ORACLE HISTORY (CORPORATE,TECHNICAL,VERSION,EDITIONS,PLATFORMS,FEATURES,TOOLS,SUPPORT,CERTIFICATION etc)

Corporate/technical timeline

* 1977: Larry Ellison and friends founded Software Development Laboratories.
* 1979: SDL changed its company-name to "Relational Software, Inc." (RSI) and introduced its product Oracle V2 as an early commercially-available relational database system. The version did not support transactions, but implemented the basic SQL functionality of queries and joins. (RSI never released a version 1 - instead calling the first version version 2 as a marketing gimmick.)
* 1982: RSI in its turn changed its name, becoming known as "Oracle Corporation",to align itself more closely with its flagship product.
* 1983: The company released Oracle version 3, which it had re-written using the C programming language and which supported COMMIT and ROLLBACK functionality for transactions. Version 3 extended platform support from the existing Digital VAX/VMS systems to include Unix environments.
* 1984: Oracle Corporation released Oracle version 4, which supported read-consistency.
* 1985: Oracle Corporation released Oracle version 5, which supported the client-server model—a sign of networks becoming more widely available in the mid-1980s.
* 1986: Oracle version 5.1 started supporting distributed queries.
* 1988: Oracle RDBMS version 6 came out with support for PL/SQL embedded within Oracle Forms v3 (version 6 could not store PL/SQL in the database proper), row-level locking and hot backups.
* 1989: Oracle Corporation entered the application products market and developed its ERP product, (later to become part of the Oracle E-Business Suite), based on the Oracle relational database.
* 1990: the release of Oracle Applications release 8
* 1992: Oracle version 7 appeared with support for referential integrity, stored procedures and triggers.
* 1997: Oracle Corporation released version 8, which supported object-oriented development and multimedia applications.
* 1999: The release of Oracle8i aimed to provide a database inter-operating better with the Internet (the i in the name stands for "Internet"). The Oracle 8i database incorporated a native Java virtual machine (Oracle JVM).
* 2000: Oracle E-Business Suite 11i pioneers integrated enterprise application software
* 2001: Oracle9i went into release with 400 new features, including the ability to read and write XML documents. 9i also provided an option for Oracle RAC, or "Real Application Clusters", a computer-cluster database, as a replacement for the Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) option.
* 2003: Oracle Corporation released Oracle Database 10g. (The g stands for "grid"; emphasizing a marketing thrust of presenting 10g as "grid-computing ready".)
* 2005: Oracle Database 10.2.0.1—also known as Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10gR2)—appeared.
* 2006: Oracle Corporation announces Unbreakable Linux
* 2007: Oracle Database 10g release 2 sets a new world record TPC-H 3000 GB benchmark result
* 2007: Oracle Corporation released Oracle Database 11g for Linux and for Microsoft Windows.
* 2008: Oracle Corporation acquires BEA Systems.
* 2009: Oracle Corporation acquires Sun Microsystems. Note: as of November 2009 the acquisition awaits approval from the European Commission.


Version numbering

Oracle products have historically followed their own release-numbering and naming conventions. With the Oracle RDBMS 10g release, Oracle Corporation started standardizing all current versions of its major products using the "10g" label, although some sources continued to refer to Oracle Applications Release 11i as Oracle 11i. Major database-related products and some of their versions include:

* Oracle Application Server 10g (also known as "Oracle AS 10g"): a middleware product;
* Oracle Applications Release 11i (aka Oracle e-Business Suite, Oracle Financials or Oracle 11i): a suite of business applications;
* Oracle Developer Suite 10g (9.0.4);
* Oracle JDeveloper 10g: a Java integrated development environment;

Since version 5, Oracle's RDBMS release numbering has used the following codes:

* Oracle5
* Oracle6
* Oracle7: 7.0.16—7.3.4
* Oracle8 Database: 8.0.3—8.0.6
* Oracle8i Database Release 1: 8.1.5.0—8.1.5.1
* Oracle8i Database Release 2: 8.1.6.0—8.1.6.3
* Oracle8i Database Release 3: 8.1.7.0—8.1.7.4
* Oracle9i Database Release 1: 9.0.1.0—9.0.1.5 (patchset as of December 2003)
* Oracle9i Database Release 2: 9.2.0.1—9.2.0.8 (patchset as of April 2007)
* Oracle Database 10g Release 1: 10.1.0.2—10.1.0.5 (patchset as of February 2006)
* Oracle Database 10g Release 2: 10.2.0.1—10.2.0.4 (patchset as of April 2008)
* Oracle Database 11g Release 1: 11.1.0.6—11.1.0.7 (patchset as of September 2008)
* Oracle Database 11g Release 2: 11.2.0.1 (released 2009-09-01)

The version-numbering syntax within each release follows the pattern: major.maintenance.application-server.component-specific.platform-specific.

