Digg it
Twitter
The official launch of Oracle Database 11g happened on Wednesday, July 11 in New York.
But the build up to this pivotal event began more than eight months ago.
It started when Chuck Rozwat, executive vice-president of Oracle server technologies announced the beta of the 11g at Oracle's annual user conference in San Francisco last October.
I was at Rozwat's keynote at the Moscone Centre, and the message from him and other Oracle execs was clear - 11g represents a watershed in database technology.
With 482 new features, this database – we were told – would blow the competition out of the water.
In the past several months, scores of "experts" have participated in Oracle 11g's beta program and offered wide-ranging perspectives, opinions and advice.
Their collective commentary has tended to focus on features of the soon-to-be released database that are perceived to have the greatest business impact -- such as:
Data retention and compression
11g, we hear, will feature new "compression technology" that could reduce customers' storage demands by two-thirds, by enhancing their ability to store data – especially unstructured data – faster than traditional file systems.
This is being promoted as a key capability, given the increased storage and data retention pressures companies face today, including the burgeoning growth of rich media and increasingly stringent compliance regulations, requiring companies to retain documents – including e-mails and instant messages – for longer periods.
These are strong enough drivers to consider a system such as Oracle 11g, according to Oracle expert Rich Niemiec.
Niemiec, former president of the International Oracle Users Group, has authored several books on Oracle technology, including Oracle 10g Performance and Tips.
In an interview published in Oracle's Database Insider newsletter he says the swift pace of data growth and change calls for "systems that give us a way to visualize and manage huge data loads" and "help us meet change with confidence."
icon.
