Oracle Magazine - September/October 2007 - Marcelo Machado

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE 

MANAGE 

CHANGE 

WITH ORACLE DATABASE 11g 

NEW FEATURES SPEED 

INNOVATION AND TRANSFORM 

THE ENTERPRISE 

OPEN AND 

SECURE /54 

THE POWER 

WITHIN /58 

MORE PARTITIONING 

CHOICES /73

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FEATURES 

Cover by Richard Merchán 

DEPARTMENTS 

From Our Readers/ 12 

From the Editor / 14 

Innovation Matters 

—Tom Haunert 

CONTENTS 

MANAGE CHANGE 

WITH ORACLE DATABASE 11g 

16 

Oracle Database 11g 

includes a broad array 

of new features and 

capabilities, from grid 

computing and data 

security to high availability 

and manageability, all of 

which will help companies 

manage change better and 

faster. Learn how it can 

transform your enterprise. 

—David Baum 

GET READY FOR THE 

BIGGEST EVENT 

OF THE YEAR 

Innovation. Inspiration. Information. 

Find out what’s coming at Oracle 

OpenWorld 2007, including keynotes, 

programs for DBAs and developers, 

technology presentations, and more. 

/17 

AT ORACLE 

/36 

Events / 16 

Find out about current and 

upcoming industry events. 

Oracle Resources / 18 

Your guide to Oracle’s broadband, 

education, online offerings, 

and more 

VOLUME XXI, ISSUE 5 

OPEN and 

SECURE 

Data security, access, 

and compliance: 

controlling who gets to 

see what information 

or manage which data is today’s 

business imperative. See how 

Oracle helps manage these 

mission-critical tasks. 

—David A. Kelly 

/54 

THE POWER 

WITHIN 

Oracle embedded databases work behind 

the scenes and undercover, driving 

software applications and hardware 

appliances. Find out how companies 

power their success at the edge of the 

enterprise with Oracle. —Alan Joch 

/58 

OTN Bulletin / 19 

Learn what’s happening with Oracle’s most 

dynamic online community. 

Oracle News Briefs / 20 

Interview / 23 

Andy Mendelsohn, senior vice president of 

Database Server Technologies at Oracle, talks 

about innovations in Oracle Database 11g. 

ORACLE MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 5

CONTENTS 

26 

COMMUNITY 

Commitment / 26 

Oracle supports CARE’s education initiatives in 

impoverished Uttar Pradesh. 

Partner News / 28 

Cisco Systems, Zend Technologies, Ingram 

Micro, Tech Data, Fujitsu, Dell Inc., PANTA 

Systems, HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, 

Applimation, Sierra Atlantic 

Book Beat / 28 

63 

Peer-to-Peer / 30 

Lutz Hartman, Eric 

Marcoux, Daniel 

Uehara 

DEVELOPER 

FRAMEWORKS 

Defining a Cascading List of Values / 63 

Setting up LOVs is easier than ever with Oracle 

JDeveloper 11g. —Steve Muench 

BROWSER-BASED 

Express Web 2.0 / 67 

Create dynamic interfaces that minimize page refresh 

with Oracle Application Express. —David Peake 

PL/SQL PRACTICES 

On the PL/SQL Function Result Cache / 71 

Best practices—and preparation—for PL/SQL in Oracle 

Database 11g. —Steven Feuerstein 

6 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE 

73 

TECHNOLOGY 

PARTITIONING 

More Partitioning Choices / 73 

Learn when and how to use new partitioning schemes in 

Oracle Database 11g. —Arup Nanda 

STORAGE 

Faster, Safer, and Smaller LOBs / 77 

Oracle SecureFiles provides increased performance, better 

security, and reduced disk usage. 

— Jonathan Gennick 

SQL DEVELOPER 

Moving to an Oracle Database / 81 

Use Oracle Migration Workbench to migrate third-party 

schema objects to an Oracle database. —Sue Harper 

ASK TOM 

On Oracle Database 11g / 85 

Our technologist takes a look at the server results and 

PL/SQL function caches. —Tom Kyte 

90 RESOURCES 

Oracle Certified Partner Index / 90 

Advertisers’ Index / 94 

92 

COMMENT 

IN THE FIELD 

What’s New in Oracle Database 11g / 92 

The latest version of the database has great new 

features for everyone. —Ari Kaplan 

ALL SECURE 

Automating Security / 93 

Papa’s got a brand-new bag (of tools). 

—Mary Ann Davidson 

ANALYST’S CORNER 

Secure Data for Every Business Need / 96 

Burton Group’s Trent Henry discusses why new 

needs for compliance mean tighter access 

control. —David Baum

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EDITORIAL 

Editor in Chief Tom Haunert 

tom.haunert@oracle.com 

Senior Managing Editor Caroline Kvitka 

caroline.kvitka@oracle.com 

Features Editor Kay Keppler 

kay.keppler@oracle.com 

Contributing Editor and Writer 

Blair Campbell 

Editor in Chief, OTN Justin Kestelyn 

justin.kestelyn@oracle.com 

Technology Advisor Tom Kyte 

Contributing Writers 

Marta Bright, Ed DeJesus, Jeff Erickson, 

Aaron Lazenby, Fred Sandsmark, Rich Schwerin 

DESIGN 

Design Director Richard Merchán 

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Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 

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EDITORIAL BOARD 

Ian Abramson, Jeff Bernknopf, Karen Cannell, Andrew Clarke, 

Chris Claterbos, Karthika Devi, Kimberly Floss, 

Kent Graziano, Taqi Hasan, Tony Jambu, Tony Jedlinski, 

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Sumit Sengupta, Danisment Gazi Unal, Jonathan Vincenzo, 

Dan Vlamis, Billy Yu 

WHAT’S THE COST OF A 

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Your corrections, your opinions, and your requests: 

Here’s your forum for telling us what’s right and 

wrong in each issue of Oracle Magazine, and for 

letting us know what you want to read. 

WHERE’S THE CHOICE? 

I found the headline of the cover story 

of Oracle Magazine’s May/June issue, 

“Develop with Choice,” to be rather 

ironic. The article did indeed describe 

some choices and options that developers 

have, but it did not cover Oracle 

Developer! This is still an excellent 

development tool for creating data entry 

applications for Oracle. 

Mark Geerlings 

mark.geerlings@gentex.com 

LOOKING FOR MY PEER COUSINS 

Oracle Magazine has been of immense 

help to me because it keeps me abreast 

of what is happening in the world of 

Oracle Database features, skills, and 

so on. I love reading the Peer-to-Peer 

column in your magazine, because there 

I get to read about my cousins in the 

world of Oracle. But there are good 

Oracle programmers and developers 

in Africa, and you are not really doing 

them justice if you are not coming down 

to Africa to have a chat with them and 

publishing them in that column. 

Anyasor Chigozie D. 

TaviaM@mtnnigeria.net 

Peer-to-Peer candidates are active Oracle 

community members from all over the 

world who distinguish themselves by contributing 

to Oracle Technology Network, 

Oracle Magazine, Oracle discussion 

forums, and/or organizations, sites, and 

publications that focus on Oracle technology. 

Recent Peer-to-Peer columns have featured 

Oracle ACEs (otn.oracle.com/community/ 

oracle_ace) and Oracle Fusion Middleware 

Regional Directors (otn.oracle.com/ 

community/ofm_directors)—recognized 

Oracle community members and leaders. 

All who are interested in appearing in 

Peer-to-Peer can send their contact information 

as well as links and references to 

their Oracle community contributions to 

opubedit_us@oracle.com. 


from our READERS 

NEWBIES SEEK ENLIGHTENMENT 

I’m a regular reader of Oracle Magazine, 

and I suggest you include introductory 

articles for Oracle beginners like me on 

topics such as installation and creating 

a database. 

Oguntuase Busayo Afolabi 

Oguntuase@gmail.com 

I suggest including more articles for 

newbies. I believe that they would 

be both more enlightened and more 

encouraged if just a page or two could 

be dedicated to beginners. 

Kehinde Adedipe 

kennyadex83plus@yahoo.com 

SEARCHING FOR SAMPLES 

I am a regular reader of your magazine, 

and I have been working with the 

sample code you publish. I really appreciate 

that content. I request that you also 

publish Oracle Database installation and 

configuration content for new users. 

Adeghe I. John 

adebor2000@yahoo.com 

I am a regular reader of Oracle Magazine 

and a SQL programmer, and I must 

commend your effort especially on the 

SQL scripts and code in the magazine. 

I want to make a plea that for Oracle 

learners like me, you include more 

Oracle code and scripts in the pages of 

the magazine. 

send mail to the EDITOR 

Femi Famejo 

hollaffo@yahoo.com 

IN NEED OF PRIVACY 

I am a regular reader of Oracle Magazine, 

and I would be grateful if you could 

please provide more information on 

Oracle Virtual Private Database and 

its features. 

Raj Boddu 

rajasekharb@gmail.com 

NO CHEMISTRY 

“Producing Parameterized Pages,” the 

Frameworks column in the July/August 

issue (otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/ 

07-jul/o47frame.html), deals with an 

excellent topic. However, it was hard 

to follow because there was not even a 

single diagram or snapshot illustrating 

the steps. It is a magazine article—not 

a formula for a chemical process. 

Ammar Sajdi 

ammar.sajdi@realsoft-me.com 

Send your opinions about what you read in Oracle 

Magazine, and suggestions for possible technical 

articles, to opubedit_us@oracle.com. 

Or click on the Write the Editors link on our Web 

site, oracle.com/oraclemagazine. 

Letters may be edited for length and clarity and 

may be published in any medium. We consider 

any communications we receive publishable.

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Innovation Matters 

Oracle Database 11g reduces risk and speeds change in the enterprise. 

aunched in July 2007, Oracle Database 11g continues 

the tradition of Oracle innovation. In addition to delivering 

the secure data management that customers expect 

from Oracle, Oracle Database 11g answers customer 

demands for both fast, reliable software that minimizes risk 

and a platform to speed innovation. With features designed 

to speed the testing, deployment, patching, and upgrading of 

enterprise infrastructure; provide more-efficient disk usage and 

information lifecycle management; and support more types of 

data and larger data volumes with faster data access, Oracle 

Database 11g is committed to making your enterprise innovation 

move faster. 

This issue of Oracle Magazine takes a first look at key features 

of Oracle Database 11g and how they support customer 

innovation in the enterprise. 

REAL TESTING, REAL LIFECYCLE 

Moving to new database releases, moving to new hardware, and 

migrating to different operating systems all require extensive 

planning and testing. But building and executing truly representative 

tests for these moves and migrations has traditionally 

been a complex, risk-intensive, and time-consuming process. 

In Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Real Application Testing 

reduces risk and makes it faster and easier to test systems, 

identify problems, and create solutions before and after database 

upgrades and hardware and operating system changes. 

Oracle Real Application Testing includes the database replay 

feature, which lets you capture and replay a true production 

workload, and SQL performance analyzer, which identifies SQL 

execution plan changes and performances regressions. 

Industry estimates indicate that enterprise databases will 

triple in size every two years, but new compression features in 

DISCUSS Oracle Database 11g 

forums.oracle.com/forums/category.jspa?categoryID=18 

DOWNLOAD Oracle Database 11g 

otn.oracle.com/database 

LISTEN to the Oracle Database 11g podcast 

otn.oracle.com/syndication/magcasts 

READ more about 


oracle.com/database 

Oracle Database 11g: Top features for DBAs and developers 

otn.oracle.com/11gdba 


from the EDITOR 

Oracle Database 11g can help manage that growth. The new 

advanced compression option supports compression during 

INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations—which can also 

speed the performance of subsequent queries, as well as the 

compression and deduplication of unstructured data. 

Beyond reducing disk space used via compression, today’s 

information lifecycle management (ILM) initiatives seek to 

store data in the most cost-effective locations, and database 

partitioning is an important part of ILM. New partitioning 

options in Oracle Database 11g include partitioning by parent/ 

child references, interval partitioning, partitioning by virtual 

columns, and more composite partition options. See Arup 

Nanda’s “More Partitioning Choices” (page 73) for detailed 

how-to information on partitioning in Oracle Database 11g. 

Oracle Database 11g provides storage and access for both 

relational and object data, including image, large text object, 

XML, DICOM, and geospatial files. New applications require 

fast access to a variety of different object data, and Oracle 

SecureFiles in Oracle Database 11g provides a new and faster 

high-performance architecture for large object (LOB) storage. 

Oracle SecureFiles also provides compression, transparent 

encryption, and transparent deduplication, which reduce the 

disk space required and improve the security of LOBs. See 

Jonathan Gennick’s “Faster, Safer, and Smaller LOBs” (page 77) 

for information on how to use Oracle SecureFiles. 

CUSTOMER INNOVATION 

In “Manage Change with Oracle Database 11g” by David 

Baum (page 36), several Oracle customers talk about the 

improvements they expect to achieve by using key Oracle 

Database 11g features, including Oracle Real Application 

Testing, automatic SQL tuning, automatic memory tuning, 

hot patching, and Oracle SecureFiles, as well as enhancements 

in Oracle Real Application Clusters and the automatic database 

diagnostic monitor. 

Oracle Magazine columnists Steven Feuerstein, Ari Kaplan, 

and Tom Kyte also discuss Oracle Database 11g features in this 

issue, and in the new Interview column, Rich Schwerin talks 

about Oracle Database 11g with Oracle Senior Vice President 

of Server Technologies Andy Mendelsohn. (You can listen to the 

complete interview at otn.oracle.com/syndication/magcasts.) 

And there’s a lot more Oracle Database 11g coverage coming 

up fast in future issues of Oracle Magazine, so stay tuned. 

Tom Haunert, Editor in Chief 

tom.haunert@oracle.com

ELIJAH MERCHÁN 

Gartner Business Process 

Management Summit 

September 17–19, Orlando, Florida 

This business process management conference 

covers building a business case, best 

practices, the role of change management, 

metrics and return on investment, modeling 

and methods, and business/IT alignment. Sign 

up at www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id= 

501307&tab=overview. 

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 

September 24–26, Santa Clara, California 

Join more than 1,000 developers, architects, 

IT managers, and software professionals at 

sessions covering offline Ajax, mobile Ajax, 

enterprise Ajax, Ajax security, desktop Ajax, 

Ajax rich-internet-application GUIs, and more. 

View the full agenda at www.ajaxworld.com. 

Oracle Human Capital 

Management Users Group 

Conference 

September 24–27, Las Vegas 

Promising to be the largest Oracle Human 

Capital Management (HCM) Users Group 

meeting yet, this conference includes tracks 

for both Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s 

PeopleSoft Enterprise users, special interest 

group sessions, “Meet the Experts” sessions, 

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at OracleEVENTS 

Technology Events 

Conferences and sessions to help you stay on the cutting edge 

Digital ID World 

September 24–26, 

San Francisco 

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Digital ID World attracts thought leaders, 

developers, and identity solution providers. 

Learn more and sign up at conference 

.digitalidworld.com/2007. 

Oracle Business Intelligence, 

Warehousing and Analytics 

Special Interest Group Summit 

October 2–3, Reston, Virginia 

Designed to accelerate the success of business 

intelligence, warehousing, and analytics 

users, this first-ever summit provides a forum 

for sharing best practices, useful information, 

novel and innovative methods, and other 

issues. Sign up at www.OracleBIWA.org. 

Oracle Clinical User Group 

12th Annual Conference 

October 7–10, Atlanta, Georgia 

The Oracle Clinical User Group (OCUG) is an 

international group of users of Oracle Clinical 

software—a database system for capturing, 

storing, and processing clinical trial data—and 

related applications. Learn about the group 

and register for the conference at www.ocug 

.webexone.com. 

