An Oracle Guidebook

E INTRODUCTION

E CHAPTER 1
Low-Cost Grids

Oracle Database
E CHAPTER 2
Data Warehousing

Options
E CHAPTER 3
Information Management
and Application
Development

for an Evolving
E CHAPTER 4
Security and Compliance

E CHAPTER 5

World
Manageability and Change

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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

Introduction
For more than three decades, Oracle has been a
leader in database technology, helping companies man-
age information with reliable, secure, and integrated
technologies.
Reduce IT Costs
The current version of the Oracle Database—Oracle
Database 11g—builds on that tradition. It delivers
economies of scale on easily managed low-cost grids, and
provides a range of features and functionality to meet the
varying requirements of today’s business applications.
Oracle Database enables companies to:
• Protect against server failure, site failure, and
human error, and reduce planned downtime
• Secure data and enable compliance
• Use high-performance data warehousing, online
analytic processing, and data mining
• Manage data centers efficiently and keep pace
with change
With Oracle, database applications can easily scale
from small, single-processor servers to clusters of multi­
processor servers without changing a line of code. In
terms of performance, Oracle holds the top three record
benchmark positions in the Top Ten TPC-C price/perfor-
mance category (as of June 16, 2008), which means it’s
not only fast, but extremely cost-efficient as well. Over-
all, these qualities are appealing to companies around
the globe. Not surprisingly, Oracle software has nearly
half the worldwide market share for relational database
management systems—more market share than its two
closest competitors combined.
To increase flexibility and customers’ ability to target
their specific needs, Oracle also offers a number of
options for Oracle Database 11g that can be used to
enhance performance, scalability, availability, security, To increase flexibility
and manageability. These extend capabilities and let
customers continue to leverage their investment in the and customers’ ability to
Oracle Database.
target their specific needs,
This guidebook explores a number of these options,
looking at those that support the following key areas: Oracle offers a number of
• Low-cost grids
• Data warehousing options for Oracle Database
• Information management and application
development 11g that can be used to
• Security and compliance
• Manageability and change enhance performance, scal-
These options vary, but they all support Oracle’s strategy ability, availability, security,
of delivering integrated, end-to-end product suites on an
open, standards-based architecture to help simplify com- and manageability.
puting environments, lower cost and risk, and provide
greater choice and flexibility.
E Learn More
Oracle Database 11g Customer Video Montage 2
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
ELow-Cost Grids
Delivering Efficiency and Performance
Over the last few years, grid computing—in
which groups of independent, modular hardware and
software components can be virtualized and provi-
sioned on demand—has rapidly moved from being a
leading-edge concept to being a widely adopted prac-
tice. Oracle introduced grid computing capabilities in
2003, and continues to lead the software industry in
its commitment to grid computing and virtualization.
Today, more than 10,000 organizations have deployed
Oracle grid computing solutions.
In essence, companies are embracing grid comput-
ing because it offers a clear solution to many of the
fundamental challenges facing IT organizations today.
For example, by pooling computing resources, grid
computing helps ensure that IT is agile enough to stay
in step with changing—and often unpredictable—
business needs. Grid computing also helps ensure high
availability, with the ability to manage workloads
across the grid, and to add capacity without interrupt-
ing operations.
Above all, grid computing lets companies achieve such
benefits at relatively low cost. It provides a range of
savings through the use of standard hardware, greater
efficiencies, better capacity planning, and increased
predictability. For example, grid workload manage-
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development
ment and resource provisioning help companies meet
growing workload requirements without adding staff.
Also, because computing resources can be applied
incrementally when needed, companies typically see
better computing and storage capacity utilization, and Grid computing provides
can avoid the expense of “over-provisioning” as a hedge
against unpredictable demand increases. a range of savings through
Today, Oracle offers a number of options and technolo- the use of standard hardware,
gies that enable companies to take fuller advantage of
grid computing. A number of these focus on ensuring greater efficiencies, better
high availability, and strengthening protection against
planned and unplanned downtime—including human capacity planning, and
error, the most common cause of failure. These include:
• Oracle Real Application Clusters increased predictability.
• Oracle Active Data Guard
• Oracle Flashback
• Oracle Automatic Storage Management
• Oracle Advanced Compression
• Oracle In-Memory Database Cache
In addition, Oracle has created a Maximum Availabil-
ity Architecture (MAA) framework that provides clear
and concise guidance on implementing best practices
using Oracle’s proven high-availability technologies.
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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost
Grids Warehousing
Oracle Real Application Clusters
Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) supports
the transparent deployment of a single database across a
cluster of servers, providing fault tolerance in the event
of hardware failures or planned outages. With Oracle
RAC running on clustered servers, companies can have
high levels of availability and performance and easily
scale up operations while controlling computing costs.
Oracle RAC gives companies a foundation for enterprise
grid computing built from standardized processing,
storage, and network components. It enables the Oracle
Database to run on a grid platform, and lets compa-
nies dynamically provision nodes, storage, CPUs, and
memory while the system remains online—providing
simplified, efficient maintenance while supporting high
availability.
Oracle RAC can be used with mainstream business
applications of all kinds, including Oracle E-Business
Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP, and custom applica-
tions. It supports OLTP and DSS applications, as well as
Oracle’s unique ability to effectively work with mixed
OLTP/DSS environments. And it provides single-image
installation and management, giving database adminis-
trators a single point of control for managing a cluster
of multiple servers.
Oracle RAC provides:
• Lower costs. With Oracle RAC, clusters can be
built from standardized, commodity-priced process-
ing, storage, and network components. In addition,
E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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the software helps reduce the cost of downtime. For Oracle RAC gives companies
example, Pacific Gas & Electric saw Oracle RAC as a
way to cost-effectively handle growing data volumes a foundation for enterprise
from its smart-meter program, says Eugene Park,
senior director of application services at the com- grid computing built from
pany. “We’ve actually been able to save over $5 mil-
lion a year by re-platforming from our mainframe to standardized processing,
Oracle RAC. We saw that Oracle RAC would allow
us to pretty easily add additional servers and addi- storage, and network compo-
tional storage to grow our processing capabilities.
Today, on our customer care billing system, we have nents—one that provides
more than 300 terabytes of data spinning to support
our smart-meter infrastructure.” simplified, efficient mainte-
• 24/7, continuous uptime for database applica-
tions. Oracle RAC eliminates the single-point-of- nance while supporting high
failure arrangement that is inherent with a single
server. If a node in the cluster fails, the Oracle availability.
Database continues running on the remaining nodes.
Individual nodes can be shut down for maintenance
while application users continue to work.
• On-demand, flexible scalability. IT organizations
can expand capacity by simply adding servers to the
cluster as more processing power is needed—which
can be done without taking users offline. As soon
as the new server is in place, the application takes
advantage of the additional capacity, and servers
do not need to have the same capacity: Companies
today run a range of Oracle RAC clusters, from
those where each server is a two-CPU commod-
ity server to those where there are 32 to 64 CPUs
in each server. “One of the large Oracle RAC sys-
tems we have is a 16-node system with six storage 4
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost
Grids
nodes behind it.... The uncompressed data within
it is about a full petabyte worth of data. It’s 200
terabytes compressed,” says David Apgar, business
continuity planning and high availability engineer
at Yahoo. Oracle RAC supports up to 100 nodes
in a cluster.
Indeed, Oracle RAC can deliver high performance with
a variety of applications and workloads. “One of the
things we were concerned about when we first got into
Real Application Clusters was how well it would sup-
port our mixed workload of OLTP and decision sup-
port,” says Michael Prince, chief technology officer at
Burlington Coat Factory. “The answer is that it has sup-
ported them very well. We get great performance from
RAC, both for our OLTP and for our decision support.”
Oracle Active Data Guard
IT organizations face a fundamental challenge:
Improve quality of service while reducing costs and
complexity. Oracle’s Active Data Guard helps them
achieve consistent high performance by offloading
resource-intensive activities from a production database
to one or more synchronized standby databases.
Active Data Guard is based on Oracle Data Guard,
a feature included in the Oracle Database Enterprise
Edition. Data Guard keeps standby databases synchro-
nized with a primary database. If the primary database
experiences an outage due to data corruption, system
failure, human error, or disaster, Data Guard can
quickly switch any standby database to the production
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role, minimizing downtime and preventing data loss. “The potential for [Active
Oracle Active Data Guard enables a physical standby
database to be open for read-only access—for report- Data Guard] functionality
ing, simple or complex queries, sorting, Web-based
access, and so on—while changes from the production is huge. It means that I can
database are being applied to it. All queries reading
from the physical standby database execute in real potentially use my DR envi-
