An analysis of using binary JSON versus native JSON on the example of Oracle DBMS

JSON is a popular and proven standard for specifying self-describing text files with a flexible structure. To maintain its position in the market, Oracle introduced support for JSON data in the 12c R1 version of its DBMS. This version has introduced functions for storing and managing JSON data in native form but also showed some limitations. Each new version introduced new or updated JSON functions. The 21c can store JSON data in binary form, provides more straightforward syntax and even supports JSON as a predefined data type. The paper aims to compare the performance when the underlying storage of JSON is native or binary. A data model and seven use cases were designed to demonstrate earlier and new functionalities. Additionally, experiments showed the impact of JSON data stored in native (19c and 21c) and binary form (21c) on the average execution time and costs of SQL statements.