Oracle Database: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:06, 30 September 2003

Revision as of 09:27, 15 October 2003

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The '''Oracle database''' is a relational database system extensively used in product and internet-based applications in different platforms. Oracle database was developed by [[Larry Ellison]], along with friends and former coworkers [[Bob Miner]] and [[Ed Oates]], who had started a consultancy called [[Software Development Laboratories]] (SDL). They called their finished product Oracle, after the code name of a CIA-funded project they had worked on at a previous employer, Ampex.

==History==

In 1979 SDL changed its company name to [[Relational Software, Inc.]] (RSI) and introduced their product Oracle V2 as the first commercial relational database system. The version did not support transactions but implemented the basic SQL functionality of queries and joins. There was no version 1, instead the first version was called version 2 as a marketing strategy.

In 1983, RSI was renamed [[Oracle Corporation]] to more closely align itself with its flahshipflagship product. Oracle version 3 was released which had been re-written in the C Programming Language and supported commit and rollback transaction functionalities. Platform support was extended to UNIX with this version, which until then had run on Digital VAX/VMS systems.

In 1984, Oracle version 4 was released which suppored read consistency.

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In 2003, Oracle 10g was released. The "g" stands for Grid; one of the sales points of 10g is that it's "grid computing ready".

==Version numbering conventions==

Oracle's numbering conventions have confused many people; they warrant a brief explanation. Since version 8, Oracle's [[RDBMS]] release numbering has been as follows:

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In addition to its powerful [[RDBMS]], Oracle has released several related suites of applications. These have historically followed their own release numbering conventions. For example, Oracle Designer's upgrade path led from 6i to 2000 to 9i, when it was subsumed into Oracle Developer 9i. As of the RDBMS 10g release, Oracle seems to be making an effort to standardise all current versions of its major products on the "10g" label. This will be most confusing to Oracle Applications users, who will have to upgrade from version 11i to version 10g.

==Database-related applications==

Some of the major database-related suites of Oracle applications are: