Oracle Autonomous Database can pass tables to other databases and tools through a feature called Data Share, and it can read tables that others share with it. This guide explains the two share types, what the Delta Sharing support does and does not cover, and what each control means for a team that holds licensed data and is asked to share it. Data sharing here means making tables available to other parties without a custom export. Oracle's documentation now names the service Oracle Autonomous AI Database, and this guide keeps the name in its title for the same service. It calls the open protocol Delta Sharing; the project behind that protocol has been named OpenSharing since June 2026. The facts about Oracle come from its documentation for the Serverless deployment, read on 4 October 2026, starting with its overview of Data Share.
What Data Share is
Data Share is a tool in Data Studio, opened from Database Actions, which is bundled with each Autonomous Database instance. A database user needs the DWROLE role to see it, and an ADMIN user must enable the provider's schema for sharing. It has two roles. A provider creates a share, which can hold one table, a set of related tables or any logical grouping of them, adds recipients and publishes the share. A consumer subscribes to a provider, registers the shares and creates external tables or views over them. The DBMS_SHARE package does the same work from scripts. A provider can share only data it can reach itself when it is logged in to its instance. Oracle offers two share types, and they differ in where the data is when the recipient reads it.
Versioned shares and Delta Sharing
A versioned share publishes data as a known snapshot. The provider needs read and write access to an object storage bucket. At publication the tool writes the shared tables as Parquet files in that bucket, and a recipient sees changes only when the provider publishes a new version. Publishing can run on a schedule that polls the bucket.
The mechanism is Delta Sharing, which the project describes as an open protocol: a REST protocol that shares access to part of a cloud dataset and moves the data through cloud storage such as S3, ADLS or GCS. Oracle states that its data sharing for general recipients is based on that protocol, and its overview of the tool names Microsoft Power BI as an example of an outside system that supports it. Each recipient gets a personal activation link and can download a JSON profile from it once. With the profile the recipient calls the share's REST endpoints for a list of URLs, then fetches the Parquet files with GET requests.
Two limits on the limitations page matter. The tool creates only two Delta Share profiles for one recipient, and a third invalidates the first. And a share supports fourteen column types: BINARY_DOUBLE, BINARY_FLOAT, CHAR, CLOB, DATE, FLOAT, the two INTERVAL types, NCHAR, NCLOB, NUMBER, NVARCHAR2, TIMESTAMP and VARCHAR2. The JSON type is not on the list. A table that keeps company JSON in JSON columns, as the guide to loading company data into Oracle Autonomous Database does, falls outside it, so share a view that returns the JSON as text, and test with one share first.
Live shares
A live share copies nothing. The recipient queries the provider's table or view over a cloud link, which Oracle implements on a database link, and sees the latest committed data at query time. Oracle says a live share can be consumed only in an Oracle database. The page for providers offers scopes for the provider's own region, tenancy or compartment, and a live-share recipient is identified by the Sharing ID of its own Autonomous Database. A live share can hold at most four objects, and Oracle recommends sharing one view, not several tables, when the tables would normally be joined.
Autonomous Database as a recipient
Autonomous Database also consumes Delta Sharing. A recipient subscribes to a Delta Share provider by uploading the JSON profile, picks shares and then links or loads the shared tables, which Oracle notes do not appear automatically. An administrator first adds a network access control entry for the provider's host. Oracle documents two profile types: version 1 with a bearer token, and version 2 with OIDC client credentials, available in PL/SQL only and described for Databricks shares. Delta tables that have deletion vectors enabled cannot be read. Oracle's consume page tells the recipient to ask the provider to drop the feature or to share a copy without it. The wider protocol is covered in Delta Sharing, explained for data licensing teams.