For example, "10.2.0.1 for 64-bit Solaris" means: 10th major version of Oracle, maintenance level 2, Oracle Application Server (OracleAS) 0, level 1 for Solaris 64-bit.


List of claimed firsts

Oracle Corporation claims to have provided:

* the first commercially-available SQL-based database (1979)
* the first database to support symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) (1983)
* the first distributed database (1986)
* the first database product tested to comply with the ANSI SQL standard (1993)
* the first 64-bit database (1995)
* the first database to incorporate a native JRE (1998)
* the first proprietary RDBMS to become available on Linux (1998)
* the first database to support XML (1999)


Editions

Over and above the different versions of the Oracle database management software, Oracle Corporation subdivides its product into varying "editions" - apparently for marketing and license-tracking reasons. In approximate order of decreasing scale, we find:

* Enterprise Edition (EE) includes more features than the 'Standard Edition', especially in the areas of performance and security. Oracle Corporation licenses this product on the basis of users or of processors, typically for servers running 4 or more CPUs. EE has no memory limits, and can utilize clustering using Oracle RAC software.
* Standard Edition (SE) contains base database functionality. Oracle Corporation licenses this product on the basis of users or of processors, typically for servers running from one to four CPUs. If the number of CPUs exceeds 4 CPUs, the user must convert to an Enterprise license. SE has no memory limits, and can utilize clustering with Oracle RAC at no additional charge.
* Standard Edition One, introduced with Oracle 10g, has some additional feature-restrictions. Oracle Corporation markets it for use on systems with one or two CPUs. It has no memory limitations.
* Express Edition ('Oracle Database XE'), introduced in 2005, offers Oracle 10g free to distribute on Windows and Linux platforms. It has a footprint of only 150 MB and is restricted to the use of a single CPU, a maximum of 4 GB of user data. Although it can install on a server with any amount of memory, it uses a maximum of 1 GB. Support for this version comes exclusively through on-line forums and not through Oracle support.
* Oracle Database Lite, intended for running on mobile devices. The database located on the mobile device can synchronize with a server-based installation.


Host platforms

Prior to releasing Oracle9i in 2001, Oracle Corporation ported its database product to a wide variety of platforms. More recently Oracle Corporation has consolidated on a smaller range of operating-system platforms.

As of October 2006, Oracle Corporation supported the following operating systems and hardware platforms for Oracle Database 10g:

* Apple Mac OS X Server: PowerPC
* HP HP-UX: PA-RISC, Itanium
* HP Tru64 UNIX: Alpha
* HP OpenVMS: Alpha, Itanium
* IBM AIX5L: IBM POWER
* IBM z/OS: zSeries
* Linux: x86, x86-64, PowerPC, zSeries, Itanium
* Microsoft Windows: x86, x86-64, Itanium
* Sun Solaris: SPARC, x86, x86-64


Database options

Oracle Corporation refers to some extensions to the core functionality of the Oracle database as "database options". As of 2008 such options include:

* Active Data Guard (extends Oracle Data Guard physical standby functionality in 11g)
* Advanced Security (adds data encryption methods)
* Content database (provides a centralized repository for unstructured information)
* Database Vault (enforces extra security on data access)
* Data Mining (ODM) (mines for patterns in existing data)
* In-Memory Database Cache (utilizes TimesTen technology)
* Label Security (enforces row-level security)
* Management Packs (various)
* Oracle Answers (for ad-hoc analysis and reporting)
* Oracle OLAP (adds analytical processing)
* Oracle Programmer (provides programmatic access to Oracle databases via precompilers, interfaces and bindings)
* Partitioning (granularizes tables and indexes for efficiency)
* Real Application Clusters (RAC) (coordinates multiple database servers, together accessing the same database)
* Oracle Real Application Testing (new at version 11g)—including Database Replay (for testing workloads) and SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) (for preserving SQL efficiency in changing environments)
* Records database (a records management application)
* Oracle Spatial (integrates relational data with geographic information systems (GIS))
* Transparent Gateway for connecting to non-Oracle systems. Offers optimized solution, with more functionality and better performance than Oracle Generic Connectivity.
* Total Recall (optimizes long-term storage of historical data)
* Oracle Warehouse Builder (in various forms and sub-options)

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

In most cases, using these options entails extra licensing costs.