Society for Information 

Management SIMposium 07 

October 7–10, Memphis, Tennessee 

This conference for senior-level IT executives 

and academic, business, and government IT 

thought leaders offers peer-to-peer exchange, 

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practitioners at leading companies, and innovations 

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ORACLE USER 

GROUPS 

Quest Midwest Conference 

September 6–7, Schaumburg, Illinois 

www.questdirect.org/questdirect/events 

Midwest Oracle Users Group 

Fall Conference 

September 7, Chicago 

www.moug.org 

UKOUG PeopleSoft Financials 

SIG Meeting 

September 11, London 

www.ukoug.org 

East Tennessee Oracle Users 

Group Meeting 

September 17, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 

easttennessee.oracle.ioug.org 

Australian Oracle User Group 

Applications Meeting 

September 19, Sydney, Australia 

www.ausoug.org.au 

UKOUG JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 

SIG Meeting 

September 20, London 

www.ukoug.org 

Northeast Ohio Oracle Users 

Group Meeting 

September 21, Independence, Ohio 

www.neooug.org 

Ottawa Oracle User Group DBA/ 

Developer Day 

September 21, Ottawa, Canada 

www.oug-ottawa.org 

New York City Metro Area Oracle 

Users Group Meeting 

October 2, New York City 

www.nyoug.org 

Australian Oracle User Group Meeting 

October 3, Brisbane, Australia 

www.ausoug.org.au 

Oracle User Group Scotland 

Conference 2007 

October 4, Glasgow, Scotland 

www.ukoug.org 

Virginia Oracle Users Group 

Fall Conference 

October 4–5, Charlottesville, Virginia 

www.voug.org 

UKOUG App Server SIG Meeting 

October 10, Midlands, England 

www.ukoug.org 

eventsLOCATOR 

Oracle Events 

oracle.com/events 

Locate user groups 

otn.oracle.com/collaboration/user_group

Oracle OpenWorld 2007 Special Section 

Keynotes 

Larry Ellison 

CEO 

Oracle 

Charles Phillips 

President 


Chuck Rozwat 

Senior Vice President 


Hector de J. Ruiz, PhD 

Chairman of the Board 

and CEO 

AMD 

Mark Hurd 

Chairman of the Board, 

CEO, and President 

HP 

Paul Otellini 

President and CEO 

Intel 

Thomas Kurian 

Senior Vice President 


John Wookey 

Senior Vice President, 

Applications Development 


Jonathan Schwartz 

CEO and President 

Sun Microsystems, Inc. 

Michael Dell 

Chairman of the Board 

Dell Inc. 

INNOVATION. INSPIRATION. INFORMATION. 

November 11–15, 2007 | Moscone Center | San Francisco 

Oracle OpenWorld 2007, with more than 1,600 sessions, 500 exhibitions, and 

41,000 attendees, promises to be even bigger and more information-packed 

than last year’s record-breaking conference. Showcasing the customers and 

partners whose innovation with Oracle translates to better business results, 

Oracle OpenWorld 2007 provides technologists and business leaders with the 

information—and inspiration—they need to drive innovation throughout their 

own companies. 

Oracle OpenWorld 2007 Highlights 

Innovation. Get inspired at Experience Innovation, a new Oracle OpenWorld extravaganza 

sponsored by Intel that showcases how the innovations of today and tomorrow are changing the 

way we live, work, and play. 

Inspiration. Hear what industry thought leaders and featured keynote presenters have to say 

about the future of technology. 

Information. Choose from more than 1,600 technology, applications, and industry-specific 

conference sessions. � Learn how Oracle uses leading development technologies to innovate 

across its product lines at Oracle OpenWorld Develop. ��Attend sessions just for Oracle’s JD 

Edwards customers. ��Gain insight at a special two-day program for Oracle’s Hyperion customers. 

Connection. Network with your colleagues before, during, and after the event with Oracle 

OpenWorld Connect. ��Celebrate and mingle at the Welcome Reception, OTN Night, and 

It’s a Wrap. � Party to the music of Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks with Mick Fleetwood at the 

Appreciation Event. 

Oracle thanks the following sponsors: 

MARQUEE 

PREMIER GRANDE 

INNOVATION 

DIAMOND 

ELITE PLATINUM 

To learn more and to register go to oracle.com/openworld 

Preregister for the Early Bird full conference: $1,950 (through Sept. 14th) | Onsite registration: $2,350 


What’s New at Oracle 

The latest Webcasts, courses, and online content 

NEW WEBCASTS 

Secure Enterprise Search—An A.T. Kearney 

Advantage 

oracle.com/pls/ebn/live_viewer.main?p_ 

direct=yes&p_shows_id=5591986 

Find out why A.T. Kearney selected Oracle 

Secure Enterprise Search as a core component 

and enabling technology within its 

knowledge management toolset, which 

allows its employees to quickly and securely 

search the company’s global knowledge 

repositories to rapidly assist clients. 

Driving Business Value from IT Investments 



Sonny Singh, senior vice president, Oracle, 

discusses the key questions driving IT 

decision-making, how you can analyze and 

improve the business impact of IT investments, 

and what Oracle is doing to improve 

business results for its customers. 

Oracle Application Integration Architecture 



Oracle executives Fred Studer, Charles 

Phillips, and Jose Lazares discuss Oracle 

Application Integration Architecture and 

how it fits into Oracle’s overall strategy. 

ORACLE UNIVERSITY 

Oracle Database 11g course offerings 

oracle.com/education 

(For all courses below, search keyword: 11g) 

Oracle Database 11g : New Features Overview 

This one-day seminar introduces participants 

to the key new capabilities of 

Oracle Database 11g. Topic areas include 

new features for managing storage, 

ensuring high availability, improving scalability 

and performance, strengthening 

security, and managing data warehouses. 

Oracle Database 11g : Change Management 

Overview Seminar 

This one-day course focuses on Oracle 

Database 11g innovations that enable you to 

better manage the database and application 

at OracleRESOURCES 

upgrade process. Learn about features you 

can use to record production workloads, and 

then play them back in a test environment. 

Oracle Database 11g: New Features for 

Administrators 

This five-day course gives participants 

the opportunity to learn about the new 

change management features and other 

key enhancements in Oracle Database 

11g. Topic areas include managing change, 

diagnosing and recovering from problems, 

ensuring high availability, and improving 

scalability, performance, and security. 

NEW PODCASTS 

The New SOA Standards: Web 2.0 in 

the Enterprise 

oracle.com/techcasts 

Vince Casarez, vice president of development 

at Oracle, explains why many enterprises 

are looking to add Web 2.0 services 

on top of their existing applications, and 

how Oracle WebCenter, a key technology 

in forthcoming Oracle Fusion Applications, 

provides infrastructure for that goal. 

The Latest Updates to Oracle’s 

Applications Strategy 

oracle.com/appcasts 

John Wookey, Oracle senior vice president, 

applications development, talks about 

new releases across all product lines, 

the path to Oracle Fusion, and what he is 

hearing from customers around the world. 

The Value of Oracle’s Application Integration 

Architecture to IT Managers 

oracle.com/appcasts 

Jose Lazares, vice president of Oracle’s 

Application Development organization, 

talks about Oracle Application Integration 

Architecture and how it helps provide a 

pathway to Oracle Fusion Applications. 

The Solution to Spiraling Scalability Demands: 

Extreme Transaction Processing (XTP) 

oracle.com/products/middleware/ 

ofmradio.html 

Steve Harris, vice president of Oracle 


Java and application server development, 

discusses evolving customer requirements 

for extreme scalability, reliability, and availability 

and how these can be addressed 

with an in-memory data grid such as 

Oracle Coherence. 

ORACLE NEWSLETTERS 

Oracle Database Insider 

oracle.com/newsletters 

Want to keep up with the latest developments 

in Oracle Database 11g? Subscribe 

to the monthly Oracle Database Insider 

newsletter and stay on top of enhancements 

and new features, articles on business 

issues such as identity management 

and compliance, interviews with database 

gurus, market news, and special offers. 

For Oracle product information, call the number for 

your region: 

Country Phone Number 

U.S. and Canada.....................................1.800.367.8674 

Australia ....................................................1800.735.467 

Austria.......................................................0800.29.7626 

Belgium........................................................0800.73280 

Brazil.........................................................0800.901.985 

China.........................................................800.810.0161 

Denmark.........................................................8088.1068 

Finland ......................................................0800.113.573 

France .......................................................0800.905.805 

Germany.................................................0800.1.810.111 

Greece.................................................00800.353.12020 

Hong Kong......................................................3002.1246 

India ..........................................................1600.44.6725 

Indonesia...........................................001.800.1.672.253 

Ireland ........................................................1850.672253 

Italy ..............................................................8008.74720 

Japan ........................................................0120.155.096 

Malaysia....................................................1800.80.1837 

Mexico...................................................01800.221.7321 

The Netherlands .............................................0800.0827 

New Zealand .............................................0508.555.215 

Norway...........................................................800.14411 

Philippines........................................................811.5831 

Portugal.......................................................800.853.021 

Singapore................................................1800.6722.531 

South Africa...............................................0800.994.225 

South Korea...............................................080.2194.114 

Spain............................................................900.952900 

Sweden ........................................................020.798798 

Switzerland................................................0800.55.2574 

Taiwan.......................................................0800.672.253 

Thailand ..............................................001800.441.0545 

Turkey .................................................00800.353.90014 

U.K. .........................................................0870.5.332200

at OracleOTN BULLETIN 

Crash into Oracle Database 11g 

New OTN series highlights top features of the new release. 

hen a new major database 

release hits, the experience 

can be overwhelming—like 

trying to drink through a fire 

hose. Absorbing the typically massive 

volume of documentation about new 

features and functionality can be a fulltime 

job—and a crushing responsibility 

for a busy DBA or developer. 

When Oracle Database 10g was 

released, Oracle Technology Network 

(OTN) partnered with Oracle ACE Arup 

Nanda, Oracle Magazine’s DBA of the 

Year at that time, to publish a series of 

short, actionable how-to’s covering the 

best new features in that release from 

a grassroots point of view. (Nanda is a 

senior DBA with Starwood Hotels.) The 

intention was to help readers get up to 

speed and proficient with new features 

such as Automatic Storage Management, 

Automatic Workload Repository, and 

Oracle Data Pump in a relatively short 

amount of time. Millions of readers 

did exactly that, and Nanda and OTN 

received a lot of recognition across the 

community for it. 

With the release of Oracle Database 

11g, we are revisiting that goal. “Oracle 

Database 11g: Top Features for DBAs 

and Developers” walks you through 

important new functionalities such as 

Oracle Database 11g Database Replay, 

SQL Plan Management, intelligent schema 

design, and many partitioning enhancements, 

using real-world scenarios as 

examples. (According to Nanda, the 

Database Replay feature alone—a major 

part of the Real Application Testing 

functionality in this release—justifies an 

upgrade to Oracle Database 11g.) 

Unlike the previous series, most of 

these installments are complemented by 

screencasts that demonstrate precisely 

how the feature in question is used. 

“Oracle Database 11g: Top Features 

for DBAs and Developers” is a crash 

course that no database professional 

remotely interested in this release can 

afford to miss. Explore the complete 

topic list (and subscribe to the RSS feed) 

at otn.oracle.com/11gdba. 

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 

They might be on islands at opposite 

ends of the world, but with the help of 

community leaders, developers from the 

Faroe Islands and Java, Indonesia, are 

now in the middle of the OTN landscape. 

Oracle employee and Oracle ACE 

Grant Ronald recently headed to the 

Faroe Islands, in the frigid waters 

between Iceland and Norway, where he 

led a hands-on SOA/Java/Forms workshop 

for the nation’s entire developer 

community (numbering 33 Faroese)— 

and set them up with OTN T-shirts 

while he was at it. 

Meanwhile, on the island of Java 

(how appropriate), Oracle Fusion 

Middleware Regional Director Frans 

Thamura has turned his Java User 

Group (JUG) Indonesia into one of the 

top-50 Java developer communities in 

the world. “Right now we’re digging in 

and learning more about Oracle TopLink 

and its features,” he says. “We’re especially 

interested in the migration from 

JBoss Hibernate to Oracle TopLink.” 

Follow Thamura’s Java community 

inspirations in his blog at www.jroller 

.com/page/fthamura. 

ORACLE ACES HAVE IT 

The Oracle ACE program—the formal 

network of nonemployee evangelists 

sponsored by OTN—has grown by 

leaps and bounds since its inception 

in 2005, having surpassed the 100member 

mark in May 2007. 

This summer, the Oracle ACE 

program was formally combined with 

OTN home 

otn.oracle.com 

OTN Headlines 

otn.oracle.com/pub/news 

Free software downloads 

otn.oracle.com/software 

Documentation 

otn.oracle.com/documentation 

Technology Centers 

otn.oracle.com/tech 

Podcasts 

otn.oracle.com/techcasts 

Technical articles 

otn.oracle.com/pub/articles 

Blogs 

blogs.oracle.com 

Discussion forums 

forums.oracle.com 

BY JUSTIN KESTELYN 

the Oracle Fusion Middleware Regional 

Director program, with members of the 

latter becoming Oracle ACE Directors. 

Consequently, it is now possible for 

DBAs, database architects, and database 

developers to obtain director status, 

joining the 40-plus Oracle Fusion 

Middleware experts who already are 

honored with that distinction. 

Learn more about the Oracle ACE 

program and meet existing ACEs at 

otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace. 

THE BIG EVENTS 

Finally, a single online resource is 

available for the purpose of tracking 

community-oriented events across the 

globe. Visit the new Developer Events 

Calendar on OTN to explore upcoming 

workshops, conferences, and OTN 

Installfests as they’re scheduled. Point 

your browser to otn.oracle.com/events 

for dates and details. � 

Justin Kestelyn (justin.kestelyn@oracle.com) is the 

editor in chief of Oracle Technology Network. 


? 

KNOW 

? 

DID YOU KNOW 

LATE IT PROJECTS LINKED TO LOWER 

PROFITS, POOR BUSINESS OUTCOMES 

A survey of 1,125 IT professionals worldwide 

showed a clear link between company 

profitability and timeliness of IT projects. In 

nearly half of companies surveyed, 25 percent 

or more of IT projects were delivered late— 

and in 57 percent of companies surveyed, 

no more than half of IT initiatives produced 

a positive business outcome. But in firms 

where 75 percent or more of IT initiatives in 

the past three years had a positive business 

outcome, improvement in project delivery 

speed was considerably higher than average. 

A full 62 percent of respondents said their 

companies would experience a substantial 

increase in profitability from faster delivery 

of IT services and projects. 

Source: HP and the Economist Intelligence Unit 

www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2007/070605xa.html 

IT COMPLEXITY PROVES RISKY, COSTLY 

Each hour of application downtime costs 

more than US$300,000, according to 

33 percent of respondents to a March 

2007 survey of more than 300 senior IT 

professionals at Fortune 1000 companies. 

Troubleshooting configuration errors 

with application servers, middleware, 

and databases can take more than a day, 

according to a third of respondents, and most 

said that installation and configuration of 

core application infrastructure assets is a 

“major time sink.” 

Source: mValent 

www.mvalent.com/downloads/mvalent_survey_results_ 

2007.pdf 

ORACLE LEADS DATABASE MARKET 

The market for relational database 

management systems grew by 14.3 percent 

from 2005 to 2006. Oracle leads in market 

share (measured by revenues), at 44.4 

percent, and its 2006 revenues were US$7.3 

billion, up 14.7 percent over 2005. Other 

database vendors’ market shares were 

IBM, 21.2 percent; Microsoft, 18.6 percent; 

Sybase, 3.2 percent; Teradata, 2.8 percent; 

and all others, 9.9 percent. 

Source: Oracle and IDC 

www.oracle.com/features/hp/oracle-number-onedatabase-idc.html 

at OracleBRIEFS 

ORACLE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE STANDARD 

EDITION ONE NOW AVAILABLE 

Packaged and preconfigured for small 

and medium businesses (SMBs) 

and work groups, Oracle Business 

Intelligence Standard Edition One—a 

complete, integrated business intelligence 

(BI) and data warehousing solution—is 

now shipping. 

Oracle Business Intelligence Standard 

Edition One, a component of Oracle 

Fusion Middleware, features all the core 

BI capabilities SMBs need, including 

interactive dashboards; formatted reporting; 

ad hoc query and analysis; extract, 

transform, and load (ETL) technology; 

and Oracle Database 10g Standard 

Edition One. 

“Oracle Business Intelligence 

Standard Edition One is the only endto-end 

BI and data warehousing solution 

that is based on category-leading technology 

for every component, offering a 

complete and compelling solution at an 

attractive price,” says Paul Rodwick, vice 

president, Oracle Business Intelligence. 

“The software offers small and medium 

organizations a proper infrastructure 

that will serve their immediate BI needs 

yet easily scale and grow with their 

needs over time.” 

Oracle Business Intelligence Standard 

Edition One offers customers the right 

BI foundation to deliver complete, relevant, 

and timely information for better 

decision-making across the organization. 

Developed with business user selfsufficiency 

in mind, the product features 

business user interfaces that do not 

require coding. 

