Getting Started with Oracle

The concept of the relational database was first described around 1970 by Dr. Edgar F. Codd .Oracle database helps in achieving reliable, flexible, secured and cost effective way to manage information and applications. Oracle offers high performance and scalability, because all computing resources can be flexibly allocated to applications as needed.

In oracle the logical and physical structures are separate and thus this helps in physical storage of data can be managed without affecting the access to logical storage structures. Oracle is a major database which along with its added features passes the ACID test, which is important in insuring the integrity of data. Oracle is very much suited for enterprise computing and large database applications because of the following:

Oracle provides greater Performance and scalability

• Helps in achieving greater reliability. That is in other words continuous availability of data and applications. 
•  Have many features for maintaining the security of data.

Oracle has advanced integration features that allow applications and data to run anywhere in the network and thus offering distributed network. ORACLE consists of many tools that allow one to create an application with ease and flexibility. Several of the more useful features available to ORACLE application developers are integrity constraints, stored procedures and packages, database triggers, cost-based optimizer, shared SQL, locking and sequences and some more are namely

Automatic Storage Management: Oracle has in it Automatic Storage Management also called as ASM in short which helps in simplifying the administration of Oracle database files. 

Oracle Scheduler: Oracle Scheduler helps in scheduling and performs various IT tasks. 

Table space: The main feature of oracle is that the table space in it, helps in extracting data files from database and move or copy them to another location or even put them in another database by the concept of Transportable Table spaces in Oracle.

Oracle is available in different forms like namely: 

• Personal Oracle 
• Oracle Standard Edition 
• Oracle Enterprise Edition 
• Oracle Lite

Let us see what each means in brief. 

Personal Oracle:  It is a database ideal for single users and is used to develop code for implementation on other Oracle multi-user databases. 

Oracle Standard Edition: Oracle Standard Edition was named Workgroup Server in its first iteration as part of the Oracle7 family and is often simply referred to as Oracle Server. Oracle Standard Edition is available on Windows NT, Netware, and UNIX platforms such as Compaq (Digital), HP/UX, IBM AIX, Linux, and Sun Solaris. The Oracle Standard Edition is useful for small number of users and a smaller database. 

Oracle Enterprise Edition: This includes additional functionality and is used for larger-scale implementations. Thus it is used for a large number of users or a large database with advanced features for extensibility, performance, and management. 

Oracle Lite: This is also called as Oracle Mobile and this is used for single users who are using wireless devices. Thus this is used in lightweight database engine for mobile computing on notebooks and handheld devices.

The latest version of oracle has full support for polymorphism, inheritance and most all of the OO constructs. Oracle also provides the concept of dimension objects. A dimension object is a description of the hierarchies inherent in the fact table and is used by Oracle to optimize execution plans and thereby helps in achieving higher performance level in the application. The ‘i’ in version of oracle like oracle 8i was added to denote added functionality supporting Internet deployment in the new version. 

There are various branches in which one can go into by learning oracle like be a functional consultant, or a Database administrator DBA in short, Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate designation, Oracle Forms Developer Certified Professional designation and so on.