work with the same reliability and performance as before. In
Oracle Database 11g we did a lot of work to lower the cost of
changes and updates and minimize the potential for error. We
have a feature called database workload capture that lets you
capture a production workload and move it to a test environ-
ment, where you can experiment with new capabilities. Arup
Nanda of Starwood Hotels says these new capabilities will help
them manage changes in a controlled manner—minimizing the
risk of new projects and the potential for error. This gives everybody a much higher degree of confidence in what IT is doing.
PUTTING ORACLE DATABASE 11g TO WORK
BUSINESS BENEFITS ARE AT THE CORE OF ORACLE’S LATEST DATABASE RELEASE.
Your IT staff may get excited about
the nuts and bolts of a new software
release, but the ultimate success of
an upgrade is based on the benefit it
delivers to the business. Profit took
a look at Oracle’s new database—
Oracle Database 11g—to get an
executive’s take on it. Here are five
ways it will benefit your enterprise:
Protect and manage unstructured
data. Unstructured data—the
volumes of information stored
outside the database—is the
fastest-growing type of enterprise
data. From XML datatypes to
geospatial objects, organizations
are storing and managing more
large data files—without the added
protection, security, and management
capabilities associated with
traditional database solutions.
Oracle SecureFiles, a new feature
in Oracle Database 11g, allows you
to deliver this information from the
database with the same speed and
performance of a file system. But
SecureFiles allows you to compress
(for reduced storage requirements),
encrypt, (for greater security) and
deduplicate (for greater information
accuracy) this data. By moving
unstructured data into databases,
you can better track and secure
important data that is currently
spread around your enterprise.
“We think this is the last
remaining piece to really help nudge
customers to move more and more of
their high-value business documents
out of file systems into databases,
and get all the benefits of a
database—the reliability, availability,
security,” says Andy Mendelsohn,
Oracle’s senior vice president of
database server technologies. “It
makes it easier for them to deal
with their auditors who are always
auditing them against compliance
requirements.”
Simplify compliance. For added
compliance support, Oracle Total
Recall, a feature in Oracle Database
11g, allows you to essentially “rewind”
a database—to take it back to before a
change was made, an error occurred,
or a transaction was completed.
“[Oracle] Total Recall is helpful for
auditing and compliance situations
where an organization needs to
find out what a hacker, or a DBA,
was doing at a certain time,” says
Mendelsohn. “Using [Oracle] Total
Recall, you can very easily go back
in time—six months or a year or
whatever period you need—and
track down exactly what changes
were made to the database, and who
made them.”
Reduce the risk of change.
In business, managing change
effectively is a critical component
of staying competitive. But change
isn’t easy—particularly when you’re
talking about software upgrades.
“Every organization needs to change
because they need to keep up with
their competitors,” says Mendelsohn.
“Businesses need to respond to
change. But every IT shop knows
that change also brings instability.”
Oracle Database 11g reduces the
risk of technology change, allowing
you to give users the best software
without unnecessary complications.
Oracle Real Application Testing tests
software upgrades against new
versions of a database or operating
system, making it easier to identify
and fix problems before they go live.
Oracle Database 11g’s database
replay captures actual database
production workloads and replays
them on a test system to identify the
full impact of system changes. In
addition, Oracle Database 11g makes
it easier to apply one-off database
patches with no downtime.
Improve visibility. Access to
good information gives business
managers the insight they need to
make business decisions. Enhanced
data warehousing and business
intelligence in Oracle Database 11g
makes data mining and analytics
easily accessible to end users.
Improved support for online
analytical processing improves query
performance and alerts users when
important changes are made to data.
As a result, end users are closer to
critical information.
Reduce downtime and meet user
expectations. Oracle Database 11g
makes it easier to reduce downtime
and meet user expectations
for system performance and
functionality. Oracle Active Data
Guard—an option in Oracle Database
11g Enterprise Edition—allows
organizations to run real-time queries
on a physical standby system for
reporting and other purposes—
resulting in faster business results
and a greater optimization of
resources. In addition, Oracle
Database 11g’s automatic storage
management mirrors and balances
data across available storage
devices, increasing data protection
and optimizing performance while
requiring fewer IT resources.
—David A. Kelly
