From other forums:
Although dbms_job still exists in 10g and 11g, Oracle recommends the use of dbms_scheduler in releases 10g and up. No new features are being added to dbms_job and you will likely quickly run into its limitations.
dbms_scheduler is more robust and fully-featured than dbms_job and includes the following features that dbms_job does not have :
- logging of job runs (job history)
- simple but powerful scheduling syntax (similar to but more powerful than cron syntax)
- running of jobs outside of the database on the operating system
- resource management between different classes of jobs
- use of job arguments including passing of objects into stored procedures
- privilege-based security model for jobs
- naming of jobs and comments in jobs
- stored, reusable schedules
Features in releases after 10g Release 1 include :
- dependencies between job units (10gR2 and up)
- scheduling based on financial calendars and fiscal quarters (10gR2 and up)
- event based jobs which run when an event is received (10gR2 and up)
- running of jobs on remote machines (11gR1 and up)
- e-mail notifications on job events of interest (10gR2 and up)
- starting a job based on arrival of a file (10gR2 and up)