time and return current results. This means that any
operation that requires up-to-date read-only access can ronments for high-volume
be offloaded to the replica database, enhancing and
protecting the performance of the production database. reporting without impacting
“The potential for that type of functionality is huge,”
says Logan McLeod, IT strategist at Dell. “It now my primary databases.”
means that I can potentially use my DR environments
for high-volume reporting without impacting my pri-
mary databases.”
This capability makes it possible for Active Data
Guard to be deployed for a wide variety of business
applications. For example, finance operations can use
Active Data Guard for ad hoc queries and reports. In
the telecommunications industry, it can be used to
provide technicians with access to service schedules
and to handle customer inquiries about service status.
In healthcare, it can enable fast access to up-to-date
medical records. In transportation, it can support pack-
age tracking and schedule status inquiries. And Web
businesses can use it to support catalog browsing, order
status, and scale-out initiatives using reader farms.
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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
Overall, Oracle Active Data Guard helps companies:
• Increase performance, by moving unpredictable
workloads to an up-to-date replica of the produc-
tion database
• Simplify operations, through the elimination
of the management complexity that accompanies
traditional replication solutions, and the ability
to support all data types
• Eliminate compromise, because the replica is
up-to-date and online at all times, which is not pos-
sible with traditional storage mirroring technology
• Reduce costs, because the Active Data Guard
physical standby database can also provide disas-
ter recovery capabilities and/or serve as a test
database—with no additional storage or servers
required
Oracle Flashback
Human error plays a significant role in availability—
and research shows that 40 percent of application
outages are caused by operator or user mistakes. These
errors are extremely difficult to avoid, and can be
particularly difficult to recover from without advance
planning and the right technology.
Typical user errors include accidental deletion of valu-
able data, deleting the wrong data, and dropping the
wrong table. Such errors can result in “logical” data cor-
ruption, or cause downtime of one or more components
of the IT infrastructure. While it is relatively simple to
rectify the failure of an individual component, detec-
tion and repair of logical data corruption is typically a
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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time-consuming operation that causes enormous loss of
business productivity.
Oracle Flashback enables IT organizations to view and
rewind data back and forth in time, without having to
make any structural changes to the database. It pro-
vides a simple, powerful, and completely nondisruptive
mechanism for recovering from human errors—and
reduces recovery time from hours to minutes.
Flashback technology revolutionizes recovery by oper- Research shows that
ating just on the changed data. Thus, the time it takes
to recover from the error is equal to the time it took to 40 percent of application
make the mistake. With the technology, organizations
can query historical data, perform change analysis, outages are caused by opera-
and perform self-service repair to recover from logi-
cal corruptions while the database is online. Flashback tor or user mistakes. These
technology can also be utilized for nonrepair purposes,
such as historical auditing and undoing test changes. errors are extremely difficult
Oracle Automatic Storage Management to avoid, and can be particu-
Storage plays a vital role in availability, and it can pre­
sent a significant challenge to IT organizations trying larly difficult to recover from
to do more with less. To help, Oracle provides Oracle
Automatic Storage Management (ASM), an integrated, without advance planning
high-performance database file system and disk man-
ager. ASM is based on the principle that as much as pos- and the right technology.
sible, the database, rather than administrators, should
manage storage. ASM eliminates the need to directly
manage potentially thousands of Oracle database files
and helps protect vital data in the event of a disk failure.
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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-Cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
“ASM has been a revolution in terms of the way
we manage storage,” says Michael Prince, chief tech-
nology officer at Burlington Coat Factory. “Storage had
grown to be the most difficult and most costly com-
ponent of the database architecture, and certainly the
most difficult to manage. And ASM has simplified it
dramatically.”
ASM groups the disks in a storage system into one
or more disk groups. The IT organization then man-
ages a small set of disk groups, and ASM automates
the placement of the database files within those disk
groups. ASM provides:
• Striping. ASM spreads data evenly across all
disks in a disk group to optimize performance and
utilization. This even distribution of database files
eliminates the need for regular monitoring and I/O
performance tuning. When reading a file, ASM
reads data from all six disks in parallel, greatly
increasing performance.
•M  irroring. ASM can increase availability by option-
ally mirroring any file—that is, keeping redundant,
or mirrored, copies of data to help avoid data loss
caused by disk failures. If a disk fails, ASM can con-
tinue to access affected files by accessing mirrored
copies on the surviving disks in the disk group.
ASM supports two-way mirroring, where data gets
one mirrored copy, and three-way mirroring, where
data gets two mirrored copies.
•O  nline storage reconfiguration and dynamic
rebalancing. ASM lets companies add or remove
disks from a disk storage system while the database
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is operating. When a disk is added, ASM automati- “Storage had grown to be
cally redistributes the data so that it is evenly spread
across all disks in the disk group, including the new the most difficult and most
disk. This redistribution—or rebalancing—is done
in the background with minimal impact to database costly component of the
performance. When a disk is to be removed, ASM
rebalances by evenly relocating data from the disk database architecture, and
being removed to the other disks in the disk group.
certainly the most difficult
Maximum Availability Architecture
These various Oracle technologies can be vital, but to manage. And ASM has
technology alone is not always enough to ensure high
availability—operational best practices are also key. To simplified it dramatically.”
that end, Oracle’s Maximum Availability Architecture
(MAA) provides a fully integrated and proven blueprint
for building highly available systems using Oracle Data-
base options such as Oracle RAC, Oracle Active Data
Guard, Oracle Flashback, and Oracle ASM.
Oracle MAA gives companies superior data protection
and availability by minimizing or eliminating planned
and unplanned downtime at all technology stack lay-
ers, including hardware and software components. The
architecture encompasses specific design and configu-
ration recommendations that have been extensively
reviewed and tested to ensure optimum system avail-
ability and reliability. In addition to Oracle high-
availability options, the architecture also addresses the
configuration and integration of other critical compo-
nents of highly available systems, including servers,
storage, networking, and the application server.
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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost
Grids
MAA best practices are described in a series of techni-
cal white papers and documentation designed to help
in the design, implementation, and management of an
optimum high-availability architecture. Companies can
draw on MAA best practices for areas such as Oracle
Database, Application Server, Applications, Grid Con-
trol, and Oracle Partners.
Oracle Advanced Compression
Oracle Advanced Compression helps companies man-
age growing amounts of data in a cost-effective manner,
while maximizing the utilization of resources. It enables
compression for all types of data—structured data,
unstructured data, and backup data, as well as network
traffic and data in the process of being backed up. As a
result, Oracle Advanced Compression helps companies
use resources more efficiently and lower storage costs.
In terms of performance, Oracle Advanced Compression:
• Has no adverse impact on query performance,
because queries read the compressed version of data
directly without having to decompress it. In fact,
query performance may improve due to improved
disk scan rates and a reduction in the number of I/Os.
• Provides enhanced memory efficiency, because
data in memory is in a compressed format. This
allows more data to be stored in memory and
reduces the number of I/Os, which may improve
performance.
• Provides enhanced Data Guard and Oracle
RAC performance due to reductions in network/
interconnect traffic.
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Oracle Advanced Compression also helps lower Oracle Advanced Compression
storage costs—in fact, companies may see 3X or
higher reductions. What’s more, it is designed to helps lower storage costs—in
“cascade” storage savings throughout the data center,
and extend them to test, development, backup, and fact, companies may see 3X or
disaster recovery environments, further magnifying
the cost savings. It helps reduce resource require- higher reductions.
ments and costs for all components of the IT infra-
structure, including memory, backup media, and
network bandwidth—while improving application
performance and enhancing memory and network
efficiency. And it can support today’s growing
emphasis on “green” operations, due to its reduced
need for energy and space.
Oracle In-Memory Database Cache
The Oracle In-Memory Database Cache helps improve
application transaction response times and throughput
by caching critical subsets of data in the application
tier. By doing so, it essentially brings data closer to
the application and processes queries in an in-memory
database, enabling applications to access, capture, or
update information much more quickly.
The Oracle In-Memory Database Cache helps provide
the speed that is so important to many businesses
today, delivering microsecond response times. Database
operations execute with maximum efficiency, achieving
dramatic gains in performance, even compared with
a fully cached disk-based relational database manage-
ment system. Dynamic caching maintains data fresh-
ness by automatically loading and aging-out cached 8
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

