[?] Subscribe To This Site

XML RSS
Add to Google
Add to My Yahoo!
Add to My MSN
Subscribe with Bloglines


Home
Smartsoft Blog
Oracle Training
Oracle 9i
Oracle 10g
Oracle 11g
Oracle App Server
Oracle Utilities
Backup and Recovery
Oracle Certification
Oracle Tutorials
PL/SQL
Free SQL Tutorial
SQL
News
Oracle Resources
Oracle Secrets Signup
Oracle and .Net
Contact Us

Oracle 11g -
Easy and Straightforward Grid Computing

Oracle 11g release 1 is Oracle's 3rd iteration of its grid-enabled database. Whilst 10g r1 was for grid-computing pioneers and 10g r2 makes grid computing more mainstream, this release is described as making grid computing easy and straightforward. Let's see how it measures up.

Grid Computing Features

To make grid computing easier to manage Oracle 11g includes enhancements to ASM (automatic storgae management) to make mirroring faster; to RAC (Real Application Clusters) to improve load balancing; and to ADDM (Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor) so that it can detect global i/o or interconnect issues.

Don't waste hours scouring the Internet for Oracle tips. Subscribe to our ezine and get them delivered straight to your in box.

More Than Grid Computing

However Oracle 11g is not just about grid computing. This release also has improvements in security, availability, performance and scalability including perhaps most importantly, the management of change.

Better management of change is important for lowering the risk and therefore the cost of change. One of the improvements in this area is the database replay facility which enables the impact of hardware or software changes (including database upgrades) to be accurately assessed on a test system before being applied to the production system.

This is achieved by providing the facility to capture the workload on the production system in real time and then replay it exactly on the test system, enabling developers and DBAs to ascertain that everything works as it should or if not to fix issues in the test environment without any risk to the production environment.

Manageability Features

One of the features that makes 11g easier to manage and improves database availability over previous releases is the new hot-patching feature available both for RAC and single-instance databases. This means there is no need to shut down the database to apply security or other patches.

A Faster Database

Performance of Oracle 11g has been enhanced by amongst other things, the re-design of the management of LOBs (large objects) by the database. LOBs are now part of SecureFiles which also handles medical images and geo-spatial raster objects in the database and at speeds comparable to the file handling of the operating system. Oracle SecureFiles also enhances security by enabling LOBs to be encrypted when stored in the database.

Security Features

Other features helping to improve data security include the ability to encrypt dump files (database exports) and encrypt whole tablespaces and decrypt them on the fly so that this whole feature is completely transparent to the application.

Another security feature is the recently introduced Audit Vault which provides a consolidated repository of audit data from databases (Oracle 9i r2 or higher) throughout the enterprise to enable auditors to quickly and efficiently look for any suspicious activity.

High-Availability Features

In terms of high-availability, data guard enables a wider variety of disaster-recovery configurations to use the automatic fail over feature and physical standby databases can be opened in read/write mode for testing or reporting purposes whilst still receiving changes from the primary database.

Is 11g Easier To Manage?

Improving the manageability of the database is an on-going task not made easier by the increasing number of new features added with each release.

Oracle 11g addresses this by making the database more self-managing and providing advisers to help with table partitioning, database repair, space management and performance tuning. Overall, therefore, 11g simplifies the adoption of grid computing to enable business to reduce costs and increase the up-time of their applications without throwing more work on to DBAs or developers to manage all these new features.

What Platforms Does It Run On?

Oracle 11g isn't supported on as many operating systems as Oracle 10g r2 but it does run on the major ones:

Upgrading to Oracle 11g

When planning your upgrade to Oracle 11g you will be faced with qute a few options and obstacles to overcome so we've produced a simple guide to upgrading to help you choose the best option and overcome those obstacles.

Click here for our guide to upgrading to Oracle 11g.

Looking for expert Oracle 11g training? We offer bespoke on site Oracle training New Zealand wide for both developers and dbas. Contact us today and discover how we can help you.

Streamline your Oracle systems with expert Oracle consulting services from Smartsoft. With skills honed to a fine edge over many years with myriad clients in a variety of industries, our consultants have the knowledge and experience to help you. Click here for a consultation application form.

Return from Oracle 11g to Oracle consulting


footer for Oracle 11g page