Introducing Oracle AI Database 26ai and ODP.NET 26ai

Oracle AI Database 26ai

Larry Ellison recently announced the release of Oracle AI Database 26ai at Oracle AI World 2025. This new version integrates AI technology into the database core and throughout its feature set. All workload types and data providers, including ODP.NET, can use these new capabilities, bringing the vision of “AI for Data” to fruition.

Oracle AI Database’s built-in capabilities now includes the latest AI innovations, including Model Context Protocol (MCP), large language models (LLMs), popular agentic AI frameworks, Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) embedding models, and AI Vector Search. These now native Oracle AI Database features are included at no additional charge. And they are free when using Oracle AI Database 26ai Free or Oracle Always Free Autonomous Database.

You get all these AI technologies along with Oracle’s mission critical high-availability, security, and reliability.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, literally and figuratively. That’s because Oracle’s new Autonomous AI Lakehouse supports the Apache Iceberg open table format and is available on all major hyperscaler clouds: Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

In the coming months, Oracle will deliver more AI innovations, including unified hybrid vector search to include relational, text, JSON, knowledge graph, and spatial data, as well as as enabling LLM-powered AI Agents to use MCP to provide improved and more accurate answers.

And these features are all available to Oracle .NET developers.

What’s New in ODP.NET 26ai

ODP.NET 26ai

Oracle also delivered ODP.NET 26ai (23.26) on NuGet Gallery. This release supports Oracle AI Database 26ai, of course, and its new features. ODP.NET includes several new (non-AI) enhancements as well in the areas of compatibility, observability, and resiliency.

Simpler ODP.NET Time Zone File Upgrades

Countries update their time zone observance on occasion, such as changing when daylight saving time starts and ends. Oracle publishes new time zone files to keep databases and clients updated. Administrators deploy these files to keep time accurately and in sync. Mismatched time zone settings between the server and client can cause error conditions.

ODP.NET has built-in time zone settings. They are up to date when released. With ODP.NET 26ai, the ODP.NET time zone file can be updated to incorporate the latest time settings. Just set the [OracleConfiguration.TimeZoneFileLocation](https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/26/odpnt/ConfigurationTimeZoneFileLocation.html) to the directory that contains the latest time zone file.

OpenTelemetry — Trace Rows Fetched per Round Trip

ODP.NET 26ai OpenTelemetry traces now publish the number of rows returned per database round trip from SELECT statements. You will find this data under the db.response.returned_rows tag.

This tag improves visibility into ODP.NET execution performance.

Application Continuity — Set Maximum Calls Per Request Boundary

Oracle Application Continuity enables database requests to automatically replay operations in a non-disruptive and rapid manner if the database session is severed. It improves the ODP.NET end user experience by masking planned and unplanned outage errors. Applications no longer need complex logic to handle exceptions, while still automatically replaying database operations upon a recoverable error.

To support Application Continuity, ODP.NET stores all the driver calls occurring between request boundaries. This is when connections are checked out and back in. This call record makes session restoration possible after a failover. In the case of long-running connections, more calls are stored and then restored. Thus, more memory is needed to retain all these changes. You can limit memory usage by restricting the number of retained calls between request boundaries by setting a maximum value for [OracleConfiguration.MaxCallsPerRequestBoundary](https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/26/odpnt/ConfigurationMaxCallsPerRequestBoundary.html).

Raft Replication

ODP.NET 26ai adds Raft replication support with Oracle Globally Distributed Database for fault-tolerant replication with transactional support. This enables apps to have automatic failover with no data loss while using distributed databases and Oracle Data Guard.

No ODP.NET code changes are necessary to use Raft replication.

This feature adds to ODP.NET’s existing support for Oracle Globally Distributed Database and sharding.

Conclusion

Oracle AI Database 26ai and ODP.NET 26ai are a major leap forward in delivering new AI insights and productivity to your apps. You can start developing with them today for free!

• Download Oracle AI Database 26ai Free
• Download ODP.NET 26ai Core or Managed ODP.NET 26ai from NuGet Gallery.
• Learn more about Oracle AI Database 26ai.