data, and automatic data synchronization between the
cache and the Oracle Database ensures data consistency.
The Oracle In-Memory Database Cache is based on the
Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database, which is helping
a number of companies achieve high levels of perfor-
mance. For example, Korea Telecom FreeTel is using it
as part of a subscriber and service authentication system
for its wired and wireless services customers—and to
process more than 50,000 transactions daily at an aver-
age processing speed of 1 millisecond per transaction.
“Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database and Oracle Real
Application Clusters enabled us to provide custom-
ers with a faster and more reliable service,” says Choi,
Byoung-Cheol, vice president, KTF.
The Oracle In-Memory Database Cache can also be
deployed quickly, due to its out-of-the-box integra-
tion with the Oracle database, which reduces develop-
ment time. It is compatible and integrated with Oracle
Database Enterprise Edition, including Oracle Real “Oracle TimesTen In-Memory
Application Clusters, and also supports Oracle Enter-
prise Manager, Oracle SQL Developer, and components Database and Oracle Real
of Oracle Fusion Middleware such as Oracle Application
Server, Oracle JDeveloper, and Oracle. Application Clusters enabled
E Learn More: Customer Videos us to provide customers with
Customers Run Mixed Workloads on Oracle RAC
Benefits of Oracle Real Application Clusters a faster and more reliable
Maximum Availability Architecture
Customers Use Data Guard to Avoid Disasters service.”
and More
Managing Storage with Oracle ASM
E Learn More: Flash Demos
Grid Computing with Oracle Database 11g
Oracle High Availability Architecture

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 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost
Grids
EDATA WAREHOUSING
Developing Insights to Compete Effectively
Data has always been a critical asset in busi-
ness, but today, it is more important than ever for com-
panies to fully leverage this asset.
As IT executives know, business decision makers are
demanding more and more information. Compa-
nies need to not only analyze and report on what has
happened, but also use data to predict behavior and
identify trends going forward. And in a world where
the pace of business is increasing relentlessly, they need
up-to-date information that can help them respond
and act in near-real time.
To meet those needs—and help the company get the
most value out of its data—IT organizations need to
take advantage of today’s sophisticated data warehous-
ing technologies. They need to gather and manage
large amounts of data from a variety of sources. And
they need to help the business distill that data into
insights about customers, markets, and performance—
and use it to compete more effectively.
Oracle helps companies make the most of their data
with several data warehousing-related options for the
Oracle Database. These include:
• Oracle Exadata
• Oracle Partitioning
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• Oracle Data Mining
• Oracle OLAP
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exadata is a family of high-performance storage
software and hardware products that can improve data
warehouse query performance by a factor of 10X—or
more. Today, companies need to
To deliver that performance, Oracle Exadata uses not only analyze and report
a massively parallel architecture that dramatically
increases data bandwidth between the database server on what has happened,
and storage. It also provides smart storage software
that makes it possible to offload data-intensive query but also use data to predict
processing from Oracle Database 11g servers in order
to perform query processing closer to the data. In behavior and identify trends
essence, Oracle Exadata overcomes the limitations
of conventional storage by moving less data through going forward.
larger “pipes.”
That approach has proven to be effective. “Currently,
our data warehouse is 15 terabytes in size, but we’re
growing at 200 to 300 percent per year in our order
volume,” says Walt Litzenberger, director of Enterprise
Data Systems at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
“We needed something else that allows us to scale
horizontally, with a smaller footprint. The extreme 10
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost
Grids
performance that we get from Oracle’s Exadata fits this
perfectly. One of our queries running on our old archi-
tecture was taking four minutes to complete. When we
moved it to the Exadata hardware, it was completing
in 10 seconds.”
Oracle Exadata Storage combines smart storage soft-
ware from Oracle and industry-standard hardware from
HP to create the HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server.
This solution is based on the HP ProLiant DL180 G5
server—a fast, reliable, high-capacity, industry-
standard storage building block. With a choice of
SAS or SATA drives and a storage capacity of up to
12 terabytes per server, it comes with Oracle Exadata
software preinstalled.
HP Oracle Exadata Storage Servers deliver performance
improvements in data-intensive query processing,
have virtually unlimited I/O scalability, are easier to
optimize for data warehousing, and provide mission-
critical availability and reliability. They also provide a
foundation for dynamic storage grids, and are used as
part of the HP Oracle Database Machine, a complete
package of software, servers, and storage designed for
large, multiterabyte data warehouses.
Overall, the Oracle Exadata family accelerates data
warehouse query performance and enables companies
to run more queries concurrently for faster access to
critical business information. It offers unlimited scal-
ability, with the ability to simply connect additional
Oracle Exadata Storage Servers as needed. And it lets
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companies get up and running quickly, with a com- “One of our queries running
plete package of HP hardware and Oracle software.
on our old architecture was
Oracle Partitioning
When data volumes increase, a common concern is that taking four minutes to com-
system performance will suffer because of all the extra
data that has to be examined. Partitioning enables tables plete. When we moved it to
and indexes to be split into smaller, more manageable
components and is a key requirement for any large the Exadata hardware, it was
database with high performance and high availability
requirements. completing in 10 seconds.”
Oracle Partitioning offers the widest choice of parti-
tioning methods, allowing tables, indexes, and index-
organized tables to be subdivided into smaller pieces, so
that they can be managed and accessed at a finer level of
granularity. “Using partitioning within Oracle databases
gives us a lot of advantages,” says Sean Wiley, CTO and
director, EDS Application Services, EDS. “For instance,
we can segment very large tables within a database,
based on month or other characteristics, so that we get
the performance characteristics of a much smaller table
and the management characteristics of a much smaller
table, within that larger data set.”
Oracle Partitioning provides:
• Faster performance—lowers query times from
minutes to seconds
• High availability—provides 24/7 access to critical
information
• Improved manageability—lets companies manage
smaller “chunks” of data 11
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Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
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Because it is entirely transparent in SQL statements, essentially moves the analytical functions into the
Oracle Partitioning can be applied to any application, database, with the data. Data mining occurs in the
from OLTP to data warehousing. database—that is, in a single, secure, scalable platform.

