Oracle and Hardware Architecture - Oracle Essentials - page 315

The “ g ” in Oracle nomenclature for Oracle Database 10 g and Oracle Database 11 g
signified a focus on enabling grid computing. Grids are simply pools of computers that
provide needed resources for applications on an as-needed basis. The goal is to provide
computing resources that transparently scale to the user community, much as an elec‐
trical utility company can deliver power to meet peak demand by accessing energy from
other power providers' plants via a power grid. Computing grids enable this dynamic
provisioning of CPU and data resources.
The Oracle Database with RAC forms the foundation for the provisioning of these
resources. Today, such configurations are increasingly deployed in on-premise private
clouds or to provide off-premise resources in public clouds. The “ c ” in Oracle nomen‐
clature for Oracle Database 12 c indicates Oracle's growing focus here.
The Oracle Database with RAC forms the foundation used in provisioning of resources,
enabling dynamic load balancing and workload management. Key features in Oracle
Databases and related products further supporting such deployment models include:
Pluggable Databases
Introduced with Oracle Database 12 c , this feature enables many pluggable databases
(PDBs) to exist within single Oracle database occurrences (called multitenant con‐
tainer databases, or CDBs) and is useful when consolidating larger numbers of
databases to a single platform than otherwise might be supported on a given plat‐
form configuration, provisioning of new databases, copying existing databases, and
for fast patching and upgrades. Please refer to Chapter 2 for a more detailed dis‐
cussion of pluggable databases.
Active Data Guard
Active Data Guard is typically used for high availability implementations and en‐
ables the creation of farms of read-only databases. The Data Guard Broker enables
creation, management, and monitoring of these configurations. Please refer to
Chapter 11 for a more detailed discussion of Active Data Guard.
GoldenGate
GoldenGate enables replication of updates in near real-time among multiple data‐
bases. GoldenGate is also covered in more detail in Chapter 11 .
Enterprise Manager 12c
Enterprise Manager 12 c manages cloud and grid infrastructures from a central lo‐
cation, including Oracle RAC Databases, storage, Oracle Application Servers/
Fusion Middleware, network services, and Oracle-engineered systems and storage.
See Chapter 5 for a discussion regarding managing your Oracle database and en‐
gineered system using Enterprise Manager.