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Oracle 9i Overview

Oracle 9i is Oracle's 2nd Internet database and this release provides better support for hosted applications and larger databases by enhancing performance to increase throughput, scalability so more users per database can be supported, and manageability so that the dbas need to spend less time on the mundane tasks like configuring redo logs.

As the "i" in the name suggests, this release also offers enhanced Internet-related features, including Internet content management and ecommerce integration.

Enhancements were also made in the areas of

security
availability
integration with Windows
and the following application areas:
- packaged applications
- Business Intelligence

Let's look at some of the more important features in more detail.

Scalability

As the demand for Oracle databases to be able to support more and more users continues, issues of scalability become more important.

Oracle 9i provides the following improvements in this area:

Real Application Clusters (RAC) - replaces parallel server technology available in Oracle 7 and 8.
reduced resource requirements per user
improved resource management features to give greater control at lower levels

Real Application Clusters (RAC)

The major enhancements of Real Application Clusters over parallel server are :

scalability on demand - extra servers and disks can be added as needed
low cost of ownership - RAC can be implemented using low-cost hardware running Linux
high availability included - each server in the cluster acts as a hot standby for every other server
transparent to the application - everything is handled by the database mangement/clustering software

Resource Management Features

Oracle 8i introduced the facility to allocate resource quotas to various groups of users (consumers) via the database resource manager. Oracle 9i offers more granular control of resources, adding the following new resource plan directives:

undo pool quotas
active session quotas
estimated execution time quotas
automatic consumer group switching

High Availability Features

Minimising downtime is becoming increasingly important not least for e-commerce businesses and this has been a major focus of Oracle for the last few releases. Oracle 9i maximises database availability by

supporting up to 9 standby databases (logical or physical) with 3 protection modes (maximum protection, maximum availability, maximum performance) for the primary database and the option to use standby databases for reporting whilst maintaining synchronisation with the primary
reduction in off-line maintenance requirements
enabling the maximum instance recovery time to be specified
enabling data to be queried as it was in the past through the use of flashback queries

High Performance Features

For CPU intensive PL/SQL code, Oracle 9i offers native compilation of PL/SQL.

Transaction throughput is increased by reducing latch contention (waiting to acquire an internal lock on parts of the SGA) and a new feature, index skip/scan, uses composite indexes where the leading column of the index is not specified to improve query performance.

Support for Java in the database is improved with enhancements to garbage collection, native compilation, object sharing, session pinning, JDBC and SQLJ.

Database Management Features

There is nearly always a trade off between complexity and flexibility and as more and more features are added to the database, the complexity could increase exponentially. Theoretically ease of management is the inverse of complexity but what Oracle have done with 9i is to add features that make the database easier to manage. These features include:

database managed rollback segments (now called undo segments)
Oracle managed files - o/s files created/removed automatically by the database
a binary, server-based parameter file which can be written to by the running instance
dynamic database management of program global area (pga)

Security Features

As the diversity and number of users of databases increases, robust security features become essential. The security features in Oracle 9i include:

enhanced 3-tier security with proxy authentication
virtual private databases which can be used to segregate multiple users' data in one database (for application service providers for example)
improved password management for user security
ability to encrypt stored data
row-level access control (Oracle Label Security)

Integration With Windows

Oracle 9i has been enhanced to take advantage of the new Windows features including:

integration of single sign-on and PKI with Active Directory and Microsoft Certificate Store
better integration with IIS and Microsoft's Transaction Services and Message Queuing
enhanced development features (Oracle Data Objects etc.)

Internet Content Management

Oracle 9i enables the storage and manipulation of many different types of data including XML and multi-media. Some ofthe features in this area are:-

Internet File Store - which allows emails, web pages,spread sheets etc to be stored in the database but accessed by Windows Explorer, Outlook, etc as if they were stored in a normal file system
searching/indexing of multimedia and XML data
shared workspaces that allow multiple versions of contentto exists simultaneously
ability to create applications to make use of locationinformation of clients and services (e.g. for use with mobile phones)

Details of all the Oracle 9i database features can be found in the Oracle 9i documentation library .

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