Oracle Partitioning is also a foundation of Oracle’s Infor-
mation Lifecycle Management strategy, which aligns the
business value of information to cost-effective storage
tiers for large data warehousing and transaction process-
ing applications.
Oracle Data Mining
The Oracle Data Mining option enables companies to
produce actionable, predictive information and build
integrated business-intelligence applications. With this
option, companies can explore their data to find patterns
and insights—to target their best customers, find and
prevent fraud, identify drivers of performance, and so on.
Oracle Data Mining also lets IT professionals auto-
mate the discovery and distribution of new business
intelligence. As a result, companies can go beyond the
traditional manual searching and querying of informa-
tion to quickly and automatically look through mas-
sive amounts of data in order to predict, understand,
and develop new insights.
Oracle Data Mining represents a breakthrough in the
business intelligence arena. Traditional data-mining
approaches have typically forced companies to extract
data from the database and move it to separate, unse-
cured, and costly dedicated statistical, analytical, or
mining servers. Oracle Data Mining, on the other
hand, is embedded in the Oracle Database. Thus, it
With Oracle Data Mining, companies can take
advantage of:
• The ability to seamlessly query, summarize,
analyze, and mine the same data—with fewer
moving parts
• Natural integration with database-driven
applications
• Increased security, because data doesn’t leave the
database and because of the ability to leverage Oracle Data Mining
database security options
• State-of-the-art algorithms lets companies go beyond
• Real-world scalability, with parallel model build-
ing and scoring, and the ability to leverage Oracle the manual searching and
Real Application Clusters
• Lower total cost of ownership, through relatively querying of information to
low purchase, deployment, development, and
maintenance costs quickly and automatically
Oracle OLAP look through massive
Oracle OLAP is a calculation engine that supports the
entire spectrum of advanced analytical applications, amounts of data in order
including planning, budgeting, forecasting, sales, and
marketing, to help identify key business trends and to predict, understand, and
model complex business scenarios. It is designed to
provide excellent query performance, fast incremental develop new insights.
updates of datasets, efficient management of summary
data, and rich analytic content.
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Oracle OLAP is a fully featured OLAP server embedded
in the Oracle Database, and thus benefits from the scal-
ability, high availability, and security features found in
the Oracle Database. As a result, there are no separate
database services or separate files to manage. In addi-
tion, companies can fully leverage large-scale computer
hardware, because Oracle OLAP is fully sup­ported by
scalability and high-availability features such as Real
Application Clusters and Grid Computing.
Oracle OLAP helps companies achieve:
• Reduced data movement and latency. With
Oracle OLAP, it is no longer necessary to replicate
data into a standalone, proprietary OLAP server,
because all multidimensional data is stored directly
into the Oracle Database. Decision makers
benefit from much faster access to higher-quality
information.
•L  ower IT costs and complexity. Oracle OLAP
enables companies to reduce costs and dramatically
simplify the IT environment. They do not need
to purchase additional hardware to run it, mean-
ing they can maintain a single server and security
model. Oracle OLAP also supports SQL access Having data is pointless
to multidimensional data types, so companies
can leverage their existing investment SQL tools, if the data is unavailable
applications, and skills.
• Enterprise-scale analytics with grid computing. to decision makers.
Having data is pointless if the data is unavailable
to decision makers. Oracle OLAP and Oracle Real
Application Clusters together provide the founda-
tion of Very Large Multidimensional Databases
(VLDM), which can provide thousands of concur-
rent users with continuous access to information.
E Learn More: Customer Videos
Customers Rely on Oracle for Data Warehousing
Oracle Partitioning Is Critical to Customers
E Learn More: Flash Demo
HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server