ORACLE SIMPLIFIES USER MANAGEMENT IN 

ORACLE DATABASE 10g 

Oracle has integrated the enterprise 

user security feature of Oracle 

Database 10g with Oracle Virtual 

Directory to allow organizations to centrally 

manage database user identities 

through existing corporate directories. 

Centralized database user management 

helps address compliance and 

insider threat challenges, especially for 

organizations with large-scale databases 


and user populations. With enterprise 

user security, organizations can now 

use virtualization capabilities to manage 

database user identities and their highly 

privileged roles across diverse identity 

stores without having to migrate or 

synchronize the data. Oracle Database 

10g customers can pair Oracle Virtual 

Directory with enterprise user security 

to virtually provision database user 

accounts, assign database roles, centrally 

manage user authentication and authorization, 

and enable self-service features 

such as password resets in existing corporate 

directories. 

“Given heightened security demands, 

organizations must implement comprehensive 

identity and access strategies 

that span database users and the access 

rights they typically enjoy,” says Sally 

Hudson, research director, security 

products and services, IDC. “The integration 

of Oracle Virtual Directory with 

enterprise user security is a timely and 

important offering. The increased flexibility 

and greater choice helps solve a 

critical security need for many Oracle 

Database customers today.” 

ORACLE DATABASE LITE 10g RELEASE 3 

NOW AVAILABLE 

Now shipping, Oracle Database Lite 10g 

Release 3 is a comprehensive solution 

for the rapid development and deployment 

of applications for mobile and 

embedded environments. It delivers 

enhanced synchronization of occasionally 

connected devices with Oracle 

Database and support for a broader 

range of platforms. 

Oracle Database Lite 10g is a highly 

scalable, mobile solution that enables 

applications to run even when disconnected 

from the network, while periodically 

synchronizing to an Oracle 

Database server. Composed of a mobile 

server and a mobile relational database, 

Oracle Database Lite 10g Release 3 helps 

users reliably and securely exchange 

data with a corporate database; enables 

application, device, and user provisioning; 

and provides centralized management 

tools. Additionally, the latest

elease includes an automatic synchronization 

capability that enables data to 

be synchronized bidirectionally without 

user intervention. 

“The new enhancements in Oracle 

Database Lite 10g reflect Oracle’s 

dedication to offering mobile users an 

identical experience to their connected 

colleagues—when it comes to continuous 

data availability,” says Rex Wang, 

Oracle’s vice president of embedded 

product marketing. 

The client database of Oracle 

Database Lite 10g Release 3 supports 

Windows, Windows CE, Windows 

Mobile, Linux, and Symbian platforms. 

It also supports stored procedures for 

C++, C#/.NET, and Java. 

SPRING DEVELOPMENT KIT RELEASED 

The new Oracle Development Kit for 

Spring is designed to simplify the 

development, deployment, and management 

of Spring-based enterprise Java 

applications and to address demand 

for integration between Oracle Fusion 

Middleware and the Spring framework. 

The Oracle Development Kit for 

Spring includes Spring Framework 2.0, 

the latest version of Spring’s lightweight, 

open source application development 

framework; Oracle JDeveloper Extension 

for Spring, which provides wizards and 

full editor support for both Spring 1.xand 

2.0-style definitions; and Oracle 

Developer Depot, a free, Spring-based 

developer productivity tool. It also 

includes prepackaged sample applications 

and tutorials and transaction 

manager integration, which allows 

developers to leverage the lightweight 

programming model of Spring with the 

high-performance transactional capabilities 

of Oracle Application Server. 

“The Oracle Development Kit for 

Spring is a natural step in our efforts to 

simplify enterprise Java development,” 

says Steven G. Harris, vice president, 

Java Platform Group, Oracle. “As more 

and more customers use Oracle’s Java 

development platform in conjunction 

with the Spring framework, we see 

increasingly innovative results.” 

ORACLE’S DEMANTRA 7.1.1 NOW SHIPPING 

Now available, Demantra 7.1.1 

expands on the industry-leading 

demand management functionality that 

Oracle obtained through the acquisition 

of Demantra to deliver better forecasting 

and demand management capabilities. 

New capabilities include support for 

Oracle Fusion Middleware, improved 

planner productivity, enhancements to 

data loading and export, new demand 

analysis worksheets, and series and data 

security enhancements. This release 

also enables companies to model moreprecise 

statistical forecasting, analysis, 

and collaboration scenarios without 

special training or IT support. 

Demantra 7.1.1 is now part of the 

Advanced Planning solution within 

Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s JD 

Edwards EnterpriseOne, which gives 

companies the ability to accurately 

predict demand, shape profitability for 

their products, and proactively manage 

complex global supply chains. This 

integration reduces setup, configuration, 

and ongoing maintenance costs because 

Demantra shares the same demand and 

master data as the Oracle Applications. 

“By integrating Demantra into 

Oracle’s Advanced Planning applications, 

we are giving companies the tools 

to better predict, shape, and respond to 

demand in order to uphold the operational 

and strategic goals of their companies,” 

says Jon Chorley, Oracle’s vice 

president of product strategy. 

ORACLE BUYS PRODUCT LIFECYCLE 

MANAGEMENT LEADER AGILE 

Oracle has agreed to acquire Agile 

Software Corporation, a leading provider 

of product lifecycle management 

(PLM) software solutions. Agile’s PLM 

solutions help engineers, manufacturing 

and supply chain professionals, and 

business executives drive the product 

innovation and introduction process, 

share product specifications and configurations, 

and collaborate effectively across 

the supply chain. 

PLM is evolving into an enterprisewide 

discipline that spans multiple 

product design systems and interacts 

with a wide range of enterprise applications. 

The combination of Agile and 

Oracle will create an integrated, enterprisewide 

PLM solution. 

“Profitable product innovation is critical 

to product-based industries, making 

PLM one of the fastest-growing application 

segments,” says Oracle President 

Charles Phillips. “The addition of Agile, 

which will serve as the foundation of 

our PLM offering, will further Oracle’s 

strategy of delivering industry-specific 

enterprise applications and allows us to 

offer yet another strategic application to 

SAP customers.” 

ORACLE INVESTS IN SOPHOI 

Oracle has made a minority investment 

in Sophoi, a privately held 

provider of enterprise intellectual property 

management software. Oracle and 

Sophoi will continue to partner to bring 

innovative end-to-end solutions to the 

media and entertainment industry. 

“Customers of Sophoi and Oracle 

can benefit from a comprehensive 

suite of mission-critical applications 

for the media and entertainment 

industry by combining Oracle’s integrated 

applications suite and Sophoi’s 

iPLS [Intellectual Property Licensing 

Suite] solution,” says Lars Wahlstrom, 

Oracle’s group vice president of the 

Communications, Media and Utilities 

Global Industries Business Unit. � 

Oracle Business Intelligence 

Standard Edition One 

oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/ 

standard-edition-one.html 

Oracle Virtual Directory 

oracle.com/goto/virtual-directory 

Oracle Database Lite 10g Release 3 

otn.oracle.com/products/lite 

Oracle Development Kit for Spring 

oracle.com/goto/spring 

Demantra 

oracle.com/applications/scm/demantra 

Oracle and Agile 

oracle.com/agile 

Sophoi 

www.sophoi.com 


When businesses want real results in days, not months ... 

“It took me twenty minutes to install ImageNow and get it up and running at our Manila office. 

And expanding ImageNow is extremely easy.” That’s what Richard Cohen of Teletech says 

about ImageNow. And with such a rapid rollout, Teletech realized a 32% cost reduction in 

invoice processing in just one year. Talk about maximizing your investment. � The deep 

feature functionality of ImageNow provides a direct and effortless connection between you, 

your colleagues and the documents you need to simplify daily business activities across 

your enterprise. � ImageNow’s patented integration method makes powerful document 

management possible from any existing Oracle ® business software application — faster, 

easier, without programming hassle, without the high price tag. 

Results sooner or later? Which will you choose? 

ImageNow enterprise document management, imaging and workflow. 

they choose ImageNow. 

www.imagenow.com/oracle 

© 2007 Perceptive Software, Inc. ImageNow is a registered trademark of Perceptive Software, Inc. All other product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. ad_OracleProfMag_0708

BOB ADLER 

at OracleINTERVIEW 

Change Assurance 

Oracle Database 11g helps customers manage change. 

ndy Mendelsohn, senior vice 

president of Database Server 

Technologies at Oracle, sat 

down with Oracle Magazine to 

talk about new technologies and innovations 

in Oracle Database 11g. The following 

is an excerpt from that interview. 

To download a podcast of the full 

interview, visit otn.oracle.com/ 

syndication/magcasts. 

Oracle Magazine: Most organizations 

today are faced with a variety 

of regulatory compliance issues as 

well as security challenges. How 

does Oracle Database 11g address 

these issues? 

Mendelsohn: One of our new 

enhancements is that we’re 

encrypting large objects [LOBs] 

transparently in Oracle Database 

11g. We’re also doing encryption 

at the whole tablespace level. 

So if you want to just go in and 

encrypt everything, we make it 

easy to do that. 

We also have Oracle Audit 

Vault, which targets security and 

compliance. Oracle Audit Vault 

consolidates audit trails from different 

source databases into a 

central data warehouse, which 

makes it easier for auditors to 

understand the security-relevant 

operations in a company. 

Oracle Magazine: Tell us about the flashback 

data archive feature for compliance 

in Oracle Database 11g. 

Mendelsohn: Flashback data archive lets 

you go back in time indefinitely. With 

flashback data archive, you can set up 

an archive on any table, and whenever 

any updates are made to a table, we 

record those updates and we keep the 

old versions of every row that’s been 

updated. You can run queries as of a 

point in time in the past, but now the 

point in time can be years in the past, 

which can be very useful for things 

like auditing. 

Oracle Magazine: By some estimates, the 

volume of corporate data is growing 

three times larger every two years, 

which dramatically increases storage 

For Andy Mendelsohn, Senior Vice President of Database Server 

Technologies at Oracle, the Real Application Testing feature in Oracle 

Database 11g is the most exciting new technology. 

costs. How does Oracle Database 11g 

address this issue? 

Mendelsohn: Storage vendors have an 

initiative called information lifecycle 

management [ILM]. When you have 

information that’s really active, you 

need the highest-performance storage 

out there. But, as the data becomes 

more historical in nature, the highperformance 

storage isn’t needed. All 

the storage vendors now have different 

levels of storage, at different price 

points. Oracle has a technology called 

partitioning that has been used mostly 

BY RICH SCHWERIN 

for managing very large databases, 

often in a time-based fashion. It turns 

out that partitioning works perfectly 

for implementing an ILM strategy. You 

can basically have a set of tablespaces 

that are defined on different classes of 

storage, and then as the data ages out, 

you create a set of time-based 

partitions for your table. So, 

let’s say it’s the order table. As 

the orders start aging out, you 

just implement partitioning 

by time stamp on the order, 

and when the orders get more 

than a few months old, you 

start moving them onto partitions 

with lower-cost storage, 

and over time even lower-cost 

storage, until ultimately you 

either drop them or archive 

them completely. 

Oracle Magazine: People are 

storing all kinds of things 

in databases today that they 

didn’t used to—documents, 

images, multimedia. How does 

Oracle Database 11g address 

this issue? 

Mendelsohn: In Oracle Database 

11g, Oracle SecureFiles is a 

whole new implementation 

of our LOB infrastructure, 

and we rearchitected it for really high 

performance. The performance of the 

Oracle Database 11g LOB implementation 

for just reading and writing LOBs 

in the database is up to five times faster. 

Oracle SecureFiles actually reads and 

writes documents and files in the database 

faster than outside the database, 

which is a real eye-opener for customers. 

And the Oracle SecureFiles infrastructure 

underlies all of our support for 

rich datatypes like spatial, multimedia, 

and XML. We are very sensitive to the 

amount of storage these documents 


INTERVIEW 

“The big new area in Oracle Database 11g is our change assurance capabilities, where 

we really have spent a lot of time to lower the risk of change.” 

consume, and so we have full compression 

for Oracle SecureFiles, and we also 

support deduplication. 

Oracle Magazine: Could you tell us more 

about the new compression technology 

in Oracle Database 11g? 

Mendelsohn: In Oracle Database 11g, 

we’ve improved our algorithms for compression 

so they are enabled on every 

update to even a single row of a table. 

Now you can do compression for any 

kind of application workload, not just 

the data warehouse. This will make 

compression very interesting for people 

who want to implement ILM, because as 

the data ages out, you want to compress 

that data to lower your storage costs 

even further. 

Oracle Magazine: How will Oracle help 

customers migrate to Oracle Database 

11g and manage this change process? 

Mendelsohn: When we talk to customers, 

one of their big pain points is migration, 

whether they’re migrating to a 

new version of the database, a new 

version of an operating system, or even 

a new version of their own databasebased 

internal applications. In Oracle 

Database 11g, we looked at the whole 

lifecycle of what customers do when 

they do a migration, an upgrade, or 

a change of any sort, and we have a 

number of technologies to lower the 

cost and the risk of change. 

First, we’ve enhanced our Oracle 

Data Guard technology to make it really 

easy to automate the creation of a test 

environment. As you run tests, the data 

in the test environment is no longer in 

sync with the production environment, 

but you can use Oracle Data Guard to 

resync the test environment with the 

latest version of the production environment 

in a very clever fashion. 

The next things we’ve added are two 

major Oracle Real Application Testing 

features. The first one lets you point at 

a production system and say, “I want to 

take a real production workload off of 

that production system and move it into 

my test environment and then run it as 

a regression test.” Today, doing something 

like this is basically a development 

project. With Oracle Real Application 

Testing, you can just point to a real 

system, capture the workload, bring it 

over to a test environment, and replay it, 

purely within the database tier. 

The other [Oracle Real Application 

Testing] thing we’re doing is that you 

can go to a production environment and 

just pull off the SQL statements. If you 

want to make sure that the performance 

of individual SQL statements hasn’t 

regressed, you can go to your production 

environment, pull off the SQL statements, 

bring them over to a test environment, 

and then run them against both the old 

and the new version of the query optimizer. 

So between both of these features, 

you can now have a lot more confidence 

that when you go live you’re going to get 

the quality, robustness, and performance 

you need out of the new release. 

Another new feature is SQL Plan 

Change Control. One of the key things 

people really would like to do when 

they move to a production environment 

is keep the SQL plans unchanged. 

So in Oracle Database 11g, SQL Plan 

Change Control lets you move to a 

new production environment. You can 

freeze the query execution plans there 

and then periodically look at what the 

optimizer is recommending as better 

plans and move to these new plans in a 

controlled fashion. 

Finally, with Oracle Database 11g, 

we’re rolling out a new capability called 

hot patching, where you can actually 

apply a bug fix to a production system 

online without any downtime. 

Oracle Magazine: How would you summarize 

the benefits that all these new 

technologies deliver? 

Mendelsohn: Well, the key goal for all customers 

is better quality of service, higher 

performance, better scalability, reliability, 


—Andy Mendelsohn, Senior Vice President of Database Server Technologies at Oracle 

and security—at lower costs. 

As far as lowering costs, a big focus 

for us has been ease of management. 

In Oracle Database 11g, we continue 

strongly pushing in that direction. The 

big new area in Oracle Database 11g 

is our change assurance capabilities, 

where we really have spent a lot of 

time to lower the risk of change. This is 

really the lifeblood of every enterprise: 

everybody knows they need to change 

to be more competitive, to grow their 

business, but there’s this opposite force 

that says, “Any change I make is going 

to destabilize my IT environment.” It’s 

a real problem for customers, and we 

think we’ve done a great job in tackling 

that problem. 

Oracle Magazine: What is the single 

most exciting new technology in Oracle 

Database 11g, from your perspective? 

Mendelsohn: What’s always most exciting 

is when we move into a new area. The 

Oracle Real Application Testing feature 

is that one for me in Oracle Database 

11g. It’s a whole new area. Customers 

have no good solutions out there today 

for dealing with creating test suites 

or doing online hot patching of their 

systems. It’s an area that’s dying for help 

from Oracle, and we have unique technologies 

that are going to be exciting for 

our customers to really lower their risk 

of change and help them really innovate 

much more freely. � 

Rich Schwerin is a product marketing manager 

with Oracle technology marketing and a regular 

contributor to Oracle Magazine. 

LISTEN to the podcast 

otn.oracle.com/syndication/magcasts 

LEARN more about Oracle Database 11g 



otn.oracle.com/database

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ANNE HESLOP 

he state of Uttar Pradesh, 

in northern India, is a place 

of extremes. With 167 million 

citizens, the territory is the most 

populous of India’s states. Poverty is 

endemic, with per capita income among 

the lowest of all Indian states. Life 

expectancy—which at 58 years is 10 

percent lower than the global 

average—is on par with the 

war-torn African nations of 

Sudan and Eritrea. 

