Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Other Oracle Databases
Today, Oracle offers other databases including Oracle MySQL, Berkeley DB, Oracle
NoSQL Database, and TimesTen. We'll also briefly touch upon the Cloudera Hadoop
distribution included with Oracle's Big Data Appliance. These database engines have
unique code lines with different intended roles. There are entire topics written about
these alternative databases. For this reason, we will describe these briefly in the following
subsections but will not explore their capabilities in detail elsewhere in this topic.
Oracle MySQL
The MySQL database is an open source relational database, with source code made
available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Development of MySQL began
in 1994 by Michael Widenius and David Axmark and it was first released in 1995. Over
time, the MySQL database grew into the most popular open source database. MySQL
was acquired by Sun in 2008, and Sun was then acquired by Oracle in 2010. In addition
to the MySQL Database, there is a free graphical data modeling, SQL development, and
administration tool called the MySQL Workbench that is often deployed as part of the
infrastructure. Oracle bundles the Workbench with its editions of MySQL.
A MySQL Community Edition remains freely downloadable today and is supported by
open source developers. Oracle offers support for several editions, including a Classic
Edition, Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Cluster Carrier Grade Edition. The
editions share in common a reputation for rapid installation, low total cost of ownership,
and exceptional scalability and performance for many applications.
The Classic Edition is intended to be used as an embedded database by OEMs, ISVs,
and VARs developing read-intensive applications using MyISAM. For more demanding
OLTP applications, the Standard Edition provides a basic database engine that also
includes the InnoDB engine.
As scalability and performance requirements grow, the Enterprise Edition is designed
to provide additional functionality. Key components include:
• MySQL Enterprise Backup for hot compressed backups; full, incremental, and par‐
tial backups; full and partial restores; and point-in-time recovery
• MySQL Enterprise High Availability, which includes replication, Oracle VM tem‐
plate support, and Solaris and Windows failover clustering
• MySQL Enterprise Scalability for high-demand query and workload
• MySQL Enterprise Security for supporting pluggable authentication, including
Windows Active Directory support
• MySQL Enterprise Audit for supporting policy-based auditing in applications
