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The latest version of the Oracle database component, Oracle 10g, has now been launched. It is now available for purchase and download for the following platforms:

+ Linux x86
+ Linux Itanium
+ SPARC Solaris 64-bit
+ HP-UX
+ AIX5L
+ Microsoft Windows 32-bit

We'll be keeping this page up to date with all the news regarding the latest version of the world's biggest selling database.

SCALABILITY IMPROVED

In 10g, Oracle has concentrated largely on speed, scalability and increasing compatibility of recently added features.

Specifically, scalability has been improved with data addressing up to 8 exabytes (8 million terabytes), making Oracle a viable option for even the largest current data warehouse implementations. XML database support has also been enhanced, as widely anticipated.

GRID COMPUTING FEATURES

Oracle will be heavily promoting 10g's Grid Computing features. Automated Storage Management features are included, along with high-speed data movement utilities.

FASTER INSTALLATION, SIMPLER MIGRATION

Oracle claims 10g is installable in 30 minutes, and new upgrade features make migrations from previous versions simpler. Online upgrade support may allow new versions to be released without downtime.

LINUX BENCHMARK SUBMITTED, THEN PULLED

Suggestions that Oracle 10g delivers significant speed improvements are borne out by a single server TPC-C benchmark world record released by Oracle in November 2002. The benchmark used the pre-release product codenamed Oracle10i Database Standard Edition along with Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 and a Hewlett-Packard rx5670 server with 4 Intel Itanium 2 processors.

Unfortunately Oracle had to pull this benchmark in mid-May, as it fell foul of benchmark council TPC's rule that benchmarked components must be commercially available within 6 months of the benchmark publish date.

WHAT'S IN AND WHAT'S OUT

It may surprise a lot of DBAs to learn that support for the Windows SQL*Plus GUI will be lost after Oracle 10g. The browser-based iSQL*Plus will replace it. Within SQL*Plus the COPY command, much loved by experienced DBAs for quickly shifting large amounts of table data between databases, is deprecated.

Oracle Names is another casualty of 10g. Oracle's legacy service naming technology has been replaced by directory naming with LDAP-compliant directory servers.

Support for the Rule-Based Optimizer (RBO) has disappeared in Oracle 10g, finally forcing DBAs to switch to the Cost-Based Optimizer (CBO).

Oracle 10g includes Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) support for Sun, HP and IBM Unix boxes, bringing them up to date with technology currently available for Windows and Linux.

DESUPPORT FOR OLDER ORACLE VERSIONS

Keen to encourage early 10g take-up, Oracle has already said that Oracle 9i Release 2 will go out of Error Correction Support in December 2005, and will be wholly desupported after 31st December 2008.

Oracle 8i and Oracle 9i Release 1 will exit Error Correction Support after 31st December 2004.

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