CARE, one of the world’s 

largest humanitarian organizations, 

began its operations in 

the Asian subcontinent nearly 

60 years ago, and while conditions 

have improved since 

1950—indeed, India hosts 

one of the world’s fastestgrowing 

economies—the 

situation in Uttar Pradesh has 

remained difficult. In addition 

to poverty and below-average 

life expectancy, education is 

also a challenge; for example, 

only one in four girls can read 

in this populous state. CARE 

is working there to establish a comprehensive 

education improvement campaign 

in hopes of improving economic 

opportunity, promoting citizenship, and 

fostering positive change. 

The results are undeniable. Between 

1997 and 2004, enrollment rates for girls 

in the target regions in Uttar Pradesh 

have increased by 40 percent. 

“CARE believes that education 

plays an important role in our efforts 

to achieve our vision of a world where 

poverty has been overcome,” says Helene 

D. Gayle, president and CEO of CARE. 

“Education gives people, especially 

women and girls, the skills, knowledge, 

and confidence they need to lift themselves 

out of poverty.” 

communityCOMMITMENT 


BY AARON LAZENBY 

SMART Project, Smarter Students 

Oracle supports CARE’s education initiatives in impoverished Uttar Pradesh. 

CARE’s hard work in Uttar Pradesh 

earned the organization one of Oracle’s 

Commitment Grants in 2006. The 

US$1 million gift funded education 

improvement efforts in the area, specifically 

the introduction of high-quality, 

proven teaching practices across the 

state. Working with a handful of model 

An Oracle Commitment Grant supports CARE’s efforts to improve education for 

impoverished residents of India’s Uttar Pradesh. 

schools, CARE hosts a series of teacher 

trainings and workshops, student and 

curriculum assessments, and community 

outreach in an effort to mobilize educators, 

students, and parents to take interest 

in the quality of local schools. The 

stakeholders in these model schools can 

then share these lessons and promote the 

adoption of best practices in neighboring 

schools. Ultimately, the program will train 

325 teachers to serve 13,000 students. 

The program kicked off with the 

Science, Math and Relevant Technology 

(SMART) project. Its curriculum focuses 

on introducing core skills that can have 

an immediate impact on students’ school 

performance. CARE works with teachers 

to ensure that each student receives 

a minimum of one hour of math and 

science instruction a day. 

Early efforts are already having an 

impact. At a school in rural Pilibhit, the 

SMART curriculum has already transformed 

the education experience of one 

girl. Marked as a discipline problem and 

a slow learner, the eighth grader was 

left to her own devices as teachers 

chose to direct their limited 

resources toward more-willing 

pupils. But a series of competency 

tests revealed that her 

behavior troubles stemmed from 

struggles with basic math skills. 

Now in a classroom with students 

at the same skill level, she 

is a different student. Her math 

and language skills have both 

improved, and many other children 

now see her as an example. 

Such a success may seem 

like a drop in the bucket of millions 

of students, but CARE’s 

impact on the project schools 

has improved achievement in 

core school subjects—paving the 

way for better living standards. 

And Oracle’s partnership with CARE 

only promises to expand the good work. 

“Because of Oracle’s tremendous partnership 

with CARE, students will develop a 

better understanding of certain academic 

concepts using computers and other 

important tools, and teachers will have 

the necessary tools and instruction to 

convey subject matter through appropriate 

learning materials,” Gayle says. � 

Aaron Lazenby is a director with Oracle Publishing. 

Oracle’s Commitment 

oracle.com/commitment 

CARE 

www.care.org

�� 

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ook BEAT 

Oracle Database 

11g New Features 

By Robert G. Freeman, 

with Arup Nanda 

Oracle Press 

www.oraclepress.com 

ISBN: 0071496610 

Learn how to take advantage of the latest 

release of Oracle Database with Oracle 

Database 11g New Features. This completely 

rewritten guide from the author of Oracle 

Database 10g New Features details the 

new features and tools available in Oracle 

Database 11g, including high-availability 

features, security measures, and business 

intelligence tools. Author Robert Freeman 

discusses how to maximize the potential of 

these capabilities, making the book an ideal 

resource for decision-makers and IT staff 

preparing for upgrades or migration. 

Freeman is an Oracle Certified Professional 

and the author of eight other Oracle books. 

He is an expert in UNIX and Oracle Real 

Application Clusters and specializes in Oracle 

backup and recovery and performance tuning 

for complex databases. 

The book includes contributions by Arup 

Nanda, a frequent Oracle Magazine author. 

RMAN Recipes for 


By Darl Kuhn, Sam 

Alapati, and Arup Nanda 

Apress 

www.apress.com 

ISBN: 1590598512 

Your database is going down. Some or all of 

your database files will be lost or damaged. 

Are you ready? Do you know what to do? 

It’s often said that the one true job of an 

Oracle Database DBA is to be able to recover 

a database. In RMAN Recipes for Oracle 

Database 11g, authors Darl Kuhn, Sam Alapati, 

and Arup Nanda provide a task-oriented 

collection of ready-made and example-based 

solutions to common (and some not-socommon) 

backup and recovery operations. 

When the pressure’s on, DBAs don’t have 

time for long discussions of theory. They need 

solutions, and they need them now. This book 

delivers, getting right to the point with quick, 

easy-to-read, step-by-step solutions that DBAs 

can implement with confidence. 

Coauthors Kuhn, Alapati, and Nanda are 

all experienced Oracle DBAs. Kuhn has more 

than 18 years of experience; Alapati has been 

working with databases since the 1980s; and 

Nanda has been an Oracle DBA since 1993. 

Look for Oracle books at oracle.com/ 

technology/books/10g_books.html 

CISCO SOLUTIONS OPTIMIZE ORACLE 

DEPLOYMENTS 

Oracle Certified Advantage Partner 

Cisco Systems has released Cisco 

Solutions for Oracle Deployments, a set 

of three tested, documented, and validated 

solutions that together make up 

an end-to-end network architecture to 

optimize Oracle Applications and Oracle 

Fusion Middleware implementations. 

Providing elevated application availability, 

performance, and security; lower 

application complexity and cost; and 

reduced deployment risk, these solutions 

include best practices and deployment 

guidance for WAN optimization, 

application and Ethernet switching, firewall 

access control, and storage switching 

technologies. 

Cisco, with the support of Oracle 

product teams, also continues to invest in 

testing and documenting of best-in-class 

network solutions for new Oracle releases 

such as Oracle SOA Suite and Siebel 

Customer Relationship Management 

8.0. This commitment will reduce risk 

and shorten deployment times for future 

Oracle customer implementations. 

ZEND CORE FOR ORACLE 2.0 RELEASED 

Zend Technologies and Oracle have 

released Zend Core for Oracle 2.0, 

merging Zend Core’s production-quality 

PHP solution with native integration 

with Oracle Database and PHP support 

in Oracle Application Server. Zend Core 

provides a certified, high-performance 

PHP development and production environment 

based on best practices in configuring 

and tuning PHP. This version 

includes PHP 5.2.1, Oracle’s new OCI-8 

extension, and Oracle Instant Client. 

Zend Core works with Oracle9i 

Database and Oracle Database 10g and 

can be integrated with Oracle Database 

10g client libraries. It enables interoperability 

between PHP and Java (and other 

popular technologies) through an Oracle 

JDeveloper PHP extension. 

Zend, an Oracle partner, supports 

Zend Core for Oracle, which is certified 

by both Oracle and Zend. It includes 


communityPARTNER NEWS 

support for a variety of operating systems 

and Web servers, including Oracle 

Enterprise Linux; Solaris; AIX; Windows; 

Macintosh OS X; and many versions of 

Apache, Microsoft Internet Information 

Server, and Oracle HTTP Server. 

INGRAM MICRO, TECH DATA EXTEND 

ORACLE’S REACH TO SMBS 

More than 400 new value-added 

resellers (VARs) have joined with 

Oracle in the last year as a result of 

Oracle’s distribution agreements with 

Ingram Micro and Tech Data. With the 

expertise, resources, and broad customer 

base of these two IT distributors, Oracle 

has expanded the community of solution 

providers offering Oracle Database 

and Oracle Fusion Middleware to small 

and medium businesses (SMBs). 

Oracle has a dedicated team of 

specialists available through Ingram 

Micro and Tech Data to provide their 

reseller channels with technical support 

and guidance throughout the SMB sales 

cycle. More than 175,000 SMBs currently 

use Oracle’s technology products. 

“Tech Data supports tens of thousands 

of resellers nationwide, and we’ve 

had tremendous success expanding 

Oracle’s reach in the SMB market,” 

says Stacy Nethercoat, Tech Data’s vice 

president of software product marketing. 

“Our team of dedicated Oracle 

specialists have recruited many SMB 

VARs, helping to expand the Oracle 

PartnerNetwork.” 

“Ingram Micro places great focus on 

helping the channel provide its customer 

base with the most up-to-date solutions 

that are designed for the SMB market,” 

says Jodi Honore, vice president of 

vendor management at Ingram Micro. 

“Being able to offer Oracle products is 

just another step in the right direction to 

providing our channel partners with new 

ways to generate business opportunities.” 

FUJITSU FLEXFRAME FOR ORACLE APPLIES 

GRID COMPUTING DYNAMICALLY 

Certified Advantage Partner 

Fujitsu has announced FlexFrame 

O racle

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT Partners Support Oracle Information Appliance Initiative 

Agrowing number of Oracle partners are supporting the 

Oracle Information Appliance Initiative with optimized 

data warehousing solutions built on scalable, balanced, 

high-performance hardware platforms. Examples include 

the team of Certified Advantage Partners Dell Inc. and 

EMC and Oracle Partner PANTA Systems. Other Oracle 

partners involved in the Information Appliance Initiative 

include HP, IBM, and Sun. 

The Oracle Information Appliance Initiative has two 

levels: Oracle Information Appliance Foundations are validated, 

balanced designs (software, hardware, storage, I/O, 

and networking) for customers who want flexibility and 

choice in a data warehousing platform. Oracle Information 

Appliances are preinstalled and preconfigured data warehouse 

products for customers who want simple and quickto-implement 

data warehouse solutions. Oracle software 

is preinstalled on a jointly developed Oracle Information 

Appliance Foundation. 

The new Oracle Information Appliance Foundation on 

Dell Inc. and EMC is a reference configuration consisting 

of a database, server, and storage mix optimized for data 

warehouses with 1 terabyte of raw data. The modular components 

can be combined to support larger data warehouses 

for Oracle, the first dynamic infrastructure 

solution based on Oracle grid 

technology for application and database 

services. Fujitsu FlexFrame for Oracle 

eliminates the permanent assignment of 

Oracle services to specific servers, and 

instead uses all resources dynamically to 

handle workloads. 

Under the FlexFrame architecture, all 

services software resides on the storage 

system and can be assigned to any 

server in the infrastructure—even non 

local servers—via NetBoot. In addition 

to providing flexibility, this approach 

simplifies patches, updates, and other 

software lifecycle management tasks. 

The FlexFrame architecture is based 

on an IP network with a cluster of 

Fujitsu PRIMERGY servers and flexible, 

integrated storage. This architecture 

ensures that every Oracle-based service 

can be run on any server at any time, 

so enterprises can consolidate IT landscapes 

and provide on-demand availability 

of applications and services. Scalable 

PRIMERGY blade servers also provide an 

attractive software-licensing model. 

APPLIMATION AND SIERRA ATLANTIC PROVIDE 

ENTERPRISE DATA MANAGEMENT 

Sierra Atlantic, a provider of business 

process–based integration and 

enterprise application optimization, 

has teamed with Applimation, a maker 

of enterprise data management solutions, 

to provide a data management 

archiving solution for Oracle Process 

Manufacturing based on Applimation’s 

Informia Archive product. Applimation 

will extend Informia Archive’s data 

archiving functionality to Oracle customers 

with Sierra Atlantic acting as its 

implementation partner. 

The offering is aimed at customers 

that have experienced exponential 

growth in transaction data. Informia 

Archive provides packaged templates 

for Oracle Process Manufacturing’s key 

high-transaction modules and offers 

archiving for customizations. Informia 

so solutions can scale over time. The new Dell/EMC foundation 

consists of dual-processor, dual-core Dell PowerEdge 

2950 servers running Linux, two Emulex or QLogic Host 

Bus Adapters, Brocade four-gigabyte switches, and one EMC 

CLARiiON CX-310 networked storage system. 

“The long-standing collaboration amongst EMC, Dell 

and Oracle enables us to help reduce the risk customers 

face in developing a well-designed, scalable data warehouse 

solution,” says Chuck Hollis, vice president, Technology 

Alliances, EMC. “The Oracle-Dell-EMC Information 

Appliance Foundation will help joint customers achieve 

considerable cost and time savings.” 

Oracle and PANTA Systems are offering the first preconfigured 

data warehouse appliance under the Oracle 

Information Appliances banner: the Oracle Information 

Appliance on PANTA Systems. This appliance provides 

customers with a preconfigured, turnkey grid of industrystandard 

Linux servers and storage modules with Oracle 

Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters preinstalled 

and configured for a real-world data warehouse 

environment. Built for data warehouses ranging from 3 to 

100 terabytes, the products are built on PANTA’s DM4000 

family of appliances. 

Archive uses a single engine for online 

and long-term data retention of structured 

and unstructured data. � 

Cisco Systems 

www.cisco.com/go/oracle 

Zend Core for Oracle 

www.zend.com 

Ingram Micro 

www.ingrammicro.com 

Tech Data 

www.techdata.com 

Fujitsu 

us.fujitsu.com/computers 

Oracle Information Appliance 

Initiative 

oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/ 

oiai.html 


emc.html 


panta.html 

Applimation 

www.applimation.com 

Sierra Atlantic 

www.SierraAtlantic.com 


Innovating and Unplugging 

Three peers celebrate getting online and occasional escapes. 

Lutz Hartmann 

How did you get started in IT? 

During university, I worked in 

Hamburg University’s statistics 

department, dealing with large 

amounts of data. I was especially 

interested in indexing 

multilingual data for library 

catalogs. When I started studying, 

there were two machines 

available in our entire department. When I left the university, we 

had installed a network, linked three scientific libraries to the 

international library network, and installed computing pools. 

How did you help bring the university up to speed in terms of its 

systems and connectivity? I organized 

a get-together with the 

department director, the library 

staff, and technical staff from the 

university’s data center. We discussed 

possible options for linking 

the department with the Web, and 

while there was money available for 

the hardware, there were no funds 

for the necessary work. I suggested 

we coordinate the installation with 

volunteers, and it was all done in 

two weeks during summer break. 

If you were going to the Space Station 

for six months and could only take 

communityPEER-TO-PEER 

peerSPECS 

Company: sysdba database 

consulting GmbH, a network of 

Oracle experts 

Job title/description: Founder 

and owner, offering Oracle 

training and premium consulting 

and support services for Oracle 

databases 

Location: Near Zurich, Switzerland 

Oracle credentials: Oracle 

Certified Professional (Oracle9i 

Database, Oracle Database 10g ), 

with eight years of experience using 

Oracle products 

Oracle ACE 

otn.oracle.com/community/ 

oracle_ace 

one Oracle reference book, what would it be? K. Gopalakrishnan’s 

Oracle Database 10g Real Application Clusters Handbook [Oracle 

Press, 2006]—it gives comprehensive insight. 

Eric Marcoux 

What’s your favorite tool or technique 

on the job? Since last year, 

my favorite tools have been 

Oracle JDeveloper and its 

Oracle Application Development 

Framework [Oracle ADF], especially 

Oracle ADF Faces. I can 

now build and deliver simple 

Web applications more quickly. 

What advice do you have about how to get into Web and database 

development? My first advice would be to think differently, 

because Web development is not the same as client/server 


development. Then, you must 

think in tiers, because Web development 

involves the separation 

of layers—presentation, business, 

persistence. By using a component 

model approach, it is much easier 

to reuse, thus simplifying development 

and delivering Web applications 

quickly. 

Do you have a favorite vacation spot? 

Every summer weekend I go to 

my favorite campsite with my 

family. I have no internet access, no phone, and plenty of time 

to spend with my wife and three children. 

