Introducing Oracle - Oracle Essentials - page 2

This topic is now in its fifth edition. This edition, like earlier editions, required many
changes, since the database has changed a great deal over this time. Highlights of Oracle
releases covered in the many editions of this topic include:
• Oracle8 (released in 1997) improved the performance and scalability of the database
and added the ability to create and store objects in the database.
• Oracle8 i (released in 1999) added a new twist to the Oracle Database—a combi‐
nation of enhancements that made the Oracle8 i Database a focal point in the world
of Internet computing.
• Oracle9 i (released in 2001) introduced Real Application Clusters as a replacement
for Oracle Parallel Server and added many management and data warehousing
features.
• Oracle Database 10 g (released in 2003) enabled deployment of “grid” computing.
A grid is simply a pool of computers and software resources providing resources
for applications on an as-needed basis. To support this style of computing, Oracle
added the ability to provision CPUs and data. Oracle Database 10 g also further
reduced the time, cost, and complexity of database management through the in‐
troduction of self-managing features such as the Automated Database Diagnostic
Monitor, Automated Shared Memory Tuning, Automated Storage Management,
and Automated Disk Based Backup and Recovery.
• Oracle Database 11 g (released in 2007) highlighted improvement in self-tuning and
managing capabilities, especially in the areas of Automatic Memory Management,
partitioning, and security. The lifecycle of database change management was ex‐
tended within Oracle's Enterprise Manager with improved diagnosis capabilities
and linkage to Oracle Support via a Support Workbench. This version also featured
improved online patching capabilities. In 2008, Oracle announced that its first en‐
gineered system, the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, would support Oracle Da‐
tabase 11 g Enterprise Edition.
• Oracle Database 12 c (released in 2013) introduces a number of deployment, man‐
ageability, and rapid provisioning features especially useful in private and public
cloud computing environments where hardware infrastructure and the database are
delivered as a service over a network, building upon capabilities introduced in pre‐
vious releases. Typically, many databases are deployed and managed using this
model, so Oracle introduced a capability in the database to share services by defin‐
ing multitenant container and pluggable databases.
Before we dive into further details, let's step back and look at how databases evolved,
how we arrived at the relational model, and Oracle's history. We'll then take an initial
look at Oracle Database packaging and key Oracle features today.