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11g Release Has Oracle Database
Geeks Gushing
By
Erika Morphy
CRM Buyer
Part of the ECT News Network
07/12/07 6:00 AM PT
Oracle's
latest release, Database 11g, has been four years in development. Many of the
enhanced features contained in the new release -- such as a secure vault that
can hold information for viewing only by specified parties -- are drawing
plaudits. In all, Oracle has made more than 400 improvements to the product.
Oracle (Nasdaq:
ORCL) 
has
rolled out the next iteration of its core database product line. Oracle
Database 11g, the company proudly claims, is the
result of 15 million test hours and 36,000 person-months of development.
"Oracle Database 11g, built
on 30 years of design experience, delivers the next generation of enterprise
information management," said Andy Mendelsohn,
senior vice president of database server 
technologies for Oracle.
Hundreds of New Features
The new database -- the company's
first in four years -- is been packed with 400-plus new features. Users and
consultants are highlighting their favorites as reasons to adopt 11g.
Particularly anticipated is 11g's
improved integration
of Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Database Vault, said Ari Kaplan, president of
the Independent Oracle Users Group. The feature puts confidential information
in a locked vault, where only someone like the COO, CFO or an external audit
company can view and modify the records.
No one else has that feature on
the market, he claims.
Of the 480 features introduced in
Oracle 11g, two in particular -- artificial intelligence for
self-management and improved real application clusters -- appeal to clients, Donald
Burleson, founder of Burleson Consulting and author of several books on Oracle,
told CRM Buyer.
"Oracle is leading the pack
in intelligent self-management for databases -- it is beating the daylights out
of DB2 and SQL Server because it has incorporated artificial intelligence to
take feedback from Oracle and adjust a configuration according to changes in
the database load," he maintained.
Another example is the automation
of SQL tuning in 11g, Burleson said. Oracle automated the memory and storage management
functions in 10g.
These tools also could cut
additional inroads into the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market.
"A mom-and-pop grocery store can now install 11g without a high degree of
technical knowledge," he pointed out.
Upgrades in the real application
clusters also make database management easier for firms with fewer resources.
No other database management system in the world offers rolling upgrades, said
Burleson. "These allow you to upgrade the software while it is still running
-- it is an amazing feature."
Making the Jump
It remains to be seen, though,
how fast companies will upgrade to 11g.
"There are two measures of
success to any enterprise class software or hardware offering," said
Charles King, founder of Pund-IT Research. "How
well does it meet the essential needs of its base customers? And how quickly
can the company migrate its base to the product?"
The first doesn't necessarily
guarantee the second, he said. "All of the bells and whistles Oracle
promised in 11g are there -- it was delivered on time. As a product, it is a
good one."
However, moving to a new core
database is never an inconsequential task and, in fact, is getting more
difficult as databases grow larger and more complex.
"From what I have heard and
read, I think a lot of the customers will appreciate 11g," King said,
"but they won't be rushing to deploy it until it is time for an
upgrade."
At a Glance
Other new features in Oracle 11g:
- Oracle Real Application Testing allows
customers to test and manage changes to their IT
environment.
- Oracle Data Guard enables customers to use
their standby database to improve performance in their production
environments, as well as provide protection from system failures and
site-wide disasters. Oracle Data Guard enables simultaneous read and
recovery of a single standby database, making it available for reporting, backup,
testing and "rolling" upgrades to production databases, the
company explains.
- New data partitioning and compression
automation capabilities extend existing range, hash and list partitioning
to include interval, reference and virtual column partitioning. There is
also a set of composite partitioning options.
- Advanced data compression is available for
both structured and unstructured large object (LOB) data managed in
transaction processing, data warehousing, and content management
environments.
- Oracle Total Recall enables administrators to
query data in designated tables "as of" earlier times.
- Oracle Flashback Transaction makes it easy to
back out a transaction made in error, as well as any dependent
transactions.
- Parallel Backup and Restore helps improve the
backup and restore performance of very large databases.
- "Hot patching" improves system availability
by allowing database patches to be applied without the need to shut
databases down.
- Data Recovery Advisor helps administrators
significantly reduce recovery downtime by automating problem
investigation, intelligently determining a recovery plan, and handling
multiple failure situations.
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