Daniel Uehara 

What big changes in technology 

have you witnessed in the course 

of your career? It’s amazing how 

the Java IDEs have evolved over 

time. I remember when I started 

programming Java and we had 

a few IDEs, most of them just 

nice look-and-feel text editors. 

Now we have tools like Oracle 

JDeveloper, which basically does everything we need, and for 

the things we can’t do we just need to create an extension. 

At EDS, we’ve been able to integrate Oracle JDeveloper with 

some of our standard tools from the project lifecycle to get a 

full software engineering environment. 

What would you like to see Oracle, as a company, do more of? 

Oracle’s portfolio of products is getting bigger. It would be 

helpful if we had a clearer mapping between the products 

and types of services we can 

develop with them, and a path 

of training, tutorials, and documents 

that would help us get 

ready to apply a product to a 

certain service domain. 

What’s your favorite thing to do that 

doesn’t involve work? Running is 

my hobby. It’s when I have the 

opportunity to unplug from the 

network and relax from the stress 

of globalization and being available 

on demand. � 

BY BLAIR CAMPBELL 

peerSPECS 

Company: Fujitsu Consulting, a 

client-focused IT services provider 

Job title/description: 

Consultant, specializing as either 

an Oracle technical architect or a 

Java Platform, Enterprise Edition, 

technical architect 

Location: Quebec City, Canada 

Length of time using Oracle 

products: Six years 



oracle_ace 

peerSPECS 

Company: Electronic Data Systems 

(EDS), a provider of business 

and technology solutions to help 

clients worldwide improve business 

performance 

Job title/description: Manager 

of the EDS Java Center of Expertise, 

overseeing a team of 140 Java 

developers 

Location: São Paulo, Brazil 

Length of time using Oracle 

products: Seven years 



oracle_ace

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION 

An Ounce 

of Prevention 

A well-planned, strategic approach to disaster recovery has helped 

Dell strengthen its infrastructure—and provided some valuable lessons 

about keeping enterprise systems up and running. 

Dell IT’s comprehensive 

disaster recovery plan 

takes into account critical 

operations such as the 

Enterprise Command Center 

above, which provides 

vital customer support. 

It has become a truism in business that IT is 

a strategic asset that is vital to the operation 

of companies. A few years ago, however, 

Dell decided to take a deeper look at just what 

that meant. 

To start, executives asked a fairly straightforward 

question: What would it cost the business 

if the company’s main data center were destroyed? 

The Dell IT group determined that it could take as 

long as 12 weeks to get things back up and 

running, and then worked with business people 

to determine what that would mean to areas such 

as sales, manufacturing, shipping, and service. 

“When you multiplied that impact out across that 

time frame, needless to say, the lost-revenue 

figure was huge,” says Debi Higdon, Dell’s Global 

Disaster Recovery test manager. 

With that financial assessment in hand, it was 

S1

S2 

clear that Dell could benefit from an 

enterprise approach to disaster recovery. 

But not many companies had implemented 

such an approach—disaster 

recovery was typically addressed in 

a fragmented, tactical manner. “There 

just wasn’t a good handbook to go by— 

we had to write our own,” says Higdon. 

The group did just that, and worked 

out a comprehensive plan for using 

standards-based technology in a rigorous, 

robust approach to protecting 

its strategic IT assets. 

Plans and priorities 

After assessing the financial impact, 

the next step was to develop an understanding 

of where to focus disaster 

recovery initiatives. “We created a risk 

profile based on hard data, rather than 

guesswork,” says Higdon. To get that 


hard data, the IT group gathered input 

from a range of sources, including meteorologists 

and the company’s insurance 

carrier—an especially valuable source 

of risk information. 

Next, the group conducted a careful 

analysis to identify the applications 

that would have the greatest impact on 

the business in the event of a disaster, 

creating three classifications. Class 1 

applications are those that need to be 

up and running in the event of a disaster 

within four hours—generally, things that 

affect manufacturing, sales, and service. 

Class 2 applications need to be up within 

48 hours. And Class 3 applications are 

to be back up based on “best effort.” 

That classification helped the group 

prioritize efforts and allocate investments 

appropriately in order to be able 

to recover the most crucial systems first. 

Disaster Recovery: Rules of the Road 

In creating and implementing its enterprise approach to disaster recovery, Dell’s IT group 

developed 10 principles designed to help ensure a thorough, focused effort. 

1. Articulate the need in financial terms. Doing so provides 

a clear business case, helps ensure organizational buy-in, 

and provides a guidepost for investing in disaster recovery. 

2. Use hard data to create a risk profile. Rather than simply 

taking a best guess, work with insurers and other data 

sources to determine the true nature of the risk—such as 

fire, storms, etc.—for a particular operation. 

3. Identify critical resources. Conduct a rigorous analysis to 

identify key applications that warrant redundancy, backup, 

and recovery attention, and categorize applications to help 

prioritize efforts. 

4. Think beyond the data center. Factor in essential and relevant 

business processes and infrastructure components 

across the organization. 

5. Eliminate or mitigate single points of failure. Perform a 

detailed single-point-of-failure analysis across the entire 

infrastructure—including seemingly minor components—to 

find areas where redundancy is lacking. 

Strengthening the infrastructure 

Armed with that understanding, Dell 

laid the cornerstone of its disaster 

recovery effort—a new 40,000-squarefoot 

data center with some 5,000 servers 

to provide redundant backup to the 

company’s main data center in Austin, 

Texas. In both centers, Dell IT professionals 

looked at business continuity 

across several levels, including the site 

as a whole, computing platforms, applications, 

and data. 

For example, the centers make use 

of Oracle ® Real Application Clusters 

(Oracle RAC) technology, running on 

Dell PowerEdge servers that have a 

number of high-availability features. 

With Oracle’s clustering technology, if 

one system in a cluster fails or is taken 

down for maintenance, the others can 

pick up its workload instantly. “About 

6. Assume that everything is going to fail. Create business 

continuity plans based on the idea that every key piece 

of internal and external infrastructure may fail or become 

unavailable for extended periods. 

7. Consider an active-active data center strategy. A distributed 

environment that runs across data centers enables 

high availability and the use of load balancing as a constant 

test of recoverability. 

8. Recognize potential vendor weaknesses. Evaluate 

vendors’ disaster recovery capabilities, and include vendors 

in disaster recovery testing to understand how their policies 

and technologies might affect the enterprise. 

9. Keep disaster recovery capabilities up to date. Monitor 

documentation and establish strong procedures and processes 

to make disaster recovery part of everyday activity. 

10. Perform tests on a regular basis. Validate failover and 

recovery capabilities to make sure things work as planned— 

perhaps on a quarterly basis.

“We assume that everything 

is going to fail. It might be 

systems, a network, phone 

lines, roads leading to one 

of the data centers. And then 

we think about what to do if 

those things do fail.” 

—Mitchell McGovern, director, 

Dell Global Operation Services 

72 percent of the Oracle databases we 

have in production are Oracle Database 

10g and Real Application Clusters,” 

says Logan McLeod, IT strategist for 

Dell. “They provide high availability and 

scalability, and they enable us to dynamically 

respond to ever-changing workloads 

in our environment.” The data 

centers also use Oracle Data Guard 

software to manage standby databases, 

and Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid 

Control, which provides a single point of 

management for 100 percent of Dell’s 

global production databases. 

Mitchell McGovern, director of Dell’s 

Global Operation Services, says that Dell 

paid close attention to rooting out single 

points of failure in the infrastructure. 

“We did a detailed analysis across the 

entire infrastructure, focusing on 

ensuring redundancy at all levels— 

power, cooling, network, software, 

hardware,” says McGovern. “You may 

have duplicate networks and systems, 

but if the power fails, for example, and 

you just have one generator that doesn’t 

come on, it’s all for naught.” 

The group also found that it needed to 

pay close attention to processes as well 

as technologies. In particular, they established 

detailed change-management 


processes to make sure that over time, 

patches and upgrades are applied consistently 

across the data centers so that 

the two remain identical as the infrastructure 

evolves. Otherwise, seemingly 

minor differences in the two centers 

could delay and complicate failover 

efforts in an actual emergency. 

Maintaining that consistency is 

especially important as Dell moves to 

an active-active configuration across 

the two data centers. With this configuration, 

systems operate in a fully 

distributed production environment, 

with each data center able to handle 

75 percent of peak workloads and 

100 percent of normal workloads. For 

example, Dell’s Quote Management 

System runs in both data centers on 

two independent Oracle Database 10g 

RAC clusters, using Oracle Streams 

technology. If there were a disaster, 

failover would be automatic and instantaneous—the 

problem would constitute 

a loss of capacity, but not of data or 

functionality. Thus, if one system handling 

quotes becomes unavailable, the 

other simply carries on, and customers 

continue to get quotes without noticing 

any difference except possibly a minor 

degradation in response times. That 

active-active configuration not only provides 

high levels of availability, it also 

allows Dell to balance loads across 

centers to maintain high performance 

levels. What’s more, this load balancing 

is essentially testing the failover capabilities—all 

the time, as a part of dayto-day 

operations. 

Dell IT recognized that although the 

data centers are critical, they don’t 

operate in a vacuum. The group took a 

broad look at its infrastructure to identify 

where business continuity depended 

on applications in other Dell facilities 

around the world, and took steps to 

apply disaster recovery procedures 

in those areas. It also looked outside 

corporate boundaries. “We felt that it 

is important to look for potential vendor 

For high availability, Dell’s data centers rely 

on Dell PowerEdge servers running Oracle 

Database 10g with Real Application Clusters. 

weaknesses,” says Higdon. “We spend 

time testing with our vendors—for 

example, we might simulate a disaster 

here at Dell and include a couple of 

vendors to see how an event here might 

affect them. You don’t want to get in a 

silo and forget about everything else 

that touches your operations.” 

McGovern says that the broad 

search for weaknesses—internally and 

externally—is the result of a guiding 

principle adopted by the IT group: “We 

assume that everything is going to fail. 

It might be systems, a network, phone 

lines, roads leading to one of the data 

centers. And then we think about what 

to do if those things do fail.” 

S3

S4 

Keeping disaster recovery current 

Dell has completed its transformation 

of its disaster recovery plans and processes—but 

the effort will never be 

entirely finished, says McGovern. Technologies, 

business needs, and security 

threats all continue to evolve, and Dell’s 

disaster recovery policies and procedures 

are designed to do the same. 

For example, when a change is made 

to an application, database, or data 

center, disaster recovery capabilities 

are updated as well. New applications 

must be engineered for recoverability. 

Dell actively monitors and manages 

disaster recovery compliance, and 

disaster recovery documentation for 

each system has to be updated every 

90 days. 

The company also maintains a strict 

policy that calls for all of its more than 

250 Class 1 applications to be tested 

at least once a year. “That’s not negotiable—it’s 

mandatory,” says Higdon. 

Dell has created a disaster recovery 

scorecard that lets the company keep 

close track of testing and documentation 

status. The card is used by the 

IT group and the CIO, and is eventually 

shared with the corporate audit function 

and the audit committee of the board 

of directors. “You can see how serious 

we are about this,” says Higdon. 

The Dell disaster recovery initiative 

has put the company in good position to 

ensure business continuity—and keep 

supporting customers—in the event of 

a serious interruption at its data center. 

“The goal is to do a complete failover 

to the disaster recovery site within four 

hours, and we’ve been hitting that mark. 

In our last test, we actually failed over 

all the applications in scope in less than 

an hour,” says Higdon. And as an unexpected 

benefit, the company has seen 


The Dell and Oracle Relationship 

its insurance premiums go down, 

because its carrier has recognized the 

value of Dell’s disaster recovery efforts. 

“This initiative shows how costeffective, 

standards-based servers can 

be used to support a strategic, enterprise 

approach to disaster recovery,” 

says McGovern. “Just as important, 

it has enabled us to build disaster 

recovery into our culture. That’s key to 

keeping disaster recovery in sync with 

the business. In today’s world, disaster 

recovery is not a ‘nice to have’—it’s a 

‘must have.’ And we’ve been able to 

make it a part of everyday life at Dell.” 

July 2007. Printed in the U.S.A. Dell, the DELL logo, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Oracle is a registered 

trademark of Oracle Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Microsoft and Windows Server are registered 

trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either 

the entities claiming the marks or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. 

© 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc. is 

strictly forbidden. For more information, please contact Dell Inc. 

Dell and Oracle have a long collaborative relationship based in large part 

on the similar long-term visions of both companies. Oracle’s Grid Computing 

strategy focuses on delivering flexible, reliable database throughput; the dynamic 

provisioning of database workloads on grids of industry-standard servers; and 

the ability to easily add more capacity to grids. Dell’s Scalable Enterprise vision 

complements that strategy with its focus on standardizing the core elements of 

IT infrastructure to deliver superior value, and ultimately enabling customers to 

simplify operations, improve utilization, and scale effectively. 

With those complementary visions in mind, Dell and Oracle work together on 

a number of fronts. For example, experts from both companies have collaborated 

to develop a number of pre-engineered, tested, and validated Intel-based Oracle 

database solutions on Red Hat Linux ® and Microsoft ® Windows Server ® 2003. 

Dell and Oracle test and support the entire solution stack—servers, storage, 

switches, operating systems, and Oracle Database software—giving companies 

a cost-effective solution to legacy data center technologies. In addition, Dell 

Services and Oracle Consulting Services work together to provide fixed-fee and 

custom services designed to accelerate implementation and help organizations 

make the best use of the technology. 

The two companies also have a firsthand view of the effectiveness of these 

technologies: Both use Dell and Oracle platforms in their own operations. Oracle 

develops and tests much of its software on Dell PowerEdge servers and relies 

on more than 20,000 Dell Linux servers to power key elements of its Global IT 

operations. Similarly, Dell entrusts several mission-critical business systems to 

PowerEdge servers running Oracle Database 10g—including not only its EMEA 

(Europe, Middle East, and Africa) order-management system, but also its North 

American supply chain database. 

Resources 

Dell PowerEdge servers 

www.dell.com/PowerEdge 

Dell and Oracle Database 10g 

www.dell.com/oracle10g 

Oracle and Dell 

www.oracle.com/dell 

www.dell.com/oracle

New 

Database Vault 

The only database 

that prevents your IT staff 

from seeing your data. 

Without Oracle’s new Database Vault, 

your staff can see: 

Your financial results 

Your customer list 

Your employees’ salaries 

Only Oracle has a Database Vault 

oracle.com/security 

or call 1.800.ORACLE.1 

Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. 

Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

BY DAVID BAUM 

MANAGE CHANGE WITH ORACLE 

NEW FEATURES 

SPEED INNOVATION 

AND TRANSFORM 

THE ENTERPRISE. 

ith the recent launch of Oracle Database 11g, customers 

are realizing a broad array of new capabilities in many 

areas—grid computing, data security, high availability, 

performance and scalability, and manageability. Especially impor- 

tant to many are the new features that manage change faster, 

thus helping to lower the risk and cost of implementing new 

software and other system changes. 

“Change is a constant, which means IT depart- 

ments are constantly upgrading servers, rolling out 

upgrades, applying patches, and resolving problems,” says 

Andy Mendelsohn, Oracle senior vice president, Database 

Server Technologies. “Oracle Database 11g helps customers 

manage these changes in a controlled manner—minimizing the 

risk of new projects and the potential for error.” 


Change assurance capabilities are among Oracle Database 11g’s 

many new features that customers have had a chance to test-drive. 

Since September 2006, hundreds of Oracle customers have partici- 

pated in a comprehensive beta testing program for Oracle Database 

11g. Their stories are as diverse as the companies they work for, yet 

as IDC Research Vice President Carl Olofson points out, a common 

chord resonates through them all: a desire to reduce the risk of

DATABASE 11g 

RICHARD MERCHÁN 


“With these new capabilities of Oracle Database 11g, we can record everything 

that happens to the database during a particular period in the real world and 

then replay it on a test system to see how it reacts.” 

managing data and to enable their organizations to do 

more with less. 

“Today’s DBAs face challenges on a scale never 

before seen in the industry,” says Olofson. “On the one 

hand, they’re dealing with exploding databases, both 

in numbers and in sizes. And at the same time, they’re 

increasingly expected to manage new complex datatypes 

that we’ve never seen in the database before.” 

One of the problems of coping with all these changes 

is the time and effort it has taken in the past to prepare 

for and execute them. But new Oracle Database 11g capa- 


—Thomas Knauber, Architect 

Postbank Systems AG 

bilities, such as database replay, which lets customers 

simulate production environments, can help. 

