Chapter 4
Oracle8 Servers and Options

by Advanced Information Systems, Inc.

In This Chapter

•  So Many Options—So Little Time

•  The Oracle8 Server

•  Oracle8 Enterprise Edition—Luxury and Performance

•  Oracle Lite—Tastes Great, Less Calories

•  Operating System Wars—UNIX Versus NT

So Many Options—So Little Time

It is important to remember that Oracle is just another company selling products. Let’s tear away the religious mystique of Oracle as a company coming down from their mountain in Redwood Shores delivering to us the stone tablets of relational databases. Instead, picture Oracle as a large car dealership with colored flags blowing in the wind. On this ever-changing lot, Oracle offers many models and sizes of their relational database for all different types of customers. From the motor scooter to the Mercedes, Oracle has a database just right for you. Their goal, like all companies, is to move merchandise.

This is not to ridicule Oracle, for after all, what does the Oracle database depend on? Well, ultimately, it must exist on some computer hardware. To the degree that computer hardware and architectures vary in the marketplace, likewise Oracle will offer different software configurations, options, and database “models,” all tailored to fit the needs of the many customers visiting them with the world’s computer hardware strapped to their backs.

To even a greater degree than hardware, Oracle must tailor their products around the needs of the customer. Today, storing a vast amount of data for many users is paramount. Yet maybe in the future, mathematical computation will be more important, or artificially intelligent databases; the Oracle database of the future will look different than Oracle today, because ultimately Oracle’s database, like all software, is driven by need.

There are three considerations we must explore to understand the different models we see on the Oracle “lot.” These factors are scale, architecture, and utility.

Scale—Bambi Meets Godzilla

The scale or “size” of the hardware, meaning the capacity of the computing power, will help you narrow down which Oracle database you might want to drive off the lot with. For example, if you own a 300MHz Pentium PC and want to use Oracle for a simple small-office operation, you are definitely looking for something different than the customer with the large super-computer running the corporate headquarters.

Architecture—Welcome to the Jungle

The next consideration is architecture. Computer Hardware is simply not measured by the size of the box, the number of boxes you unpack, the power of the CPU, or even the capacity of the hard-drives. Today, computing is characterized by the many complexities regarding how different pieces of hardware are hooked together and how operating systems deal with these complex configurations. Ultimately, this drives what type of Oracle software you are looking for, since Oracle’s software must be able to function and prosper as a guest installed within these environments.

Utility—Taking Care of Business

The third factor you must consider is utility. How will the database be used? Are you developing software storing a huge amount of data that only a few people will see, or a small amount of data that many people will see? Is the database application only for in-house users, or are you building a Web application? How will Oracle be used in its interface with other software products? These are the questions you need to ask about use and utility which, when answered, determine options and software packages appropriate to purchase with Oracle’s database offering.

These three considerations: scale, architecture, and utility, are the basis for understanding Oracle’s different offerings and options for its database software. As you review the different options Oracle offers for its Server products, you will be considering these three factors and seeing how they have shaped the different software options for Oracle.

The Oracle8 Server

Every release of a new version of Oracle can be viewed as a response to new computing needs and paradigm shifts within the world of relational databases. The design and business strategy that drove the shape of Oracle8 was also a response to important factors dealing with scale, architecture, and utility. We will discuss the major trends in computing that have shaped the current version of the Oracle database.

The Movement Towards Object-Oriented Paradigms

Oracle8 can be seen as a response to the demand for object relational technology. This simply means that business databases today need to store more sophisticated information in their computers than in the past (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1.  Object relational technology allows for more descriptive, complex data definitions.

With Oracle8, the customer can store graphics, HTML pages, media objects, and user-defined data types aside from simple dates, characters, and numbers. Although much of this was possible with previous versions of Oracle, with an object relational database, each element is formally defined as a specific class containing objects. In previous versions of Oracle, these complex objects needed to fit into generic data types such as long or raw variables. With an object relational database, data is specifically defined in the data dictionary of the database.