Suites

In addition to its RDBMS, Oracle Corporation has released several related suites of tools and applications relating to implementations of Oracle databases. For example:

* Oracle Application Server, a J2EE-based application server, aids in developing and deploying applications which utilise Internet technologies and a browser.
* Oracle Collaboration Suite contains messaging, groupware and collaboration applications.
* Oracle Developer Suite contains software development tools, including JDeveloper.
* Oracle E-Business Suite collects together applications for enterprise resource planning (including Oracle Financials), customer relationship management and human resources management (Oracle HR).
* Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) used by database administrators (DBAs) to manage the DBMS, and recently in version 10g, a web-based rewrite of OEM called "Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control". Oracle Corporation has dubbed the super-Enterprise-Manager used to manage a grid of multiple DBMS and Application Servers "Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control".
* Oracle Programmer/2000, a bundling of interfaces for 3GL programming languages, marketed with Oracle7 and Oracle8.


Database "features"

Apart from the clearly-defined database options, Oracle databases may include many semi-autonomous software sub-systems, which Oracle Corporation sometimes refers to as "features" in a sense subtly different from the normal usage of the word. For example, Oracle Data Guard counts officially as a "feature", but the command-stack within SQL*Plus, though a usability feature, does not appear in the list of "features" in Oracle's list. Such "features" may include (for example):

* Active Session History (ASH), the collection of data for immediate monitoring of very recent database activity.
* Automatic Workload Repository (AWR), providing monitoring services to Oracle database installations from Oracle version 10. Prior to the release of Oracle version 10, the Statspack facility provided similar functionality.
* Clusterware
* Data Aggregation and Consolidation
* Data Guard for high availability
* Generic Connectivity for connecting to non-Oracle systems.
* Data Pump utilities, which aid in importing and exporting data and metadata between databases
* Database Resource Manager (DRM), which controls the use of computing resources.
* Fine-grained auditing (FGA) (in Oracle Enterprise Edition) supplements standard security-auditing features
* Flashback for selective data recovery and reconstruction
* iSQL*Plus, a web-browser-based graphical user interface (GUI) for Oracle database data-manipulation (compare SQL*Plus)
* Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC), tools which consist of:
o Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET)
o Oracle Developer Tools (ODT) for Visual Studio
o Oracle Providers for ASP.NET
o Oracle Database Extensions for .NET
o Oracle Provider for OLE DB
o Oracle Objects for OLE
o Oracle Services for Microsoft Transaction Server
* Oracle-managed files (OMF) -- a feature allowing automated naming, creation and deletion of datafiles at the operating-system level.
* Recovery Manager (rman) for database backup, restoration and recovery
* SQL*Plus, a program that allows users to interact with Oracle database(s) via SQL and PL/SQL commands on a command-line. Compare iSQL*Plus.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.


Standalone tools

Users can develop applications in Java and PL/SQL using tools such as Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Forms, or Oracle Reports. Oracle Corporation has started a drive toward 'wizard'-driven environments with a view to enabling non-programmers to produce simple data-driven applications.

Oracle SQL Developer, a free graphical tool for database development, allows developers to browse database objects, run SQL statements and SQL scripts, and edit and debug PL/SQL statements. It incorporates standard and customized reporting.


Other databases marketed by Oracle Corporation

By acquiring other technology in the database field, Oracle Corporation has taken over:

* TimesTen, a memory-resident database that can cache transactions and synchronize data with a centralized Oracle database server. It functions as a real-time infrastructure software product intended for the management of low-latency, high-volume data, of events and of transactions.
* BerkeleyDB, a simple, high-performance, embedded database
* Oracle Rdb, a legacy relational database for the OpenVMS operating system
* MySQL a relational database purchased as part of its immediate previous owner, Sun Microsystems


Use

The Oracle RDBMS has had a reputation among novice users as difficult to install on Linux systems. Oracle Corporation has packaged recent versions for several popular Linux distributions in an attempt to minimize installation challenges beyond the level of technical expertise required to install a database server.