RISING COMFORT LEVEL 

These capabilities appealed to Qualcomm, a telecommunications 

equipment manufacturer based in San Diego. 

Qualcomm pioneered a digital wireless technology that 

works by converting analog information, such as speech, 

into digital information, which is then transmitted as a 

radio signal over a wireless network. The company now 

has 400 mission-critical databases that depend on Oracle 

Thomas Knauber, an architect for Postbank Systems AG, says that Oracle Database 11g offers real-world testing, which will be especially valuable when the 

company needs to evaluate changes to databases that underlie critical applications.

BOB ADLER 

technology. After beta testing the new management 

capabilities of Oracle Database 11g, Qualcomm DBAs 

determined that several features, including database 

replay, will make it easier to tune database applications 

to improve performance. 

“Right now our test environments might not give us 

the correct picture of what production will be,” says Shaik 

Hidayatullah, staff DBA at Qualcomm. “Database replay 

will allow us to be more comprehensive and systematic 

and will also give us a more accurate test experience.” 

Oracle Database 11g continues the effort to simplify 

and ultimately fully automate common DBA tasks. 

Oracle has introduced more self-management utilities, 

along with advisors for partitioning, database repair, 

streams performance, and space management. Thomas 

Knauber, an architect for Postbank Systems AG—the 

IT service provider for Deutsche Postbank AG, in 

Bonn, Germany—says these enhancements will enable 

the DBA team to work smarter and not always be 

driven by incidents. “We don’t want to be in a constant 

state of reacting to issues,” he says. “Clearly, Oracle 

sees the value in this outlook.” 

For example, Knauber looks forward to a new feature 

called snapshot standby, which will allow the DBAs to 

temporarily convert physical standby databases to snapshot 

standby databases for testing and maintenance. In 

addition, the database replay facility will allow Postbank 

Systems to capture production workloads at the database 

level and then play them back on a test system to fully 

gauge the impact of changes—including critical concurrency 

characteristics. Knauber says this type of realworld 

testing will be especially valuable when they need 

to evaluate changes to databases that underlie the bank’s 

critical applications. 

“We have a dedicated test network, but it has always 

been difficult to simulate the cash dispenser workload,” 

he says. “With these new capabilities of Oracle Database 

11g, we can record everything that happens to the database 

during a particular period in the real world and 

then replay it on a test system to see how it reacts.” 

WORKING SMARTER 

One of the features that appeals to the Qualcomm DBAs 

is automatic memory tuning, which enables automatic, 

unified tuning of both system global area (SGA) and 

program global area (PGA) memory buffers. “Before, 

we used to look at each instance manually,” says Justin 

Ambrose, another staff DBA at Qualcomm. “Now, we can 

set one or two global parameters, and everything will be 

adjusted. Oracle automatically balances the memory allocated 

to each group of nodes, depending on the load.” 

Other features that Qualcomm DBAs expect will 

help improve database performance are database 

replay; automatic SQL tuning, which automatically 

chooses the workload and tests, implements, and 

retunes SQL profiles; and the SQL tuning set, which is 

used to store the SQL workload. 

“We can adapt database replay to most of our 

databases when we go from test to production,” says 

ORACLE DATABASE 11g FEATURES 

Oracle Database 11g helps companies protect information, 

reduce complexity of operations, and adapt to change. Here are 

just a few of the innovations and improvements. 

Oracle Real Application Testing. This new feature in Oracle 

Database 11g makes it easier to test systems before and 

after database upgrades and hardware and operating system 

changes so you can more quickly identify and fix problems, 

thus lowering costs. Oracle Real Application Testing includes 

��Database replay, which lets you capture production 

workloads at the database level and replay them on your test 

system—so you can test the impact of system changes, including 

critical concurrency characteristics 

��SQL performance analyzer, which identifies SQL execution 

plan changes and performance regressions 

Enhanced partitioning. These capabilities include partitioning 

by parent/child references; partitioning by virtual columns; 

more composite partitioning choices; and interval partitioning, 

which automatically generates new partitions based on intervals, 

such as every day or every month. 

Advanced compression. Oracle Database 11g supports 

data compression for update, insert, and delete operations 

commonly used in online transaction processing (OLTP) applications. 

Oracle Database 11g table compression improves database 

performance with better use of memory for caching data 

and reduced I/O for table scans. With table compression, you 

can achieve two- to three-fold compression ratios with minimal 

processing overhead. 

Flashback data archive. Part of the Oracle Total Recall 

option, this feature lets you query data in selected tables 

“as of” earlier times, which adds a time dimension to your 

data for change tracking, information lifecycle management, 

auditing, and compliance. Flashback data archive stores 

change data automatically to enable fast query access to old 

versions of the data. 

Oracle SecureFiles. This feature lets you store large objects 

such as images, large text objects, or advanced datatypes— 

including XML, medical imaging, and geospatial raster 

objects—inside the database. Performance is comparable to 

file systems, and Oracle SecureFiles provides advanced functionality 

including intelligent compression, transparent encryption, 

and transparent deduplication. 


Ambrose. “Additionally, automatic SQL tuning and automatic 

memory tuning will reduce the amount of time we spend on 

tuning tasks by about 70 percent. The SQL tuning set will 

look at the overall picture of all our SQL statements and give 

us recommendations.” 

Online hot database patching is another feature that 

Manage More Data 

Manage your ever-growing 

database storage needs 

more easily with advanced 

partitioning and data 

compression, and efficiently 

manage the lifecycle of 

information inside 

your database. 

“Automatic SQL tuning and automatic memory tuning will reduce the 

Innovate Faster with Oracle Database 11g 

Ensure Security 

and Compliance 

Keep data secure and ensure 

regulatory compliance with 

transparent data encryption, 

flashback data archive, Oracle 

Database Vault, and Oracle 

Audit Vault. 

Maximize Availability 

Manage unplanned downtime from 

server, storage, or site failure and 

human error, perform online patch 

updates and rolling upgrades, and 

get more performance out of 

production systems using new 

Oracle Data Guard features. 


Qualcomm DBAs are interested in, since it will allow many 

database patches to be applied with no downtime in both 

Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) and non– 

Oracle RAC environments. “Right now we need downtime to 

do a patch,” Ambrose says. “That can be eliminated totally 

with Oracle Database 11g and the online patching facility.” 

Manage All Your Information 

Consolidate and integrate all your 

enterprise information including 

binary XML, RFID datatypes, DICOM 

medical images, 3-D spatial data, and 

other multimedia data into your 

business processes. 

Make Changes Faster 

Change with confidence and 

reduce the time it takes to 

change your IT systems with 

the realistic production 

workload testing and diagnosis 

capabilities of Oracle Real 

Application Testing. 

Performance and Scalability 

Deliver optimal database 

performance and scalability with 

enhancements and optimizations, 

including query result caches, new 

Oracle SecureFiles LOB storage 

architecture, and OLAP cubeorganized 

materialized views.

amount of time we spend on tuning tasks by about 70 percent.” 

BOB ADLER 

Qualcomm’s Hidayatullah 

likes Oracle Database 11g’s 

adaptive threshold capabilities. 

Performance monitoring 

is established with baselines, 

which capture metric value 

statistics and are automatically 

computed over the system’s 

moving window. The baseline 

metric statistics are used to 

determine alert thresholds, 

and companies can use Oracle 

Enterprise Manager to configure 

adaptive thresholds for alerts. 

Hidayatullah adds that these 

settings will enable Qualcomm 

to vary the expected performance 

levels at certain times 

of the day and week. “We can 

set the parameters so that the 

database automatically senses 

the threshold,” he says. “It will 

know what the expected load 

should be and then adjust the 

parameters accordingly.” 

Vishu Krishnamurthy, Oracle’s 

senior director of XML Database, 

search, and information management, 

believes that these automated 

management capabilities 

are becoming increasingly important, 

particularly as customers 

use Oracle Database to store both 

structured and unstructured data 

ranging from office documents 

and spreadsheets to medical 

images and geographical data. “It makes good economic sense 

to store, manipulate, and protect all types of information in 

a common repository,” he says. “Oracle Database 11g can 

manage all information in the enterprise, with robust security 

and information lifecycle management (ILM) capabilities.” 

DATATYPE CONVERGENCE 

Motorola was most enthusiastic about Oracle Database 11g’s 

enhanced XML capabilities and more-robust support for 

unstructured data. The global wireless and broadband communications 

provider implemented Oracle Database 10g to 

—Justin Ambrose, Staff DBA, Qualcomm 

Justin Ambrose (left) and Shaik Hidayatulla, staff DBAs at Qualcomm, anticipate that Oracle Database 11g’s management 

capabilities will save time, give DBAs a better picture of test results, and ultimately, make it easier to tune database 

applications to improve performance. 

create a large-scale storage system for its Printrak Biometrics 

Identification Solution. 

According to Aris Prassinos, a database architect for the 

biometrics division of Motorola, the company selected Oracle 

for its ability to store large, complex biometric images such 

as fingerprints, palm prints, facial and iris images, and signatures 

in a secure, highly flexible way. Motorola uses Oracle 

large objects (LOBs) to store these images within the database, 

along with Oracle XML Database (Oracle XML DB) to 

store diverse textual data. 

Prassinos believes that Oracle Database 11g will improve 


“Since the [large objects] have been rearchitected for Oracle Database 11g with 

Oracle SecureFiles, we have seen huge performance improvements.” 

performance significantly. 

“90 percent of our data is 

either images or XML data 

stored in LOB format,” he 

says. “Since the LOBs have 

been rearchitected for Oracle 

Database 11g with Oracle 

SecureFiles, we have seen 

huge performance improvements. 

For smaller images 

such as fingerprints, reading 

and writing from the LOBs is 

three times faster. For larger 

images such as palm prints, 

we’ve clocked it at seven 

times faster using Oracle 

Database 11g beta software.” 

Oracle SecureFiles is 

Oracle’s next-generation offering 

for storing LOBs such 

as images—as well as large 

text objects and advanced 

datatypes such as XML, 

medical images, and geospatial 

raster objects—inside the 

database, with performance 

comparable to file systems. This 

speed and flexibility are essential for Motorola’s demanding 

justice and public-safety customers, as well as for 

disaster recovery efforts. Prassinos says general manageability 

enhancements such as Oracle RAC–aware automatic 

database diagnostic monitor (ADDM) will improve 

reliability and uptime for these customers. “We’re heavy 

users of ADDM. With Oracle Database 11g we can apply 

its performance diagnostic and tuning capabilities across 

all the nodes of our Oracle RAC clusters,” he says. 

Another advancement for Motorola in Oracle 

Database 11g is the way Oracle treats XML data as part of 

Motorola’s XML Index product. “Everything that Oracle 

supports for SQL we can now do in XML and vice versa,” 

Prassinos says. “Binary XML storage and enhanced 

XML indexing will give us more options for storing and 

retrieving important data.” 

ENHANCING THE GRID PARADIGM 

One of Oracle’s primary objectives with Oracle Database 

11g is to extend the benefits of grid computing, as cus- 


—Aris Prassinos, Database Architect, Biometrics Division, Motorola 

General manageability enhancements such as Oracle RAC–aware automatic database diagnostic monitor will 

improve reliability and uptime. “With Oracle Database 11g we can apply its performance diagnostic and tuning 

capabilities across all nodes of our Oracle RAC clusters,” says Aris Prassinos, Database Architect for Motorola. 

tomers transform data centers from silos of isolated 

resources to versatile, shared pools of servers and storage 

capacity. Oracle Database 11g helps these organizations 

take full advantage of infrastructure grids by managing 

changes to the database and the surrounding IT infrastructure, 

such as when they move their data from one 

hardware platform to another. 

“We enhanced all the key areas in grid computing,” 

says Oracle’s Mendelsohn. “We improved automatic 

storage management to make software mirroring faster. 

We enhanced Oracle RAC’s cache fusion protocol. One of 

the cool things we did was an enhancement with ADDM. 

In Oracle Database 11g, ADDM can look for interconnect 

issues or global I/O problems when it performs diagnostics 

and tuning. That’s a very exciting improvement for 

our administrators.” 

Fidelity National Information Services welcomes these 

enhancements. This leading provider of core financial 

institution processing, card issuer, and transaction processing 

services specializes in mortgage loan processing 

RAFFI ALEXANDER

CHARITY DEMEER 

and related information products. 

Nearly 50 percent of all U.S. residential 

mortgages are processed 

using Fidelity software. In 2006, 

Fidelity converted an IBM DB2 

database to Oracle Database 10g 

and Oracle RAC. Managers valued 

Oracle’s ability to eliminate single 

points of failure and improve 

capacity planning. Today, Fidelity 

uses the Oracle software to store 

50 million mortgage title documents 

and associated metadata 

with a combination of XML data 

and PDF files. “We are heavily 

vested in Oracle as a product and 

future direction,” says Fidelity’s 

Mike Amble, senior vice president of operations and engineering. 

“Our database is a very large component of our 

overall operation.” 

Amble and his team have been 

evaluating Oracle Database 11g, 

which they plan to deploy later 

this year. They are particularly 

enthusiastic about the software’s 

high-availability capabilities and 

flashback data archive, which 

provide an easy, practical way to 

add a time dimension for change 

tracking, auditing, and compliance. 

Fidelity has standardized 

on an Oracle RAC environment, 

along with Oracle Automatic 

Storage Management, Oracle Data 

Guard, recovery manager, and 

flashback technologies. These 

systems have been implemented 

according to Oracle Maximum 

Availability Architecture, with 

help from Oracle Consulting. 

“For an operation of our size, 

any type of outage translates into 

millions of dollars of loss in a 

very short period of time,” says 

Amble. “We need an environment 

that permits instantaneous 

backup, anchored by highly 

available systems in separate locations. 

Oracle RAC enables us to 

distribute data more effectively 

to improve response time, and 

Oracle Database 11g has many 

Mike Amble, Senior Vice President of Operations and 

Engineering at Fidelity National Information Services, says 

that Oracle Database 11g’s new internal encryption will 

enable the company to encrypt sensitive data transparently. 

SNAPSHOTS 

Qualcomm www.cdmatech.com 

Location: San Diego, California Industry: High technology 

Annual revenue: US$1 billion Employees: 5,000–9,999 

Oracle products and services: Oracle Database, 

Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle E-Business 

Suite, Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Fusion 

Middleware 

Deutsche Postbank AG www.postbank.com 

Location: Bonn, Germany Industry: Financial services 

Annual revenue: €941 million Employees: 22,000 


Oracle JDeveloper 

Motorola www.motorola.com 

Location: Schaumburg, Illinois Industry: High technology 

Annual revenue: US$42.6 billion Employees: 69,000 


Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Data Guard, 

Oracle XML DB, Oracle Automatic Storage Management, 

Oracle Diagnostic Pack, Oracle Tuning Pack 

Fidelity National Information Services 

www.fidelityinfoservices.com/fnfis 

Location: Jacksonville, Florida Industry: Financial services 

Financial services US$9.4 billion Employees: 25,000 


Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, Oracle 

Enterprise Manager Performance Pack, Oracle Recovery 

Manager, Oracle Data Guard, Oracle Real Application 

Clusters, Oracle Partitioning, Oracle E-Business Suite, 

including Human Capital Management and Financials 

useful tools that can improve the 

structure, layout, and query plan 

associated with our databases.” 

With millions of mortgage, 

title, and escrow documents 

stored as LOBs in its database, 

Fidelity also favors Oracle 

Database 11g because its Oracle 

SecureFiles feature can manage 

structured and unstructured 

information in a cohesive way— 

securely and with encryption 

capabilities. “We have extremely 

demanding security issues,” 

Amble continues. “We need to 

maintain information about bank 

accounts, mortgages, credit cards, 

and personal data like social security numbers in different 

formats. Oracle’s new internal encryption mechanism in 

11g will enable Fidelity to encrypt sensitive data, including 

LOBs, transparently.” 

AND SO MUCH MORE . . . 

The customers profiled here are 

discovering useful enhancements 

to Oracle’s flagship database 

environment, yet Mendelsohn 

points out that there are many 

more enhancements. “We’ve 

enhanced our data warehousing 

and business intelligence [BI] 

capabilities on several fronts to 

improve manageability and make 

advanced technologies such 

as online analytical processing 

[OLAP] and data mining more 

accessible to mainstream users,” 

he says. Oracle OLAP capabilities 

are now fully integrated with 

the Oracle Materialized Views 

feature, and OLAP cubes can 

be automatically refreshed from 

relational data and transparently 

accessed using SQL. 