13
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

Einformation management and application development

Making the Most of a Key Asset

Companies today have to manage an ever- tivity and competitiveness. And they need to store this
growing flood of data about everything from trans­ data at the lowest possible cost—a growing challenge,
actions and customers to finance and operations. with legal concerns and the need to comply with
They not only have to make vital data available to the regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health
business, they also have to understand how their data Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) In a competitive environ-
evolves and grows, monitor how its usage changes over requiring the storage of more and more data.
time, and decide how long it should be retained. ment, companies need to be
To help companies manage and control this growing
At the same time, that data represents a powerful asset, flood of varied data, Oracle provides several key Oracle able to quickly develop new
and companies need to constantly find ways to lever- Database options and features, including:
age that asset. In a competitive environment, they need • Oracle XML DB methods for accessing and
to be able to quickly and easily develop new methods • Oracle SecureFiles
for accessing and using their data—and delivering the • Oracle Spatial using their data—and deliv-
information to the business that it needs to compete.
Application Development ering the information to
Managing Information Oracle provides a number of tools designed to help
Beyond the need to handle growing volumes of data, developers work more efficiently and find innovative the business that it needs
the information management challenge is made com- approaches to putting data to work. Oracle Database
plicated by the fact that increasingly, this data comes 11g is a single integrated platform that supports SQL, to compete.
in a variety of types, including unstructured data— XML, and procedural languages, and provides a num-
e-mail messages, photographs, word-processing docu- ber of features that facilitate application development.
ments, and a range of other types. Among others, these include:
• Oracle Application Express
IT organizations need to manage this unstructured • Oracle SQL Developer
data, just as they do structured data. They need to
make it available to business users, and find ways to
integrate it into business processes to increase produc- 14
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
Oracle XML DB
Significant growth in the use of XML standards has
made it necessary for IT organizations to find ways to
manage XML content with the same degree of rigor as
other mission-critical data.
To help, IT organizations can use Oracle XML DB—a
high-performance, native XML storage and retrieval
technology that provides full support for all of the key
XML standards. Oracle XML DB fully absorbs the
W3C XML data model into the Oracle Database, and
provides new standard-access methods for navigating
and querying XML. With Oracle XML DB, companies
get all the advantages of relational database technology
plus the advantages of XML. In essence, Oracle XML
DB makes it possible to bring the full power of the SQL
language to bear on XML content and the full power of
the XML paradigm on relational data.
Oracle SecureFiles
Oracle SecureFiles is the core infrastructure for managing
unstructured content inside the Oracle database, and it
gives companies a solution for storing file content such as
images, audio, video, PDFs, spreadsheets, and so on.
SecureFiles represents a major paradigm shift in storing
such content. With SecureFiles, Oracle has perfected
the use of the database, rather than the traditional file
system, for storing all enterprise data. SecureFiles is
specifically engineered to deliver levels of performance
for the storage of file data that are comparable to those
found with traditional file systems while retaining the
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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and Application
Development
advantages of the Oracle database. SecureFiles offers
the best of both the database and file-system worlds
for storing unstructured data. SecureFiles includes
advanced features typically found in high-end file
systems. These include:
• High performance. SecureFiles delivers file system-
like performance for basic read and write opera-
tions, and it is up to 10 times faster than BasicFiles
or old LOBs. Organizations can scale up using
large SMP machines or scale out using Oracle RAC
to encompass hundreds of computers while still
preserving a single system image. With Oracle
Database 11g, organizations can store all types of
content and scale to handle petabytes or exabytes
of data.
• Deduplication. SecureFiles automatically detects
multiple, identical SecureFiles data and stores only
one copy, thereby saving storage space. Deduplica- SecureFiles represents a
tion not only simplifies storage management, but
also results in significantly better performance. major paradigm shift in
• Compression. Data is compressed using industry-
standard compression algorithms. This compression storing unstructured data—
results in significant savings and better performance
due to I/O, buffer cache requirements, redo genera- one that offers the best of
tion, and encryption overhead improvements.
• Encryption. In 11g, Oracle has extended the both the database and file-
encryption capability to SecureFiles and uses the
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) syntax. The system worlds.
database transparently encrypts and decrypts data,
backups, and redo log files. Applications require
no changes and can take advantage of SecureFiles
using TDE semantics. 15
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
• Advanced logging. Oracle supports transactional
consistency for unstructured data by logging both
the metadata and data changes. File systems, on
the other hand, usually log only the metadata and
not the file data changes. Oracle’s approach enables
companies to recover completely from media fail-
ures, a capability that is not available with generic
file systems.
Oracle Spatial
Oracle’s geospatial option, Oracle Spatial, is a compre-
hensive spatial database offering designed to meet the
needs of advanced GIS business and government appli-
cations, including business intelligence and systems
for land management, utilities, defense, and homeland
security. It includes native support in Oracle Database
11g for vector and raster data, topology and network
models, 3D data, geocoding, routing, and OGC-
standard Web Services. And its open, native spatial
format eliminates the cost of separate, proprietary sys-
tems, and is supported by all leading GIS vendors.
Oracle Spatial is designed to help organizations achieve
a variety of benefits, such as:
• Saving administration and infrastructure costs,
by consolidating spatial data assets
• Streamlining business processes and improv-
ing quality and service, by integrating location
intelligence into applications
• Providing enterprise-wide spatial access, by
enabling all stakeholders to use spatial data with-
out additional software
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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and Application
Development
• Managing spatial information with maximum “Oracle Spatial has given
security, scalability, and performance, by lever-
aging existing Oracle technology and skills us the ability to simplify
Not surprisingly, Oracle Spatial is the industry’s lead- essentially our management
ing spatial database management platform. Industry
analyst IDC reports that Oracle is the most widely of spatial data, bringing it
used enterprise spatial database server, with more than
80 percent of the enterprise spatial database market— all into one environment.”
and that “Oracle has developed the deepest spatial
capabilities among the IT infrastructure players.” And
IDC notes that because the spatial features are accessi-
ble through standard languages such as SQL and Java,
“developers can integrate spatial features directly into
business and location-based applications at relatively
low costs and with minimal training.”
“[Oracle Spatial’s] development over the last few years
has really had a big impact on us,” says Tim Warr, prin-
cipal consultant at Ordnance Survey. “Oracle Spatial has
given us the ability to simplify essentially our manage-
ment of spatial data, bringing it all into one environ-
ment, and also to link in some of the other benefits of
using Oracle—Real Application Clusters, for example.”
Oracle Application Express
Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX) is a rapid
Web application development tool for the Oracle data-
base. It allows companies to develop and deploy profes-
sional applications that are both fast and secure using
only a Web browser—even if personnel have limited
programming experience. 16
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
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Because it is easy to use, Oracle APEX is especially
useful in quickly building opportunistic and depart-
mental applications that report on database data.
Reports are typically hypertext-linked with other
reports, allowing users to navigate through database
data in the same way they navigate Web sites. Columns
in reports can be easily linked to other reports, charts,
and data entry forms. An extensive charting engine
allows SQL queries to be represented graphically, allow-
ing data to be more effectively communicated.
Historically, departments and small projects have
relied on desktop databases to provide an agile devel-
opment tool for smaller-scale development needs.
However, these can become very fragmented because
they keep data in too many places, they can be inap-
propriate for use with sensitive information, and they
are typically not Web friendly. Oracle APEX addresses
that problem by combining the qualities of a personal
database, such as ease of use and flexibility, with the
qualities of an enterprise database, such as security,
integrity, scalability, and availability.
Oracle SQL Developer
Oracle SQL Developer is a free and fully supported
graphical tool for database development. Designed for
Oracle Database developers, it simplifies development
cycles and reduces the need to buy third-party tools for
developing and debugging SQL and PL/SQL code.
SQL Developer offers a robust set of features to help
database developers perform tasks such as object
browsing and creation, running SQL statements and
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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and Application
Development
SQL scripts, editing and debugging PL/SQL code, and Oracle Application Express
viewing and updating data. It provides an extensive
set of prebuilt reports and allows developers to build combines the qualities of a
custom reports related to their development projects.
Overall, it is designed to enhance productivity and personal database, such as ease
simplify database development tasks.
of use and flexibility, with the
SQL Developer can connect to any Oracle Database
version 9.2.0.1 and later, and runs on Windows, Linux, qualities of an enterprise
and Mac OS X. It also integrates with Oracle APEX,
making it possible to browse applications and perform database, such as security,
other Oracle APEX activities.
integrity, scalability, and
“Douglas County School District has been using
Oracle SQL Developer for the past year,” Tony Golden, availability.
programmer analyst, Douglas County School District,
recently noted. “Particularly nice is the ability to have
multiple database connections open at the same time
and search across all database objects. It is readily
available, easy to install, free, much more robust than
our old tool. And it just keeps getting better.”
E Learn More: Customer Video
Oracle Spatial Integration Is Crucial for Customers
17
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

