An Oracle database is a collection of data treated as a unit. The purpose of a database is to store and retrieve related information. A database server is the key to solving the problems of information management. In general, a server reliably manages a large amount of data in a multiuser environment so that many users can concurrently access the same data. All this is accomplished while delivering high performance. A database server also prevents unauthorized access and provides efficient solutions for failure recovery.

Oracle Database is the first database designed for enterprise grid computing, the most flexible and cost effective way to manage information and applications. Enterprise grid computing creates large pools of industry-standard, modular storage and servers. With this architecture, each new system can be rapidly provisioned from the pool of components. There is no need for peak workloads, because capacity can be easily added or reallocated from the resource pools as needed.

The database has logical structures and physical structures. Because the physical and logical structures are separate, the physical storage of data can be managed without affecting the access to logical storage structures.

Oracle Database is available in five editions, each suitable for different development and deployment scenarios. Oracle Database Enterprise Edition provides the performance, availability, scalability, and security required for mission-critical applications such as high-volume online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, query-intensive data warehouses, and demanding Internet applications. Oracle Database Enterprise Edition contains all of the components of Oracle Database. And it includes the following features:

Availability

• Oracle Fail Safe
• Oracle Data Guard—Redo Apply
• Oracle Data Guard—SQL Apply
• Rolling Upgrades—Patch Set, Database, and Operating System
• Online index rebuild
• Online index-organized table organization
• Online table redefinition
• Duplexed backup sets
• Block change tracking for fast incremental backup
• Unused block compression in backups
• Block-level media recovery
• Parallel backup and recovery
• Tablespace point-in-time recovery
• Trial recovery
• Fast-start fault recovery
• Flashback Table
• Flashback Database
• Flashback Transaction Query

Scalability

• Oracle Real Application Clusters
• Automatic Workload Management

Performance

• In-Memory Database Cache

Security

• Oracle Advanced Security
• Oracle Label Security
• Virtual Private Database
• Fine-grained auditing

Development Platform

• SQLJ
• Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET
• Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator support
• Active Directory integration
• Native .NET Data Provider—ODP.NET
• Microsoft .NET Stored Procedures

Manageability

• Oracle Change Management Pack
• Oracle Configuration Management Pack
• Oracle Diagnostic Pack
• Oracle Tuning Pack
• Oracle Provisioning and Patch Automation Pack
• Database Resource Manager

VLDB, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence

• Oracle Partitioning
• Oracle OLAP
• Oracle Data Mining
• Data Compression
• Bitmapped index, bitmapped join index, and bitmap plan conversions
• Parallel query/DML
• Parallel statistics gathering
• Parallel index build/scans
• Parallel Data Pump Export/Import
• Transportable tablespaces, including cross-platform
• Summary management—Materialized View Query Rewrite
• Asynchronous Change Data Capture

Integration

• Basic Replication
• Advanced Replication
• Oracle Streams
• Messaging Gateway
• Transparent Gateways

Content Management

• Oracle Spatial

Networking

• Oracle Connection Manager
• Infiniband Support

SOURCE: INTERNET