Review of Oracle Database - Report Example

Oracle "Review" Introduction to Oracle Database A collection of data treated as a unit is called a database. Compared to normal databases like Access an Oracle database is used for enterprise-size solutions that have greater amount of data. The database is used to store and retrieve related information. Problems related to information management are resolved with the help of database server. In broader term, a server reliably manages a huge quantity of data in a multiuser environment so that a number of users can simultaneously access that data. While providing high performance all this is achieved. Prevention of unauthorized access and efficient solutions for failure recovery are also provided by a database server. For enterprise grid computing Oracle Database is the first database designed to manage information and applications in the most flexible and cost effective way. Huge pools of industry-standard, modular storage and servers are created by enterprise grid computing. Each and every new system can be quickly provisioned from the pool of components with the help of this architecture. When required capacity can be easily added or reallocated from the resource pools so there is no need for peak workloads. The database consists of two structures: logical and physical. The logical structures including table spaces, segments, and extents, dictate how the physical space of a database is used. The physical structure is determined by the operating system files that constitute the database. The physical storage of data can be controlled without affecting the access to logical storage structures due to the reason that the physical and logical structures are separate (Michele, 2005). The figure represents the components of Oracle application server 10 g. In computing, the Oracle Application Server 10g (the "g" stands for grid), consists of an integrated, standards-based software platform. Database recovery is made possible with the help of transaction management. Backup and logging are the main features that help to recover the database. Oracle makes use of techniques that are typically more superior for managing recovery than other database systems. The discretionary control over access to objects based on privileges helps to achieve authorization and security. Referential integrity between tables helps to achieve consistency and integrity. General Review of Oracle A database system helps user to transform the data into information and also gives the user access to their data. Oracle is one example of such a database system. Creating, updating and extracting of information are made possible with the help of a database system. A database system has some key advantages like speed, accuracy and accessibility. Each item is stored in its own field in Oracle. The field's name defines its contents. A field has little or no importance until it is used within the context of other fields. In Oracle a record is a complete unit of data made of a person, thing or event. A collection of fields forms a record. Each and every field in a record has a different name. The requirement analysis of a business must identify all the fields in an Oracle database design project. There are a number of characteristics of Oracle. There is a complex relationship between objects and queries are based on these complex relationships between objects. Oracle allows complicated transaction based updates and provides update tools that make use of them. It is purely centralized. Oracle can be used to handle a very wide range of problems as it is a general purpose tool. It helps to perform complex analysis on data where the relationship between elements of data is non-trivial. Making complex queries about the relations between objects is one of the major strengths of Oracle. Linking the data in multiple tables is made very easy with its help. It enables to define relationships between the tables when data is stored in two or more tables. Data is represented in tables with values in columns within rows (Craig, 2008). Oracle generally supports three data types: Transient data i.e. data that lasts only for the working of a single program. Stable data i.e. recoverable data that is flexible to failure. Persistent data i.e. accessible further than the process that creates it. In oracle, persistency is made possible by all data stored in tables. SQL Operations in Oracle Data in an Oracle database is accesses by all programs and users with the help of Structured Query Language (SQL). Although application programs and Oracle tools permit users access to the database without the use of SQL directly but still these applications must use SQL to execute the user's request. Oracle SQL is in compliance with industry accepted standards. The strengths of SQL offer advantage to all users e.g. application programmers, database administrators, managers and end users. In technical terms SQL is a data sublanguage. The use of SQL is to give an interface to a relational database like Oracle. All SQL statements are instructions to the database. Based on this reason SQL is different from all other general purpose programming languages like C and BASIC. Features of SQL include: It processes sets of data as groups instead of individual units. It provides automatic navigation to the data. It uses statements that are complex and powerful individually. Basically, SQL lets one work with data at the logical level. Implementation details are only important when manipulation of data is required. For example, a condition is used to filter the rows if rows are to be retrieved from a table. The rows that satisfy the condition are retrieved in a one step and then can be passed as a unit to the user, to another SQL statement or to an application. There is no need to deal with the rows individually. Optimizer, a part of Oracle is used by all SQL statements. It helps to determine the most efficient means of accessing the specified data. SQL provides statements for a number of tasks: Querying data Inserting, updating, and deleting rows in a table Creating, replacing, altering, and