ESecurity and Compliance

Protecting Information at the Source

Data security has been a key concern for IT
organizations for some time, and that concern con-
tinues to grow. For companies that experience a data
breach, the financial, legal, and reputational costs can
be quite high. What’s more, a range of regulations, such
as Sarbanes-Oxley, Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data
Security Standard (DSS), and the Health Insurance Por-
tability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) now require
companies to implement measures to protect sensitive
information and monitor access to that information.
Today, companies have to protect against not only
external intrusions, but insider threats as well. Indeed,
research from the Computer Security Institute and the
FBI shows that more than 70 percent of information-
system data losses and attacks are perpetrated by insid-
ers—people inside the company who are authorized to
access the system at some level. In response, many IT
departments are working to safeguard the sensitive data
in their databases.
Oracle provides a comprehensive portfolio of database
security solutions designed to help companies protect
data. These include a number of database options and
features, such as:
• Oracle Database Vault
• Oracle Audit Vault
• Oracle Total Recall
• Oracle Label Security
• Oracle Advanced Security
• Oracle Secure Backup
• Oracle Data Masking Pack
• Oracle Configuration Management Pack
Oracle Database Vault
Today, a number of regulations require companies to
maintain internal controls to protect sensitive informa-
tion, such as financial, health, and credit card records, Research shows that
from unauthorized access and modification. Oracle
Database Vault helps companies comply with those more than 70 percent of
requirements with strong controls designed to protect
data against threats from insiders. information-system data
It does so by providing two basic capabilities: losses and attacks are perpe-
(1) It provides tools for preventing highly privileged
users, such as administrators, from gaining unauthorized trated by insiders—people
access to sensitive application data. (2) It lets companies
use multifactor control policies that determine when, inside the company who are
where, how, and by whom applications, database, and
data can be accessed—factors such as time of day, IP authorized to access the
address, application name, and authentication method.
This multifactor control helps prevent unauthorized system at some level.
ad hoc access and application by-pass.
18
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost
Grids
With Oracle Database Vault, organizations can pro­
actively safeguard application data stored in the Oracle
database, and address regulatory requirements for
separation of duties and real-time controls that help
ensure data integrity and data privacy. Because Oracle
Database Vault runs inside the Oracle database kernel,
it does not require changes to existing applications, or
adversely impact performance. In fact, Oracle provides
certified customizable Oracle Database Vault policies
for Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle PeopleSoft, Oracle
Siebel CRM, and Oracle JD Edwards applications to
help companies deploy quickly.
Oracle Audit Vault
Experts who have investigated data breaches have found
that auditing can help detect problems early on, reduc-
ing the financial impact of the breaches. Oracle Audit
Vault transparently collects and consolidates audit data,
providing valuable insight into who did what to which
data when—including privileged users who have direct
access to the database.
Oracle Audit Vault automatically collects audit data
from Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and SQL Server databases;
consolidates it in a secure and highly scalable audit
warehouse; and provides alert notifications when
problems arise. It leverages Oracle’s industry-leading
database security and data warehousing technology for
managing, analyzing, storing, and archiving large vol-
umes of audit data securely. Database audit settings are
centrally managed and monitored from within Oracle
Audit Vault.
E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
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and Application
Development
With these capabilities, Oracle Audit Vault helps
companies:
• Simplify compliance reporting, with the abil-
ity to easily analyze audit data and take action in
a timely fashion using out-of-the-box reports or
custom reporting
• Detect threats more effectively, with the ability
to quickly and automatically identify unauthorized
activities that violate security and governance poli-
cies, and to thwart perpetrators who try to cover
their tracks
• Lower IT costs, with the ability to centrally Experts who have investi-
manage audit settings across all databases from
a single console gated data breaches have
With Oracle Audit Vault, organizations are in a found that auditing can help
much better position to enforce privacy policies,
guard against insider threats, and address regulatory detect problems early on,
requirements.
reducing the financial impact
Oracle Total Recall
Oracle Total Recall complements Oracle Audit Vault of the breaches.
by allowing organizations the instant access to histori-
cal data that they need to conduct forensic analysis or
correct errors. In addition, Oracle Total Recall allows
companies to comply with a variety of regulations that
require keeping a great deal of historical data available
for long periods of time—which can involve a signifi-
cant amount of administrative overhead. With Oracle
Total Recall, this data can be kept inside the database
very efficiently and securely.
19
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
Oracle Total Recall can be used to support internal
auditing, human-error correction, and regulatory
compliance processes. Based on Flashback Data Archive
technology, it transparently captures changes to data
with very low overhead, and stores that data inside the
database in tamper-resistant, compressed archives that
can be accessed anytime using standard SQL statements.
Data is protected from accidental or malicious updates:
No one—not even administrators—can update histori-
cal data directly.
Oracle Total Recall is easy to configure and implement.
It requires no application changes or special interfaces. It
eliminates the need for third-party or custom solutions
in the management of historical data. And it is designed
to be easily managed and make the most efficient use of
all related resources, including CPU, storage, and admin­
is­trator time—helping to reduce the cost of compliance.
Oracle Label Security
Oracle Label Security is a powerful and easy-to-use tool
for classifying data and mediating access to data based
on its classification. Traditional controls focus on roles
or stop at the object level—that is, a company would be
able to control, for example, a user’s access to a customer
table, but not to specific subsets within the table. Oracle
Label Security extends database security authorization
by enabling powerful row-level access controls in the
Oracle Database using data sensitivity labels, and essen-
tially assigning a data label to each row.
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development
Oracle Label Security enables organizations to: With Oracle Total Recall,
• Restrict access to those with the appropriate
clearance. It allows administrators to classify every data is protected from acci-
row in a table, so that only those with the right
clearance can access sensitive data. dental or malicious updates:
• Enforce regulatory compliance. It provides a
policy-based administration model that enables No one—not even adminis-
organizations to establish custom data-classifica-
tion schemes for implementing “need to know” trators—can update historical
access for their applications.
• Leverage labels flexibly. Labels can be used as data directly.
factors within Oracle Database Vault for multi­
factor authorization policies. Oracle Label Security
also integrates with Oracle Identity Management,
enabling centralized management of policy
definitions.
Designed to meet government and defense require-
ments for multilevel security and mandatory access
control, Oracle Label Security can also be used by com-
panies to manage access to data on a “need to know”
basis in order to protect data privacy and achieve regu-
latory compliance.
Oracle Advanced Security
With Oracle Advanced Security, companies can trans-
parently encrypt all application data or specific sensitive
columns, such as credit card numbers, social security
numbers, or personally identifiable information. By
encrypting data at rest in the database—as well as when
it leaves the database over the network or via backup
20
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
media—Oracle Advanced Security provides a cost-
effective solution for data protection.
Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption
(TDE) provides robust encryption solutions to safeguard
sensitive data against unauthorized access at the operat-
ing system level, or through the theft of hardware or
backup media. With a simple command or point-and-
click interface, an administrator can encrypt sensitive
data within an existing application table.
Oracle Advanced Security lets companies:
• Protect all application data quickly and easily,
with the ability to encrypt the entire tablespace
or specific sensitive columns without making any
changes to existing applications
•T  ake a comprehensive approach to encryption,
with transparent encryption for Oracle database traf-
fic, disk backups, and exports
•A  chieve high levels of identity assurance, with
support for PKI, Kerberos, and RADIUS-based
strong authentication solutions
• Manage costs, with the ability to leverage com-
plete built-in encryption key lifecycle management,
including integration with industry-leading Hard-
ware Security Modules (HSM) or other enterprise-
wide key management solutions
Oracle Secure Backup
Oracle Secure Backup delivers secure, high-perfor-
mance network tape backup for Oracle databases and
file systems. It provides an integrated, easy-to-use
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development
backup solution that encrypts data to tape to safeguard With Oracle Secure Backup,
against the misuse of sensitive data in the event that
backup tapes are lost or stolen. encryption is performed
Oracle Secure Backup with Oracle Database 11g before the data leaves the
provides network tape backup for Linux, UNIX, and
Windows platforms, and supports more than 200 dif- Oracle database, eliminating
ferent tape devices from leading vendors. With a low
entry cost, Oracle Secure Backup is ideal for small and the risk of data being stolen
midsize businesses and large enterprises alike.
while in transit to tape.
Key pieces of Oracle Secure Backup functionality are
embedded directly inside the Oracle Database engine,
making it possible to achieve higher levels of security,
performance, and ease of use. For example, to help
ensure high levels of security, Oracle Secure Backup
encrypts data during all stages of a backup. Encryp-
tion is performed before the data leaves the Oracle
database, eliminating the risk of data being stolen
while in transit to tape. In addition, the data on tape
is stored in encrypted form. The Oracle Database then
automatically decrypts backups during the restore
process. Oracle Secure Backup also features certificate-
based authentication of host systems participating in a
backup or restore to ensure that outside parties cannot
impersonate an authorized host.
In terms of speed, Oracle Secure Backup provides
very fast backups to tape. Its tight integration with
Recovery Manager (RMAN) enables it to read the
database block layout structure directly and optimize
storage access. This optimization typically results in a 21
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