Official support

Users who have Oracle support contracts can use Oracle's MetaLink web site. MetaLink provides users of Oracle Corporation products with a repository of reported problems, diagnostic scripts and solutions. It also integrates with the provision of support tools, patches and upgrades.

The Remote Diagnostic Agent or RDA can operate as a command-line diagnostic tool executing a script. The data captured provides an overview of the Oracle Database environment intended for diagnostic and trouble-shooting. Within RDA, the HCVE (Health Check Validation Engine) can verify and isolate host system environmental issues that may affect the performance of Oracle software.


Database-related guidelines

Oracle Corporation also endorses certain practices and conventions as enhancing the use of its database products. These include:

* Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA), guidelines on developing high-availability systems
* Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA), blueprints for mapping Oracle-database objects to file-systems


Oracle Certification Program

Main article: Oracle Certification Program

The Oracle Certification Program, a professional certification program, includes the administration of Oracle Databases as one of its main certification paths. It contains three levels not upto limits.

1. Oracle Certified Associate (OCA)
2. Oracle Certified Professional (OCP)
3. Oracle Certified Master (OCM)


User groups

A variety of official (Oracle-sponsored) and unofficial Oracle User Groups has grown up of users and developers of Oracle databases. They include:

* Oracle Technology Network
* Independent Oracle Users Group
* Geographical/regional user groups
* Product-centric user groups
* Industry-centric user groups
* The Oak Table Network
* Usenet newsgroups


Market position

In the market for relational databases, Oracle Database competes against commercial products such as IBM's DB2 UDB and Microsoft SQL Server. Oracle and IBM tend to battle for the mid-range database market on UNIX and Linux platforms, while Microsoft dominates the mid-range database market on Microsoft Windows platforms. However, since they share many of the same customers, Oracle and IBM tend to support each other's products in many middleware and application categories (for example: WebSphere, PeopleSoft, and Siebel Systems CRM), and IBM's hardware divisions work closely with Oracle on performance-optimizing server-technologies (for example, Linux on zSeries). The two companies have a relationship perhaps best described as "coopetition". Niche commercial competitors include Teradata (in data warehousing and business intelligence), Software AG's ADABAS, Sybase, and IBM's Informix, among many others.

Increasingly, the Oracle database products compete against open-source relational database systems, particularly PostgreSQL, Firebird, and MySQL. Oracle acquired Innobase, supplier of the InnoDB codebase to MySQL, in part to compete better in the open source market. Database products developed on the basis of the open-source model generally cost significantly less to acquire than Oracle systems.

In 2007, competition with SAP AG occasioned litigation from Oracle Corporation.


Pricing

Oracle Corporation offers term licensing for all Oracle products. It bases the list price for a term-license on a specific percentage of the perpetual license price.

Enterprise Edition
As of March 2006, the database that costs the most per machine-processor among Oracle database editions.
Standard Edition
Cheaper: it can run on up to four processors but has fewer features than Enterprise Edition—it lacks proper parallelization,etc; but remains quite suitable for running medium-sized applications.
Standard ONE
Sells even more cheaply, but remains limited to two CPUs. Standard Edition ONE sells on a per-seat basis with a five-user minimum. Oracle Corporation usually sells the licenses with an extra 22% cost for support and upgrades (access to MetaLink—Oracle Corporation's support site) which customers need to renew annually.
Oracle Express Edition (Oracle XE)
An addition to the Oracle database product family (beta version released in 2005, production version released in February 2006), offers a free version of the Oracle RDBMS, but one limited to 4 GB of user data and to 1 GB of RAM (SGA+PGA). XE will use no more than one CPU and lacks an internal JVM. XE runs only on Windows and on Linux, not on AIX, Solaris, HP-UX and the other operating systems available for other editions.

As computers running Oracle often have eight or more processors, the software price can rise into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The total cost of ownership often exceeds this, as large Oracle installations usually require experienced and trained database administrators to do the set-up properly. Because of the product's large installed base and available training courses, Oracle specialists in some areas have become a more abundant resource than those for more exotic databases. Oracle frequently provides special training offers for database-administrators.

On Linux, Oracle's certified configurations include mostly commercial Linux distributions (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4, SuSE SLES8 and 9, Asianux) which can cost in a range from a few hundred to a few thousand USD per year (depending on processor architecture and the support package purchased).

The Oracle database system can also install and run on freely-available Linux distributions such as the Red Hat-based Centos,or Debian-based systems.