Oracle has tuned and tweaked its database to improve performance, availability and security for the latest 11g Release 2, in a bid to lower the cost of the whole data infrastructure by pushing use of enterprise grids, reducing storage and eliminating idle redundancy.
New features of 11g include the ability to upgrade database applications while users remain online, new ease of use features that make Grid computing more accessible, and better levels of automation for key systems management activities.
Oracle 11g Release 2 is also the first flash-enabled database, which massively improves performance for OLTP workloads Chris Baker VP for Oracle EMEA told us, something that comes with the addition of Exadata Smart Flash Cache based on the Sun FlashFire technology.
Its Exadata database machine is the first combined hardware and software offering from Oracle since the software company announced it would be buying Sun back in April.
Oracle is claiming use of Sun’s FlashFire memory cards make for 80% faster CPUs, 50% faster disks, 200% faster memory and 100% faster InfiniBand network performance. “The database machine is running standard hardware and standard 11g but it goes really, really quickly. There are huge performance gains, in some cases up to 100 times quicker than a current environment,” Baker said.
“Use of Real Application Clusters,” an option introduced back in 2001 which allows multiple computers to run the RDBMS software simultaneously while accessing a single database, “means we have a shared-everything lower cost environment,” he added.
He said with Oracle Data Guard which ensures high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data, the company can reduce idle redundancy and lower latency across the infrastructure.
One Oracle customer Martin McGeough, Technical Architect at Vocalink the payments service business, said he considers the high availability features of the new release would bring his organisation the biggest benefit.
“Being able to run with online patch management 24 x 7 on our critical business systems means we will better maintain our service level agreements.” The online redefinition feature of the release would mean his team would be able to apply changes while users are online, he explained.
Active Data Guard which enables read-only access to a physical standby database would give VocaLink better management around the lag times between data becoming available on its disaster recovery systems.
“It promises better TCO, because we can look to use our almost redundant DR systems for online query and reporting,” McGeough said.