15 to 30 percent performance improvement, compared allowing production data to be safely used for develop- Oracle Data Masking lets
with other backup products. ment, testing, and staging, and shared with outsourc-
ing or offshore partners for various nonproduction companies replace sensitive
Oracle Secure Backup also provides complete data purposes. (See Chapter 5, “Manageability and Change:
protection for Oracle environments. It is optimized to Helping the Business to Adapt,” for more information information such as credit
provide highly efficient tape backups for the Oracle on Oracle Database Management Packs.)
Database, and provides seamless support for advanced card or social security num-
Oracle options and features such as Real Applica- Oracle Configuration Management Pack
tion Clusters (RAC), Automatic Storage Management To help ensure the security of the database, the Oracle bers with realistic values,
(ASM), and Data Guard. With the ability to back up Configuration Management Pack provides customiz-
file systems in heterogeneous UNIX, Linux, Windows, able search and compare features; historical change allowing production data to
and NAS environments, Oracle Secure Backup extends tracking; policy frameworks and compliance assess-
data protection from the Oracle Database to other ment; and a critical patch advisory. (See Chapter 5, be safely used for develop-
Oracle files such as Oracle Application Server, Oracle “Manageability and Change: Helping the Business
Collaboration Suite, and Oracle Home. to Adapt,” for more information on Oracle Database ment, testing, and staging,
Management Packs.)
Oracle Data Masking Pack and shared with outsourcing
The ability to “de-identify” sensitive data is an increas- E Learn More: Flash Demos
ingly important element of data-privacy protection Oracle Database Vault or offshore partners for vari-
laws around the globe. With Oracle Data Masking, Oracle Audit Vault
sensitive information such as credit card or social ous nonproduction purposes.
security numbers can be replaced with realistic values,

22
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Grids Warehousing Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development

EManageability and Change

Helping the Business to Adapt

In today’s business environment, the ability to
adapt to change is fundamental to success, and nothing
less than a competitive necessity. The IT organization
plays a key role in a company’s ability to change—and
if the technology can’t keep up, the company will find
it difficult to stay in step with customers, markets, and
• Oracle Real Application Testing
• Oracle Database Management Packs, a series of solu-
tions that target key IT management tasks. These
include:
E Oracle Change Management Pack Being able to manage and
E Oracle Configuration Management Pack

competitors. E Oracle Data Masking Pack execute IT change is key to

E Oracle Diagnostics Pack

Often, business change translates into technology E Oracle Provisioning Pack business agility and adapt-
change, and IT professionals have to modify existing E Oracle Tuning Pack

systems or bring on new technologies to support new
strategies and processes. But changing IT systems—
and continuing to manage them efficiently in an
evolving business environment—is not simple. Change
typically introduces a period of instability in systems,
and if it is not managed carefully, it can have a nega-
tive impact on performance, availability and, ulti-
mately, the business. In the end, being able to manage
and execute IT change is key to business agility and
adaptability—and the lack of that ability will impair
the company’s ability to compete.
Oracle provides several solutions that help IT orga-
nizations execute change and manage systems with
increased effectiveness and reduced risk. These include:
ability—and the lack of that
Oracle Real Application Testing
The Oracle Real Application Testing option helps ability will impair the com-
companies reduce the risk of adopting new technolo-
gies by making it possible to test changes and then pany’s ability to compete.
fine-tune them before putting them into production.
“[Real Application Testing] allows us to capture the
workload before a change happens, modify the data-
base to whatever you want to do, then replay the
changes you have captured earlier to see the impact of
the changes,” says Arup Nanda, director of database
engineering, Starwood Hotels and Resorts. “If changes
are not adequate or up to your expectations, you can
change it again and replay the transactions once again,
to find the optimal change.”