What it means for licensed data
A share changes where licensed data is and who can read it. It does not change what the licence allows. Fokals licenses by written agreement for internal use, embedding in a product or redistribution. Passing tables to another organisation is the use a redistribution licence covers. Passing them to another team in your own organisation depends on how your licence defines the licensee. In both cases the controls Oracle documents on its Provide Share page map onto licence questions.
| Control | What Oracle documents | Licence question |
|---|---|---|
| Recipient and grant | A named recipient with an email address, granted one or more shares; a live-share recipient is identified by its database | Who is the recipient in the licence's terms, and is each share in scope? |
| Snapshot or live | Versioned shares publish a Parquet copy of each version to a bucket; live shares give query access and no copy | May the recipient hold a copy, or only query? |
| Lifetime | A token lifetime and a pre-authenticated URL lifetime for each recipient; unpublishing a share; deleting a recipient, which ends access to every share and invalidates its credentials | How does access end when the licence does? |
| Evidence | A log for each recipient with time, status, share, request, endpoint, remote address and user agent, at basic, detail or errors-only level | Can you show who read what if the licensor asks? |
| Other routes | Table Hyperlinks: a URL that gives a recipient on the public internet access to a table or a query result, with an expiry of up to 90 days and an optional use limit | Who may create one, and does the licence allow a URL that opens for anyone who holds it? |
The choice of share type follows the licence. Where it allows query access and not copies, a live share fits, provided every recipient runs Autonomous Database within an allowed scope. Where recipients use other tools, or need a fixed snapshot so that a result can be reproduced, only a versioned share reaches them, and its Parquet files are a further copy of the data in your own bucket that the licence should cover.
Revoking access stops later reads. It cannot unread files a recipient has already fetched, so the licence, and not the tool, has to say what a recipient deletes when access ends. The overview of Table Hyperlinks adds that a hyperlink runs with the privileges of the database user who creates it, which makes the creator's grants part of the review. The guide to what a data licence covers and the piece on redistributing company data under licence list what to settle before the first share.
Where Fokals data fits
Fokals is delivered direct, by REST API and as bulk files in JSON, JSON Lines or CSV, which you load into your own Autonomous Database with its own loaders. From then on any sharing is yours to govern, and four properties of the data help with that. Each record carries the time it was observed. Daily and weekly tables are written once and never revised, so a versioned share of them adds days without changing earlier ones. The data is company-level throughout, and a leadership change is recorded by role. And each bulk export has a manifest that names its sources, period, label versions and licence, so keep it beside any table you share.
One dataset carries a condition of its own. Web Traffic, the monthly traffic tier of each website, sits in traffic_ranks and is delivered with an attribution column. Share the column with the rows. The data licensing page describes how Fokals licenses the data.
Frequently asked questions
Does Oracle Autonomous Database support Delta Sharing?
Yes, in both directions. As a provider it publishes versioned shares as Parquet files in a bucket, which recipients read with a JSON profile and the Delta Sharing REST endpoints. As a recipient it subscribes to a Delta Share provider with a JSON profile, including Databricks shares through OIDC in PL/SQL. It cannot read Delta tables that have deletion vectors, and live shares work only between Oracle databases.
What is the difference between a versioned share and a live share?
A versioned share publishes snapshots as Parquet files in a bucket, and recipients see changes only when the provider publishes a new version. Non-Oracle tools that support Delta Sharing can read it. A live share gives an Autonomous Database recipient query access to the latest committed data over a cloud link, with no copy, for at most four objects.
Can you share licensed data from Autonomous Database with another company?
Oracle's tool can. Whether you may is a licence question, and a share does not change it. Passing tables to another organisation is redistribution, which Fokals licenses by written agreement, separately from internal use and embedding in a product. Settle the recipients, the tables, how access ends and whether recipients keep copies, then use the recipient logs to show who read what.
How does a provider end a recipient's access to a share?
There are three levels. Revoking a recipient's grant on a share ends its access to that share, unpublishing a share stops every recipient reading it while other shares continue, and deleting a recipient ends access to all its shares at once and invalidates its existing Delta credentials. Tokens also expire after the lifetime set for the recipient. Files already fetched stay with the recipient.
Is Oracle Autonomous Database now called Autonomous AI Database?
Yes. Oracle's release notes of 14 October 2025 say Oracle Autonomous Database becomes Oracle Autonomous AI Database, with Autonomous Transaction Processing and Autonomous JSON Database taking the same prefix. Oracle's Data Share pages use the new name. This guide keeps the earlier name in its title for the same service.
What this page says about the products it names was checked against their public documentation on 4 October 2026. Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. Fokals is not affiliated with them or endorsed by them.