Author: Marco Gralike

August 17

Binary XML storage can also be combined with an XML Schema. As shown in Mark Drakes presentation whitepaper (slide 6), the lower right of the diagram, shown below, marks the section for XML Schema (structured, schema based) binary XML storage.

Slide 6 of “Oracle Database 11g XML DB Presentation (PDF) July 2007”

XML Use Cases - Oracle Database 11g XML DB Presentation (PDF) July 2007, Mark Drake, Oracle

Click picture to enlarge

The following example will show how you can create an XMLType table making use of a defined XML Schema and how to avoid the ORA-44424 error (BINARY XML storage requires XML Schema registered for BINARY usage).

August 17
August 14

If you like it or not, but XMLDB will be an important component of your new Oracle 11g database. I didn’t really looked into the new dependencies regarding other features of the database. I tested mainly on Oracle 11g XMLDB storage functionality, but today, fiddling around with the new WSDL web service feature, I encountered serious security issue. Eh, improvement that is.

XMLDB functionality controls a lot of security with it’s build-in ACL (Access Control List) security. Today I discovered that it is NOT ONLY XMLDB functionality, but also OTHER database features are affected by it.

Yesterday I installed Oracle 11.1.0.6.0 on Oracle Enterprise Linux V5. Doing so I was able to get the WSDL functionality working. Mark Drake (Sr. Product Manager Oracle, XML Technologies), as always, replied on my question on the XMLDB OTN forum with a great example of how one could enable and / or use the WSDL feature. This mentioned also the use of a package called DBMS_NETWORK_ACL_ADMIN

When I looked further into the package DBMS_NETWORK_ACL_ADMIN I read that this is part of Oracle’s more tightened security methods also referred to as “Fine-Grained Access to External Network Services”. Packages that create access to the outside database world are controlled via XMLDB ACL methods.

Packages now controlled via ACL’s are: UTL_TCP, UTL_SMTP, UTL_MAIL, UTL_HTTP, or UTL_INADDR

The Oracle 11g Upgrade manual describes it as follows: