Oracle Database

Oracle Database?(commonly referred to as?Oracle DBMS?or simply as?Oracle) is a?multi-model database management system?produced and marketed by?Oracle Corporation.

It is a database commonly used for running?online transaction processing?(OLTP),?data warehousing?(DW) and mixed (OLTP & DW) database workloads. Oracle Database is available by several service providers?on-prem,?on-cloud, or as hybrid cloud installation. It may be run on third party servers as well as on Oracle hardware (Exadata?on-prem, on?Oracle Cloud?or at Cloud at Customer.

Oracle is a product from Oracle corporation, that provides a relational database management system. Oracle’s RDBMS supports any kind of data models, and has different product editions such as Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Express Edition, and Personal Edition, among which the user gets to choose the database system depending on their need. Oracle products are scalable and secure, with high performance ability, compared to other databases available in the market.

Currently, its database comes in five different editions based on the features available.

• Standard Edition One:?It is suitable for single-server or highly branched business applications with limited features.
• Standard Edition:?It delivers all facilities provided in Standard Edition One. In addition, it provides larger machine support and Oracle Real Application clustering service.
• Enterprise Edition:?This edition is packed with features like security, performance, scalability, and availability, required for highly-critical applications in which online transaction processing is involved.
• Express Edition:?It is an entry-level edition that is free to download, install, manage, develop and deploy.
• Personal Edition:?It comes with the same features of Enterprise edition except Oracle Real Application Clustering.

History

Larry Ellison?and his two friends and former co-workers,?Bob Miner?and?Ed Oates, started a consultancy called Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977. SDL developed the original version of the Oracle software. The name?Oracle?comes from the code-name of a?CIA-funded project Ellison had worked on while formerly employed by?Ampex.

ADVANTAGES:

Portability

Well, the oracle database is ported to all different platforms than all other its competition. It easily runs on almost 20 networking protocols and also on more than 100 hardware platforms. The same thing makes it easy for writing an oracle application easily by make changes safely in the operating system and hardware.

Backup and Recovery

It is good to be used as to take a proper backup of your entire oracle online backup as well as recovery too. With the help of using oracle database, one can easily become able to make a point-in-time recovery. For the same, you have to require storage space and also archive mechanisms.

Multiple Database Support

The best advantage which users get when they make use of the oracle database is that it easily manages the multiple databases within the same transaction. The same thing is best applicable, or you can say implemented in V7.

Market Presence

By far, Oracle is the largest RDBMS Vendor and spends more on Research and Development than the rest of its competitors. As far as the RDBMS market share is concerned, Oracle has the maximum share in VMS, UNIX, and OS/2 server fields.

Versions Changes

Oracle keeps you informed about the next major release for any potential changes so you can get prepared. It offers you good backward compatibility by which you will no longer be required to re-write an application while upgrading the DBMS. Many have worked with Oracle since V4 Beta and have never faced any unpleasant experiences in terms of syntax.

Disadvantages of Oracle Database

Complexity

One of the biggest disadvantages of Oracle Database is its complexity. It is not preferable to use Oracle, especially when the users are not technically sound and lack the technical ability that is needed in order to work with the Oracle Database.

Cost of Oracle Database

The price of Oracle products can increase up to ten times compared to the?MS SQL Server?Database Solution for a mid-range solution. Hence, people are tended to go with other options that are comparatively cheaper, say, for example, you can install MySQL for free or utilize any one of several engines in a solution like AWS by investing a very nominal amount.

Difficult to Manage

Oracle is generally a lot more complex and difficult in terms of the management of certain activities. Hence, the pro tip here is to install a basic version and then perform configuration with minimal customization. Oracle Database is only useful when you need large size databases.

Features of Oracle Database

The following features are offered by Oracle Database to meet the prerequisites of powerful database management:

Availability

High data availability is a pre-requisite of real-time applications. The configuration of high performing computing environments is performed for providing all-time data availability. Availability of data is seen during planned or unplanned failures and downtimes.

