Oracle Database 11 g - Online Public Access Catalog

CHAPTER 12■ ■ ■Data WarehousingOne of the primary focal points of Oracle Database 11g is to change the perception of how toutilize the database for content management. Typically, third-party applications are used tomanage content within the database. Traditionally, the database served as a repository ofmetadata for content management. Oracle Database 11g provides tremendous improvementsin the world of LOBs to fortify the native content management capabilities of Oracle Database.To meet ever-demanding mission-critical business requirements, more and more Fortune500 companies store their documents and images in the database. For example, corporatedocuments/images can be in the form of PDF, JPG/TIFF, or PNG. Even with Oracle Database10g, large companies strategically architected solutions to store documents and images in theOracle database. There are several critical reasons behind this decision to use Oracle Databaseas a repository for files. First, you can simplify backup solutions by moving documents in thedatabase. Instead of backing up millions of files outside the database, companies can incorporatebackup strategies to back up hundreds or thousands of Oracle datafiles depending on acompany’s database standards. In addition, backing up millions or hundreds of millions ofdocuments on the file system can pose maintenance headaches, especially in the world ofincremental backups. In addition, storing documents and images inside the database makes iteasier to implement disaster recovery solutions. Oracle simplifies disaster recovery with OracleData Guard. A document stored in the database becomes just another transaction rolled forwardto the disaster recovery database. You can implement physical or logical standby databasetechnologies to provide up-to-the-second or even real-time data propagation to the disasterrecovery site. Oracle also provides granular-level protection at the row level or, better yet,virtualized database record sets using virtual private databases.Of course, on the flip side, some companies have not chosen to take advantage of documentsinside the database. Slow performance used to be one of the largest concerns that led the decisionaway from documents and images in the database. With the performance improvementson LOB management in Oracle Database 11g, Oracle can meet or exceed the performanceconcerns of the past. Companies should reconsider their storage options to store the documentsin the database.This chapter will cover the multitude of new Oracle Database 11g features that surroundinformation management. The objective of this chapter is to inform developers and DBAs ofthe new capabilities offered in Oracle Database 11g relative to data warehousing, Oracle partitioning,and SecureFiles. First, the discussion will center on the newly reengineered LOBs calledSecureFiles. Next, the chapter will continue with the data warehousing enhancements followedby partitioning. Finally, the chapter will cover the high-level improvements made to Oracle515