Database upgrades and patches are made simpler than in the past thanks to the pluggable database concept, Mendelsohn said. "When you [patch] that one container database, you effectively patch all of them."

Backup and recovery efforts benefit as well, allowing administrators to back up the system as one unit but recover at the pluggable database level.

Pluggable databases are also ideal for creating development and test environments, and are "perfect" for SaaS (software as a service) applications since they keep each customer's data private, Mendelsohn said.

"Each one of these pluggable databases is an entity that stands alone. It has all its own metadata and private data files," and as a result can be moved easily from one database system to another, Mendelsohn added in a follow-up session.

One key question Mendelsohn left unanswered was whether the multitenancy features will mean changes to Oracle's licensing model for the database; currently customers pay according to the number of processors the software runs on.