all supported releases.

How Spatial Patch Bundles (SPBs) work

Every quarter, RDS for Oracle releases new minor engine versions for every supported major engine. A Release Update (RU) engine version incorporates bug fixes from Oracle by including the RU patches for the specified quarter. A Spatial Patch Bundle (SPB) engine version contains RU patches plus patches specific to Oracle Spatial. For example, 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1 is a minor engine version that contains the RU patches in engine version 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1 plus Spatial patches. SPBs are supported only for Oracle Database 19c.

SPBs function in the same way as RUs, although they are named differently. An RU uses the naming format 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1. An SPB name includes the text "spb," as in 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1. Typically, an SPB is released 2–3 weeks after its corresponding quarterly RU. For example, 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.spb-1.r1 is released after 19.0.0.0.ru-2025-01.rur-2025-01.r1.

RDS for Oracle has separate paths for automatic minor version upgrades of RUs and SPBs. If your DB instance uses an RU, then RDS automatically upgrades your instance to an RU. If your DB instance uses an SPB, then RDS upgrades your instance to an SPB. When you add the Oracle Spatial option to your DB instance, and you enable automatic upgrades, RDS puts your instance in the upgrade path for SPBs.

For more information about RUs and SPBs, see Oracle minor version upgrades. For a list of supported RUs and SPBs for Oracle Database 19c, see Amazon RDS for Oracle Database 19c (19.0.0.0) in Amazon RDS for Oracle Release Notes.

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.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.