23
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost
Grids
Oracle Real Application Testing helps IT organizations
cope with change effectively because it is:
• Able to replay real workloads, not synthetic or
artificial loads
• Comprehensive, providing 100 percent coverage
for the entire change lifecycle
• Scalable, and able to handle small and large
changes
• Predictable, because it transfers the exact resolu-
tion of changes from testing to production
• Cost efficient, reducing testing effort by up to
80 percent
Oracle Real Application Testing includes two key fea-
tures: Database Replay and SQL Performance Analyzer.
Database Replay lets IT professionals accurately and
realistically re-run actual production workloads,
including online user and batch workloads, in test
environments. It captures the full database workload
from production systems, including all concurrency,
dependencies, and timing, essentially re-creating pro-
duction workloads on the test system. With it, data-
base and systems administrators can test:
• Database upgrades, patches, parameter, schema
changes, and so on
• Configuration changes, such as conversion from a
single instance to Oracle Real Application Clusters,
Oracle Automatic Storage Management, and so on
• Storage, network, and interconnect changes
• Operating system, hardware migrations, patches,
upgrades, parameter changes
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With Database Replay, IT professionals can test their “With hundreds of
changes without the overhead of having to duplicate
an entire application infrastructure. And the option databases in the environment,
can be deployed quickly: It does not require DBAs to
spend months developing functional knowledge of the and more coming all the
application and test scripts. Instead, with a few point-
and-clicks, they can have a full production workload time, the ability to test in the
available at their fingertips—which helps reduce test-
ing cycles from many months to just weeks or days. real-life scenarios here, and
SQL Performance Analyzer helps predict and pre- understand how the produc-
vent SQL execution performance problems caused by
changes in the IT environment. It provides a granular tion data will perform, is just
view of the effect that changes will have on SQL execu-
tion plans and statistics by running the SQL statements essential to us providing
serially before and after the changes—and provides a
report outlining the net benefit. It completely auto- quality service to our
mates and simplifies the manual, time-consuming
process of assessing the impact of change on extremely clients.”
large SQL workloads, which can involve thousands of
SQL statements.
Such capabilities can have an important impact on
the business. As Sean Wiley, CTO and director of
EDS Application Services at EDS, points out: “With
hundreds of databases in the environment, and more
coming all the time, the ability to test in the real-life
scenarios here, and understand how the production
data will perform, is just essential to us providing
quality service to our clients.”
24
E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
Oracle Database Management Packs
Oracle provides an integrated management solution
for managing the Oracle Database with a unique top-
down application management approach. As part of
this approach, Oracle Database Management Packs
provide self-managing capabilities that help eliminate
time-consuming, error-prone administrative tasks—
allowing database administrators to focus on strategic
business objectives instead of performance and avail-
ability fire drills.
With Oracle Database Management Packs, IT orga-
nizations can maximize performance and availability
by automatically monitoring the entire database envi-
ronment and proactively resolving issues before they
turn into emergencies. They can reduce failures due to
human error through extensive out-of-the-box automa-
tion, configuration, and change-management capabili-
ties. And they can increase productivity with tools that
let IT professionals manage more databases more effec-
tively. Oracle Database Management Packs and Oracle
enable administrators to be 38 percent more productive,
compared with DBW 9.1 and SQL Server.
The family of Oracle Database Management Packs
includes:
• Oracle Change Management Pack. This provides
an integrated solution that lets DBAs and appli-
cation developers manage database changes. The
Change Management Pack allows them to rapidly
compare schema objects before and after an appli-
cation upgrade, identify out-of-band changes made
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Management Compliance and Change
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Development
to the database, and track changes to database
initialization, authorization, and storage settings.
With this management pack, IT professionals
can accelerate application upgrades by tracking
changes to dependent objects, and rapidly identify
root causes of application downtime by ensur-
ing compliance of production environments with
established standards.
• Oracle Configuration Management Pack. This
forms the centerpiece of the Oracle Enterprise Self-managing capabilities
Manager’s ability to manage configurations and
automate IT processes. It provides customizable help eliminate time-consum-
search and compare features; historical change
tracking; policy frameworks and compliance ing, error-prone administra-
assessment; and a critical patch advisory—and
it can be used to support both Oracle and third- tive tasks—allowing database
party IT components. A key part of this manage-
ment pack is the Configuration Change Console, administrators to focus on
which provides real-time change detection;
out-of-the-box policies, compliance assessment, strategic business objectives
and compliance dashboard; and reconciliation with
change-management systems. Overall, this pack instead of performance and
helps reduce costs and mitigate risk by automati-
cally detecting, validating, and reporting on availability fire drills.
authorized and unauthorized configuration changes
in real time. It also helps ensure compliance with
regulatory and industry standards such as Sarbanes-
Oxley and Payment Card Industry (PCI).
• Oracle Data Masking Pack. IT profession-
als often need to share data with other parts of
the organization—for example, DBAs may need
to make copies of production data available to 25
 E INTRODUCTION E 1 Low-cost E 2 Data
Grids Warehousing
in-house developers or offshore testers for their
work. The problem is that such production copies
often contain confidential, sensitive, or identifiable
personal information that government regulations
require companies to protect. The Oracle Data
Masking Pack provides a comprehensive, easy-
to-use way to share production data with internal
and external entities while masking confidential or
sensitive parts of the information so that it is not
disclosed to unauthorized parties. This enables the
company to share production data while complying
with data-privacy policies, and helps increase DBA
productivity by automating the discovery and mask-
ing of sensitive data.
• Oracle Diagnostics Pack. This offers a comprehen-
sive set of automatic performance diagnostics and
monitoring functionality for managing the perfor-
mance of an Oracle Database environment. It auto-
matically maintains a workload history to facilitate
historical performance analyses, and comprehensive
system monitoring and event notification features
help reduce management costs and support the
delivery of quality service. Overall, the Oracle Diag-
nostics Pack liberates administrators from complex
and time-consuming tasks, and helps ensure faster
resolution of performance bottlenecks. And when
used as part of Enterprise Manager Grid Control,
the Diagnostics Pack also provides enterprise-wide
performance and availability reporting, a centralized
reporting repository and cross-system performance
aggregation, significantly simplifying the task of
managing large sets of databases.
E 3 Information E 4 Security and E 5 Manageability
Management Compliance and Change
and Application
Development
• Oracle Provisioning Pack. This pack automates The Oracle Diagnostics Pack
the deployment of software, applications, and
patches, helping to make critical data-center opera- liberates administrators from
tions simpler, more efficient, and more scalable. The
pack supports provisioning of the software stack, complex and time-consuming
including the operating system, middleware, and
the database, giving it a large role in overall systems tasks, and helps ensure faster
management activities. Ultimately, its standardized
software deployment processes help reduce opera- resolution of performance
tional risks, its out-of-the-box best practices help
lower costs, and its ability to support mass-scale bottlenecks.
operations helps increase efficiency.
• Oracle Tuning Pack. This pack offers a cost-
effective and easy approach to automating the entire
application-tuning process—which is critical to
the smooth running of applications, but tradition-
ally very time-consuming for IT professionals. The
Oracle Tuning Pack provides an effective solution
for application and SQL tuning, as well as automatic
tuning of SQL statements. Enhancement of SQL
performance is achieved through SQL Advisors that
are seamlessly integrated with the Enterprise Man-
ager Database Control and Grid Control. Together,
these provide a comprehensive solution for automat-
ing tuning processes. Overall, the Oracle Tuning
Pack helps enhance system performance and reliabil-
ity and significantly lowers management costs.
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may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Managing Change with Oracle Database 11g
E Learn More: Customer Video
Real Application Testing 26