“In addition, automatic data 

preparation at the SQL/Java API 

level, an improved management 

console, and more predictive 

analytics have made data mining 

in Oracle Database 11g both 

easier to use and more powerful,” 

Mendelsohn says. When it 


comes to managing this advanced BI infrastructure, Oracle 

Enterprise Manager is fully “DW [data warehouse] aware,” 

as Mendelsohn puts it, and includes data warehouse–specific 

screens, parallelism, and partitioning. 

MAKING IT ALL SECURE 

Vipin Samar, Oracle’s vice president of database security 

development, points to the comprehensive security and compliance 

features and products associated with Oracle Database 

11g such as the recently introduced Oracle Audit Vault, 

enhancements to transparent data encryption, and improved 

security tools. “While Oracle Database Vault protects the 

data inside the database from highly privileged users through 

custom controls and flexible policies, Oracle Audit Vault 

helps monitor the enterprise by consolidating audit data from 

multiple enterprise databases—Oracle9i Database Release 

2 and higher—into a centralized secure data warehouse, 

enabling auditors to efficiently report, analyze, and raise alerts 

on suspicious user activity,” he says. 

Data encryption continues to be a top priority for customers 

coping with personally identifiable information and privacy 

regulations such as Peripheral Component Interconnect, Samar 

says. “Oracle Database 11g provides significant new enhancements 

to transparent data encryption with Oracle SecureFiles 

(LOB encryption) and tablespace encryption, making it easier 

to encrypt an entire application’s data or sensitive objects,” 

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he says. Oracle Database 11g also includes new management 

interfaces in Oracle Enterprise Manager for encryption, Oracle 

Label Security, and enterprise user security. Other security 

enhancements include case-sensitive passwords, default profile 

password settings, and default audit settings. 

Mendelsohn says that the release of Oracle Database 11g 

this year is apropos, because Oracle is celebrating its 30th 

anniversary as one of the world’s leading technology providers. 

“It’s a time for celebration,” he says, “and it’s great to have such 

enthusiastic customers on board for the occasion.” � 

David Baum (david@dbaumcomm.com) is a freelance business writer based in 

Santa Barbara, California. 

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ORACLE DATABASE 11g 

Special Advertising Section 

Partner 

Guide 

Partners Are Lining Up to Help Customers Meet 

Change with Confi dence 

THE FOLLOWING SECTION HIGHLIGHTS 

key hardware, storage, and service partners 

who are ready to help Oracle customers 

manage change while reducing risk, lowering 

cost, and improving performance. 

PARTNER INDEX 

HP .............................................................46 

Fujitsu Siemens Computers .......................47 

Pillar Data Systems ...................................48 

The Pythian Group ....................................49 

Quest Software .........................................50 

TUSC .........................................................50 

NetApp ......................................................51 

Autodesk ...................................................52 

AMD ..........................................................52

The speed and unpredictability of business cycles 

have pushed the limits of information technology (IT) 

infrastructures at many enterprises. Organizations need to 

become more adaptable, but often their information systems 

are slow to respond. At the same time, these enterprises 

want to gain greater efficiency and effectiveness from their 

IT systems, lower the cost of computing, and optimize their 

business outcomes. 

HP has a tradition of helping customers profit from new IT 

innovations. As enterprises all over the world discover that 

they need new levels of availability and integration—in real 

time—they are turning to HP. HP Integrity, HP ProLiant, and 

HP BladeSystem servers offer the highest levels of service 

of any platform in their class. HP storage systems scale to 

meet the most demanding customer workloads. HP software 

provides a leading management platform for the data center, 

plus tools such as HP LoadRunner and Quality Center 

software, to help customers optimize their environments. In 

other words, HP provides all of the components of an agile, 

high-performance, highly available data center, thus helping 

customers achieve better business outcomes. 

HP also has a long history of working with Oracle. And 

Oracle Database 11g will be an integral part of HP’s customer 

solutions. 

“Oracle Database 11g, with its low-cost maximum availability 

architecture, combined with HP’s software, servers, 

and storage, provides an opportunity for customers to take 

advantage of this next level of IT innovation and, in turn, achieve 

better business outcomes,” says Ron Eller, vice president and 

general manager, enterprise solution alliances, at HP. 

A TOTAL SOLUTION 

HP and Oracle share more than 100,000 customers, from 

small and medium businesses to large enterprises. The 

breadth and depth of this joint solution stack—including HP/ 

Oracle reference architectures, applications, and operating 

systems—allow these two partners to provide customers 


HP 

HP and Oracle: Improving Business Outcomes 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.hp.com/go/oracle 

with a total solution. “For customers who want to optimize 

their business outcomes, HP and Oracle together offer the 

products, services, and experience to accelerate business 

growth, mitigate risks, and lower costs, providing a solid 

return on IT investments,” explains Eller. 

The companies have invested heavily in their joint 

solutions. In fact, HP and Oracle manage 13 competency 

centers across the globe that provide proofs of concept; 

design, configuration, and benchmarking assistance; thought 

leadership; and training. 

HP has been involved in the Oracle Database 11g beta 

program for more than a year. As an Oracle database 

customer, HP gained insight into how the new release would 

help the company improve its business. At the same time, as 

an Oracle partner participating in the beta program, HP lent 

its perspective and expertise to Oracle’s development team 

to make the new database release even better. 

For example, HP worked with Oracle to incorporate HP’s 

industry-leading network-attached storage solution directly 

into the Oracle Direct network file system (Oracle Direct 

NFS) The result? With Oracle Database 11g, customers 

can realize scalable and available I/O performance on 

network-attached storage that was not previously possible. 

In addition, this combination of Oracle and HP technology 

can leverage existing storage area networks, providing 

customers with investment protection while allowing 

flexibility for growth with mitigated risk. 

“We’re excited that Oracle has developed its [Oracle] 

Direct NFS feature in Oracle Database 11g on HP Storage 

products so that customers can choose simple, inexpensive 

storage connectivity and provisioning for grid deployment,” 

says Eller. “It’s just another example of the way Oracle 

and HP work together to provide customers with better 

overall answers.” 

HP and Oracle share a common goal of improving their 

customers’ business outcomes through IT. Because IT isn’t a 

separate piece of the business—IT helps drive the business.

“ 

It’s a fact that no one vendor offers the whole picture, so 

partnerships are vital,” says Dr. Bernd Kosch, vice president 

of strategic alliances within Fujitsu Siemens Computers. “The 

key is that both companies bring unique contributions to a 

strategic partnership, giving joint customers a leading edge 

and business advantage.” 

It is precisely these types of strategic partnerships that 

fuel growth and innovation. It’s also one of the many drivers 

behind why Oracle has had a strategic global partnership with 

the Fujitsu Group for decades —including Fujitsu Limited and 

Fujitsu Siemens Computers. 

Oracle technology is a key component in the Fujitsu 

Group’s range of servers running Linux, Windows, and Solaris 

operating environments on both Intel and SPARC platforms. 

The Fujitsu Group meets the needs of the world’s largest 

and most-progressive users of information technology by 

providing enterprise and e-business open systems server 

and storage solutions. In fact, Fujitsu Siemens Computers 

is the only company that supports three out of five strategic 

platforms—Linux, Windows, and Solaris running on UNIX/ 

SPARC–based PRIMEPOWER, PRIMEQUEST, and Intel-based 

PRIMERGY servers. 

A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP 

Oracle recently named the Fujitsu Group a Global Alliance 

Partner and assigned a dedicated Global Alliance Manager 

in Europe who reports directly to Oracle’s headquarters 

in Redwood Shores. “We are now able to draw on direct 

support from Oracle’s headquarters, which clearly improves 

the planning and implementation of joint activities,” Kosch 

explains. Within the Oracle PartnerNetwork, Fujitsu Siemens 

Computers is an Oracle Certified Advantage Partner. 

“Together with Oracle we can guarantee our customers 

enhanced application performance, unlimited scalability, 

fault tolerance, optimum security, and increased value from 

products and services that are fully integrated and compatible 

with our technology,” says Kosch. 


FUJITSU SIEMENS COMPUTERS 

Oracle and Fujitsu Siemens Computers 

Oracle Database 11g will deliver the highest level of 

manageability, availability, performance, and security for customers. 

In the jointly run Center of Excellence at the Oracle 

facility in Munich, Germany, Fujitsu Siemens Computers and 

Oracle will evaluate and test Oracle Database 11g with Fujitsu 

Siemens Computers’s infrastructure solutions and storage 

systems. Fujitsu Siemens Computers also plans to integrate 

Oracle Database 11g as soon as possible into its own product 

and solution portfolio, and to promote its benefits to customers 

and partners via the joint Oracle/Fujitsu Siemens Computers 

ISV Migration Centers in Europe. 

CHECKS AND BALANCES 

Ongoing performance testing and analysis will ensure that 

Oracle and Fujitsu Siemens Computers deliver on the top 

performance-improvement features, including faster and 

more-reliable direct connections to network file system storage 

devices, faster upgrades, faster backup/restore for large files, 

faster backup compression, and new security features, such 

as improved transparent data encryption to support tablespace 

encryption and tighter integration with hardware security 

modules for high-assurance masterkey protection. Also in the 

works is increased password security with support for casesensitive, 

multibyte passwords, plus strong password-hashing 

algorithms such as Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1) and salt. 

Additional features include secure-by-default configuration 

settings supporting password policies and audit options, 

and strong authentication support for database system 

administrator and database system operator connections. 

Kosch anticipates great things to come. “Fujitsu and 

Fujitsu Siemens Computers are strategic to Oracle,” he 

says. “We see significant sales opportunities for Oracle’s 

technology solutions running on Fujitsu Siemens Computers 

platforms in general, including PRIMERGY, PRIMEPOWER, 

PRIMEQUEST, and BS2000, as well as especially the 

FlexFrame for Oracle solution. We look forward to growing 

our sales efforts to capitalize on this opportunity.” 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.fujitsu-siemens.com/solutions/strategic_partners/oracle/index.html

When it comes to business data, there’s no such thing 

as too much of a good thing. There is, however, the 

ongoing challenge of effectively managing and storing 

all that data. And that’s where Pillar Data Systems and 

Oracle come in. 

Pillar provides Oracle Database customers with end-toend 

solutions for cost-effective data storage. From validating 

specific hardware and software configurations to providing 

customers with tools for managing and consolidating multiple 

storage tiers on a single platform, Pillar’s goal is to help 

customers maximize data center performance while lowering 

infrastructure costs. 

In addition to providing Oracle Database 11g customers 

with higher levels of efficiency, automation, and quality of 

service, Pillar addresses the growing customer concern of 

resources: power and physical space. In fact, Gartner predicts 

that 50 percent of data centers will not have sufficient power 

or cooling capacity by 2008 to keep up with current demands 

for high-density computing. 

GET CONFIDENT WITH VALIDATED CONFIGURATIONS 

Pillar’s Oracle Validated Configurations will certify 

architectures based on Oracle Database 11g to ensure 

that servers, operating systems, and storage network 

connectivity components all work together seamlessly, 

according to Mike Workman, Pillar’s CEO. Oracle Validated 

Configurations also include documented best practices for 

standardization and deployment—saving time and expense 

and improving overall quality of service (QoS). “The result is 

true IT automation and higher efficiency,” says Workman. 

Pillar’s commitment to publishing new validated configurations 

for Oracle Database 11g running on Oracle Enterprise 

Linux will provide confidence to customers looking to expedite 

early adoption of our joint technologies. 

“We see [Oracle] Database 11g as a natural progression 

in providing our joint customers with the right solutions 

for their needs,” says Paul Veilleux, Pillar’s executive 


PILLAR DATA SYSTEMS 

Making Room for Automation 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.pillardata.com 

director, global alliances. “Customers who migrate to 

Oracle Database 11g on Pillar will experience a new era in 

automation.” 

CONSOLIDATE ON PILLAR FOR MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY 

Pillar is working with Oracle to provide adapters for Oracle 

Enterprise Manager so that database administrators can 

manage storage based on Oracle Database 11g from a single 

console. Database administrators can also establish qualityof-service 

levels by using a policy-driven framework for 

automating storage requirements. 

“There is a major shift in the way database administrators 

and IT professionals view storage today,” says Pillar’s 

Veilleux. “Space is at a premium and power requirements are 

becoming an important issue. Companies can avoid significant 

costs by purchasing a Pillar solution that consolidates SAN 

[storage-area network] and NAS [network-attached storage] 

systems onto a single platform and scales out to grow with 

your database applications.” 

By consolidating multiple tiers of storage, customers 

can achieve more than twice the efficiency for each IOPS 

performed per watt consumed, he says. Pillar is also a member 

of the Green Grid, a consortium of information technology 

companies and professionals seeking to improve energy 

efficiency in data centers around the globe. 

MORE ABOUT PILLAR 

Pillar Data Systems takes a sensible, customer-centric 

approach to networked storage. We started with a simple 

yet powerful idea: Build a successful storage company 

by creating value that others had promised, but never 

produced. At Pillar, we’re on a mission to deliver the most 

cost-effective, highly available networked storage solutions 

on the market. We build reliable, flexible solutions that, for 

the first time, seamlessly unite SAN with NAS and enable 

multiple tiers of storage on a single platform. In the end, we 

created an entirely new class of storage.

“ 

We’ve seen features in Oracle Database 11g that 

are so compelling that many companies are going 

to want to adopt them sooner rather than later,” says Paul 

Vallee, president of the Pythian Group. “And when they do, 

our DBA teams are ready to help.” 

Engineers from Pythian, an industry-leading outsourced 

DBA services company, have spent over a year mastering 

Oracle Database 11g features as part of a select beta tester 

group on the Oracle campus. 

The Pythian Group, founded in 1997, works with 

organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania and 

Forbes.com to blend its DBA expertise into the customer’s 

existing database management team. “We can, of course, 

outsource the entire DBA function, and we do that for many 

customers,” says Vallee. “We’ve also spent 10 years finetuning 

a service that blends our expertise with a customer’s 

existing DBA team to great advantage for customers.” 

Pythian customers range in size from startups to medium 

businesses to Fortune 500 members. 

SCALE UP WHEN YOU NEED TO, DOWN WHEN YOU DON’T 

“A big part of our success is that we do not lock our 

clients into long-term contracts,” says Vallee. “A company 

can change how much work they flow to Pythian with 

only 30 days notice.” This means Pythian customers can 

quickly change their contracts to add Pythian’s expertise for 

a major IT initiative, and then scale back when workloads 

return to normal. “Even without long-term contracts, 

customers stick around,” says Vallee. “We still have many 

customers from our early years that have stayed with us all 

this time.” 

Another key to Pythian’s success is the level of 

expertise it provides to clients. “We have deep roots 

in the Oracle community,” says Vallee. “Our engineers 

are very active in the Oracle users groups and the 

Oracle beta process, and we have one of the world’s top 

Oracle-focused blogs,” says Vallee. “When customers 

contract our services, they’re getting access to consultantquality 

engineers.” 


THE PYTHIAN GROUP 

Your 11g Database Maestros 

ORACLE DATABASE 11g EXPERTISE 

One Pythian consulting engineer, Christo Kutrovsky, a Pythian 

DBA team lead and Oracle Database 11g beta member, 

sees compelling features that customers are going to want 

right away. “I’m very, very excited about real application 

testing,” says Kutrovsky. “It’s the ability to capture workloads 

on the production database and replay them on a different 

environment. That is very, very useful. Oracle is going to 

backport this feature to [Oracle Database] 10g, so you can 

capture workloads in [Oracle Database] 10g and play them in 

[Oracle Database] 11g. This might be the No. 1 feature that will 

convince my clients to upgrade to [Oracle Database] 11g.” 

Kutrovsky sees other features that will entice his current 

clients to upgrade as well. “[Oracle] Database 11g allows you 

to take a standby database and put it to use as a reporting 

database while changes are still being propagated in real time 

from the production database. I already have a customer use 

case for this feature,” says Kutrovsky. “[Oracle] Database 11g 

also allows server-side data connection pooling. This is very 

interesting for our clients who run many, many Web servers, 

and they’re having issues with too many connections to the 

database,” he says. “Having a connection pool on the server 

side will be extremely useful to them.” 

GET ORACLE DATABASE 11g FEATURES NOW 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.pythian.com 

By being able to quickly scale up with help from Pythian’s 

expertise, customers that didn’t have the opportunity to 

participate in the beta can quickly upgrade to Oracle Database 

11g to take advantage of compelling features. “If Oracle 

customers want to inject skills into their operations in DBA 

roles, such as feature implementation or developer support, 

they can blend Pythian resources into their DBA team and be 

up and running right out of the gate,” says Vallee. 