dropping objects Controlling access to the database and its objects Guaranteeing database consistency and integrity SQL unifies all of these tasks in a single consistent language to be used by Oracle (Oracle, 1999). SQL is one very important component of Oracle. Most but not all Oracle tools support all features of Oracle's SQL. In Oracle all the changes are stored and SQL operations are automatically made to the data. Database tables are updated by making use of SQL. A table is taken as input and another table is returned as output. Making changes and deletions is very problematic in normal databases but with use of SQL in Oracle it not much of a problem. The queries are always evaluated on the server in Oracle which helps to improve performance for typical business transactions that process huge amounts of data before giving short answers. Queries in Structured Query Language (SQL) are used to obtain required data from the Oracle database. It is specified by the SQL query what information is required and in what table it is available. A set of information is retrieved from the table by making use of an appropriate SELECT command with a particular condition. To include results from every column in the table a * character is used. A single record from the table is obtained by making use of the WHERE clause, which provides a particular value in a particular field. Rows are added to the table by using the INSERT command. Rows are removed from the table by use of the DELETE command provided with a specific condition. Some basic elements of Oracle SQL include: literals, data types, format models, nulls, comments, database objects, schema object names and qualifiers, referring to schema objects and parts and pseudo columns. These elements are the simplest building blocks of SQL statements. Various SQL functions are built into Oracle and are obtainable for use in appropriate SQL statements. One must not mix up SQL functions with user functions that are written in PL/SQL. Functions are somehow similar to operators as they also manipulate data items and return a result. The format in which functions appear with their arguments makes them different from operators. The following format allows them to operate on zero, one, two, or more arguments: Function (argument, argument ...). SQL statements are basically divided in the following categories: Data Definition Language Statements Data Manipulation Language Statements Transaction Control Statements Session Control Statements System Control Statements In Oracle it is very powerful language and allows the user to carry out a number of operations without much of a hassle. One can learns and be an expert in Oracle SQL in not much time but it requires some good amount of practice to do so. SQL operations are a major chunk of Oracle database systems and so carry a great deal of importance. Conclusion If you're making rapid changes, you need new features and functionality then it makes a lot of sense to use Oracle. The different modules of Oracle help to serve each and every department of an organization. The modules allow different departments to get connected and integrated with each other in one single system. Oracle is one of the most famous Entity Resource Planning vendors of the market that has been there for years. ERP is a combination of business management practice and technology, where Information Technology integrates with your company's core business processes to enable the achievement of specific business objectives (Infogen, 2002). Oracle is very much well known for their database systems. It is famous as a company with excellent software support and a huge financial budget. However as a result of inflexibility and slow implementation of their ERP products the company lacks partners and consultants. Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise One' that is designed for the businesses that are growing, but have limited IT resources and budgets is one of the most important product of the company. It can rapidly solve the most significant industry specific business problems and can also become accustomed to meet the needs of future business with a predictable cost of ownership and long-term value. Oracle provides a complete suite of applications to meet the companies' specific business and industry needs with the help of real-time business analytics that are required to manage customers and suppliers. Comments Taking into consideration all the features that Oracle offers I would highly recommend huge enterprises to make use of Oracle for their benefit. It can prove to be a valuable asset for the company. Oracle has lots of benefits including its features like data recovery, security, data integrity, content management, business intelligence etc. But it has some limitations as well like the employees need to be trained well to use Oracle and it requires large initial investment by the enterprise. SQL provides a great deal of help in using Oracle. It is an easy programming language but is very powerful as it allows users to perform a number of operations without much hassle. It is very fast as it processes a set of data as a group not as individual units. It has the benefit of automatic navigation of data. However one must need to learn the language well enough to make use of all its benefits. SQL does not fail in its application domain. Maybe it's not enough for what you want to do, (for example, views, or reports), and a higher level framework is needed. References Michele Cyran (2005): Oracle Database, Retrieved on 2nd August 2009, from http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/intro.htm. Oracle (1999): Oracle SQL Reference, Retrieved on 5th August 2009, from http://www-camden.rutgers.edu/HELP/Documentation/Oracle/server.815/a67779/operator.htm. Craig (2008): Observations from a Tech Architect, Retrieved on 5th August 2009, from http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/characteristics-of-relational-databases-24134 Infogen (2002): ERP, Retrieved on 5th August 2009, from http://baan.ittoolbox.com/groups/groups.aspv=erp-select&i=145906 Read More