Performance and Scalability

The scalability of the Oracle database is enhanced with the features like Portability and Real Application Clustering. It is needed to control data consistency and concurrency in a multiuser database which is contemplated by Oracle.

Security

Security should always be the topmost concern. There are exclusive mechanisms provided by Oracle to monitor and control data access and usage. You can easily prevent unauthorized access and allow distinct access to the users by implementing authorization and editing user actions.

Backup and Recovery

Its layout is made in such a way that it is completely recoverable from all kinds of failures. If some failure occurs, the recovery of the database needs to be done within no time for high availability. Affected parts of the data are getting recovered, while the unaffected parts of the data are still available.

Why do We Use Oracle?

It is a database management software product. A database contains an organized collection of information. A database management system is not only used for storing the data but to effectively manage it and provides high performance, authorized access and failure recovery features. It provides a software solution that is easy to use and manage database operations, from Personal to Enterprise level application

Moreover, there are many other things also present that play a good role in the entire concept. One should also know all these things to make full use of the Oracle database in their business. Some of the main things are like they have to know wizards and command line; they require proper command on SQL and PL/SQL and many more as well.

Career Path in Oracle

Experience in Oracle is always a wonderful career switch without any doubt. Oracle always comes with an excellent database management system, which is very supportive of the varieties programming language, especially in Java. Due to this big utilization, Oracle has planned and buy entire Java ecosystem from sun microsystem, and change sun java to oracle java. Only learning on SQL and PL/SQL is not enough if you really want to learn more about Oracle.

Certificates are:

• SQL Certification: This is one of the very basic exams needs to be clear by the candidate for proving expert in SQL queries. There are a lot of multiple critical queries which needs to be written for that specific exam, sometimes it has given some queries, output needs to confirm by the candidate. It is one of the easiest exams in Oracle to clear. Fresher’s and experience both can target the same for determining themselves as SQL developer.
• PL/SQL certification: Candidate should need to be advanced in PL/SQL part. This exam is interrelated with the above exam. Candidate should need to clear SQL exam before attending PL/SQL one. Candidate needs to face some critical question on Package, Function, Procedure, Exception part, and have to be more confident on those answer. It normally has multiple choice of questions. After clearing the same that candidate can consider as Database Developer.
• Data Administrator Certification:?Normally experience candidate goes for this kind of certification. It is absolutely related to database administration related questions and not at all easy. A candidate who really have expert knowledge on SQL, PL/SQL and clear idea about the database environment, can target this exam.

Job Positions or Application Areas For Career in Oracle

Job for an expert person in Oracle is huge. They don’t have any restriction on the same. Experience candidate doesn’t need to think about their upcoming career if they really interested in upgrading their knowledge specifically in Oracle. Job position varies in Oracle database management system, one kind of job is purely for developers like in SQL or PL/SQL whereas other kinds of job totally in database administrative level, no doubt comparing both last jobs is too attractive than the first one. Expert knowledge in Oracle have below kind of job utility or title available in the current market:

• SQL and PL/SQL developer: Interviewer expects a candidate who has entirely clear knowledge on SQL and PL/SQL technology. They have to know about complex SQL queries, joining with multiple tables, Table integrity constant knowledge, and transaction management specifically commit and rollback, function, procedure, exception, package, cursor every kind understanding is the key requirement for the same.
• Database Administrator Role: Normally experience and a certified candidate can go for this kind of opportunity. It is not at all easy to crack the same, as an interviewer are expected very depth knowledge on tablespace, indexing management, performance tuning kind of critical part, which need to be learned by them properly.

Oracle technology is currently more upgraded, almost every year they have come with some new version of the software, which has a variety of features in which most of the features are not covered by the developer. Anyway, for the developer, it is not the key requirement, as normal SQL, PL/SQL development similar knowledge is not required. But if the person works as database administrator role he has to know about admin level changes on each version, even certification from Oracle has been given which is based on the version available. So keep you updated and enjoy a great future.