The Pythian Group is headquartered in Ottawa, 

Canada, and performs most of its work from that location. 

Pythian also maintains offices in Sydney, Australia, and 

Hyderabad, India, to provide clients anywhere in the world 

with 24/7 access to its broad range of database and system 

administration capabilities.

QUEST SOFTWARE 

Mastering the Art of 

Database Management 

Complexity is inherent in IT—and change, it seems, is 

the only constant. To fully realize the value of their IT 

investments and ensure the peak performance of critical 

applications, organizations must adopt strategies and best 

practices that minimize the impact of change—on both the 

IT environments and the people who manage them. And that’s 

where Quest Software, an Oracle Certified Partner, comes in. 

As Oracle seeks to extend platform functionality in 

Oracle Database 11g, Quest seeks to give IT professionals 

additional tools to fully realize that extended functionality. 

As Oracle seeks to optimize performance tuning and add 

automation capabilities, Quest seeks to give IT professionals 

the knowledgebase and techniques for making the most of 

those capabilities. 

It’s a synergistic relationship that helps both Oracle and 

Quest customers get a better return on their IT investments, 

says Larry Humphries, Quest Software’s vice president of 

product management. “Our understanding of the market and of 

customers’ needs is quite similar. Our [common] goal is to help 

customers get maximum price performance and productivity 

from their database platform and from their people.” 

The new features in Oracle Database 11g are a good 

case in point, adds Humphries, who sees them as addressing 

two key customer requirements: managing and the impact 

of change and improving automation. New features and enhancements 

such as change impact analysis, performance 

auditing, capacity management, and automated suggestions 

for testing and tuning will complement workflow features and 

best practices that Quest is infusing in its own tools, including 

SharePlex for Oracle, Toad for Oracle, Space Manager with 

LiveReorg, Spotlight, and SQL Navigator. 

When Oracle and Quest products are used together, 

says Humphries, “Not only does the database perform 

more efficiently and with less risk, the people developing, 

administering, and analyzing the data themselves perform 

more efficiently.” 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.quest.com 


TUSC 

The Oracle Database Experts 

Since 1988 

“T 

he amount of data continues to grow while the pace 

of change accelerates,” says Rich Niemiec, TUSC CEO 

and an Oracle Certified Master. “Oracle Database 11g meet 

these challenges by giving us a way to visualize and manage 

huge data loads and to meet change with confidence,” he says. 

“We’re very excited to bring Oracle Database 11g advancements 

to our customers and to our own Oracle systems.” 

TUSC, Oracle’s Partner of the Year in 2002 and 2004, was an 

early and enthusiastic member of the Oracle Database 11g beta 

program. It sees Oracle Database 11g as both a smooth next step 

and a new version with the power and manageability features 

to handle the megadatabases of the future. “We brought almost 

20 years of deep Oracle experience to the beta program, so we 

were able see where the improvements are in Oracle Database 

11g and how they work,” says Niemiec, who says his Oracle 

Database 11g favorites include tuning and manageability 

features such as invisible indexing and SQL Repair Advisor, and 

memory advantages such as result cache. 

As an Oracle Certified Advantage Partner (one of only a 

handful in the U.S.), TUSC provides expertise in the areas of 

Oracle E-Business Suite consulting, business intelligence/data 

warehousing, custom development (Oracle Fusion Middleware, 

Web services, service-oriented architecture), database services, 

managed services for remote DBA and Oracle E-Business Suite 

support, software licensing, and training and mentoring. 

TUSC sees clients not only as valued customers, but also 

true partners, and its record of client satisfaction sets it apart 

as an industry leader. “Whether it’s a phone call for technical 

advice, an executive planning meeting, or a cooperative effort 

across the company, we support our clients with our entire 

firm at their doorstep, even after the project is completed,” 

says Niemiec. 

“We’ve done well over a hundred major upgrades for 

Oracle technology and Oracle E-Business Suite customers,” 

adds Niemiec. “And with more than a year on the Oracle 

Database 11g beta, both in our own systems and in several 

customer sites, we’re ready to help any organization get the 

most out of Oracle Database 11g.” 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.tusc.com

Akey Oracle partner in the development of grid computing, 

leading storage provider Network Appliance, Inc., 

(NetApp) provides solutions that significantly enhance the power 

of Oracle Database 11g to enable cost-efficient ILM, increase 

DBA productivity, and shrink development cycle times. 

“Since the advent of grid computing, NetApp and Oracle 

have gone down the same path and shared the same 

mind-set,” says Patrick Rogers, vice president of solutions 

marketing, Network Appliance, Inc. “Both companies are focused 

on developing innovative solutions that reduce IT cost 

and complexity.” 

CLOSING THE ILM LOOP 

With the launch of Oracle Database 11g, Oracle has significantly 

expanded its commitment to content management. 

Running on NetApp’s unified storage architecture, Oracle 

Database 11g can deliver seamless information lifecycle 

management (ILM). 

Unlike many of its competitors, NetApp doesn’t have a siloed 

approach to storage. High-performance, low-cost, archival, 

and write-once-read-many (WORM) systems all run on a single 

architecture, making it far simpler to migrate data from one system 

to another. The result: Enhanced data protection for compliance 

as well as reduced data management costs. “NetApp’s single 

architecture means that customers can leverage a single 

platform to enable data security and compliance,” Rogers adds. 

BOOSTING DBA PRODUCTIVITY 

Oracle Database 11g includes a series of advances that speed 

development cycles and boost DBA productivity. NetApp builds 

on the momentum with SnapManager for Oracle, “applicationaware” 

software that detects and responds intelligently to the 

application on which it is running. 

SnapManager for Oracle automates key DBA tasks and 

enables DBAs to perform functions that were previously limited 

to storage administrators, including storage provisioning, 

backup and restore functions, and even creation of clones. 

Underlying SnapManager for Oracle is NetApp’s FlexClone 

software, which dramatically speeds instant point-in-time 


NETWORK APPLIANCE, INC. 

Multiplying the Power of Oracle Database 11g 

copying of production data. As a result, developers can complete 

testing, updating, and patching far more quickly than before. 

“When you have to copy and distribute a terabyte of data 

multiple times, the potential time and space savings that 

FlexClone enables is huge,” says Rogers. 

GROWING THE GRID 

Many new features in Oracle Database 11g are designed to 

further improve availability and performance of infrastructure 

grids. Leveraging FlexVol technology, NetApp provides Oracle 

Database 11g with virtualization capabilities that allow dynamic 

pooling of storage resources, enabling customers to add or 

shrink storage and meet the dynamic needs of the enterprise. 

“NetApp FlexVol technology allows customers to grow their 

grid environment,” says Rogers. Oracle has done it; they use 

FlexVol to quickly provision and decommission systems and 

rapidly repurpose assets.” 

OPENING WINDOWS WITH DNFS 

NetApp was a key partner in the development of Oracle 

Database 11g most notably in developing, testing and optimizing 

direct NFS (DNFS) performance and resiliency. 

DNFS, a new feature in Oracle Database 11g, not only makes 

it even simpler to run and manage a database and storage 

system over an IP network, it also improves performance and 

scalability through automatic link aggregation. And for the 

first time, companies running Oracle Database 11g Standard 

Edition can also run on Windows—a development that will 

enable more small and medium businesses to leverage the 

benefits of Oracle Database. 

THE NEXT PHASE IN THE RELATIONSHIP 

The relationship between NetApp and Oracle goes deeper 

than most partnerships. It spans technical integration, services 

and support, and sales and marketing, as well as executive 

alignment. On Oracle E-Business Suite since 2001, NetApp is 

also the standard storage platform for Oracle’s state-of-theart 

Austin Data Center. “Our shared goal is always to reduce 

IT cost and complexity for Oracle customers,” adds Rogers. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.netapp.com/partners/oracle/

AUTODESK 

Adding a New Dimension to 

Business Intelligence 

Applications that use geospatial information—data that 

can be referenced in either two or three dimensions— 

aren’t just for design engineers anymore. Web-based 

mapping services, GPS watches, and onboard vehicle 

navigation systems have made consumer applications 

that use geospatial data much more commonplace. And 

now enterprises are exploring new ways to boost business 

intelligence by integrating geospatial data into corporate 

applications. For example, up-to-date electricity network 

maps help power utilities respond faster to customer service 

calls and maintain their valuable infrastructure assets. 

In fact, bringing powerful geospatial analysis to the 

corporate masses is a goal both Autodesk and Oracle share. 

As an Oracle Certified Partner, Autodesk is working with Oracle 

to offer easy-to-use, affordable, and open solutions based on 

Oracle Database 11g that enable customers in a variety of 

markets and industries to expand their use of geographic data 

and realize new and valuable business insights. 

“Our flagship engineering GIS product, AutoCAD Map 3D, 

was Autodesk’s first product based on AutoCAD to support 

Oracle software and its geospatial components,” notes Lisa 

Campbell, Autodesk vice president. “For more than six years, 

we have offered native support for each release of Oracle 

with products like Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise and now 

Autodesk Topobase. Having seen the upcoming enhancements 

to Oracle Database 11g, I believe that this release will benefit 

our customers by delivering faster applications and spatial tools 

that speed decisions and lower operating costs significantly.” 

The recipient of Oracle’s 2007 Spatial Excellence 

Partnership Award, Autodesk is already developing industryspecific 

solution suites that integrate Autodesk’s leading-edge 

geographic information systems (GIS) and computer-aided 

design (CAD) applications with Oracle’s spatially enabled 

relational database technology. With the help of such 

integrated applications, even nontechnical users will soon be 

able to use sophisticated geospatial relationships to quickly 

make informed business decisions. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.autodesk.com 


AMD 

Combining the Highest 

Performance with Energy 

Efficiency for Unbeatable TCO 

Today, Oracle customers across the board are running 

bigger data centers. In response, Oracle Database 11g 

increases automation and introduces change-assurance 

features designed to improve IT performance and bring down 

management costs. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), an 

Oracle Certified Advantage Partner, is working with Oracle 

to deliver industry-leading server performance while bringing 

down another source of cost in the data center: energy. 

“Power usage is becoming more important to customers 

today for both environmental and practical reasons,” says 

Terri Hall, vice president of commercial systems marketing and 

alliances at AMD. Businesses today require highly available 

and highly scalable applications—and that means more muscle 

in the data center. “Customers are using so much computing 

power now that they are sometimes literally in danger of running 

out of enough energy resources to power them.” 

AMD has made a point of seeking Oracle’s input to help 

shape the direction of AMD development, says Hall. With 

Oracle’s collaborative help, AMD continues to advance its 

multicore processor technology to include features that maximize 

performance per watt. “Our dual-core and quad-core 

processors will provide Oracle Database 11g customers with 

enterprise-class performance, but on a very power-efficient 

platform,” say Hall. 

Providing benchmarking and validated configurations are 

two examples of the way in which AMD collaborates with 

Oracle to provide customers with market-ready solutions. 

“Joint benchmarking gives customers proof of the 

performance advantage of running Oracle on AMD,” says Hall. 

“Validated configurations allow customers to buy complete, 

pretested solutions, which is particularly nice for small and 

medium businesses.” 

Combined with AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture, 

power-efficient AMD Opteron processors will provide 

Oracle Database customers with an unmatched TCO in an 

x86 solution. AMD is well positioned to help customers get the 

most out of Oracle’s grid computing solution, Hall says. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT | www.amd.com

DAVE BRADLEY 

OPEN 

BY DAVID A. KELLY 

PFIZER USES ORACLE SECURITY FEATURES 

TO OPEN THE DOOR TO PARTNERS AND 

LOCK DOWN IDENTITY AND DATA. WILLIAM 

BARNES, PFIZER’S MANAGER OF IDENTITY 

SERVICES, TALKS ABOUT THE SOLUTION. 

and 

SECURE 

ompanies have always had a huge interest in 

controlling who gets to see what information 

or manage which data. The increased 

security that results from controlling access 

to systems and applications is a basic business value. 

In addition, automating access management increases 

efficiency and reduces the resources required to manage 

individual user access to applications or systems. 

With today’s greater demands for data security, organizations 

have realized additional benefits from deploying 


access management, especially in areas 

such as compliance and federation. 

“With the advent of the Sarbanes- 

Oxley Act [SOX] a few years ago, capabilities 

like Web access management have 

become almost the de facto technology 

that you use to enforce some of the SOX 

requirements, such as Section 404,” says 

Wynn White, vice president, product 

marketing, Oracle. “Access control and 

identity management systems can enable 

organizations to enforce access and 

provide a detailed audit trail to show 

auditors exactly what’s happening.” 

Many organizations have also identified 

new value in federated access 

management, which gives business partners 

greater access to corporate systems 

and applications. 

Federated access management solutions 

can streamline processes and reduce risk 

and security vulnerabilities. “The idea is 

that if you have a trusted partner that 

they’ve authenticated to, then you can rely on that authentication 

to let them into your application without necessarily 

storing all sorts of private data that might be breached,” 

explains Trent Henry, senior analyst, Burton Group. 

In many cases, even organizations that have already 

deployed access management are taking a fresh look at 

its potential. 

THE EXPANDING ROLE OF ACCESS MANAGEMENT 

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is a good example of a 

company that’s expanding its use of access management 

to meet an ever-broadening set of IT challenges and business 

opportunities. The goal is to treat authentication 

as an infrastructure service, so that each application can 

require the proper form of authentication from users. 

This structure is important 

because the company’s pharmaceuti- 

cal research and development efforts 

around developing and marketing 

new drugs entail both applications 

that are low sensitivity, with a 

low risk of information disclosure 

and loss of data integrity, and high 

sensitivity, with high requirements 

for absolute data integrity and for 

ensuring that data not be disclosed 

to those who shouldn’t have access. 


Pfizer uses Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Virtual Directory for identity and access management. 

“We’ve worked closely with Oracle to develop a solution that enables individual users to select the level 

of authentication that’s right for the task,” says William Barnes, Pfizer’s Manager of Identity Services. 

SNAPSHOT 

Pfizer 

www.pfizer.com 

Location: New York City 

Industry: Pharmaceutical 

Employees: 100,000 

Oracle products: Oracle Database, Oracle 

Access Management, Oracle Identity 

Management 

The company started by leveraging two Oracle products 

to build a unified—and centralized—portal for moreefficient 

internal and external access. 

“We use Oracle Access Manager and the Oracle Virtual 

Directory products for our identity and access management 

infrastructure,” says William Barnes, manager of 

identity services, Pfizer. “We’ve worked closely with 

Oracle over the past two years to develop a solution that 

enables individual users to select the level of authentication 

that’s right for the task they’re trying to do.” 

That solution, a portal called logon.pfizer.com, enables 

a more-flexible authentication system for organizations 

and their partners. The solution allows end users to 

determine what form of credential they would like to 

use—from logon IDs and passwords to digital certificates 

or two-factor authentication options. 

As one example of how flexible 

authentication can be, Pfizer is a 

member of the biopharmaceutical 

group Signatures and Authentication 

for Everyone (SAFE), an organization 

that delivers electronic credentials for 

business-to-business transactions. In 

accessing the portal, an internal Pfizer 

user might use a standard logon ID/ 

password combination, and an external 

partner might use a SAFE certifi- 

DAVE BRADLEY

“Our authentication portal has multiple levels of trust associated with different levels of 

authentication. We think that this is really important.” 

—William Barnes, Manager of Identity Services, Pfizer 

cate. Alternatively, a mobile user accessing the system 

from a kiosk might use a secure ID one-time passwordtype 

device such as RSA’s SecurID or the standardized, 

open source Open Authentication (OATH) secure token. 

“The hope is that by allowing users to select 

what they want to use, it gives them the greatest 

control over the experience they intend 

to have,” explains Barnes. “One of the 

major business benefits of this approach is 

allowing people to use a credential they 

may already have.” 

According to Burton Group’s Henry, 

having a centralized facility to enforce 

and support access management policies 

throughout multiple applications is a fairly 

popular approach. “The idea is that no 

matter what application a user is accessing, 

the organization can rely on the same types 

of authentication framework,” says Henry. “That 

reduces the management burdens and helps to eliminate 

potential mistakes that might occur.” 

CENTRALIZING AUTHENTICATION 

With its centralized authentication service, Pfizer has 

taken the authentication process out of each application 

and put it in the hands of the end user. And in the 

future, Pfizer can immediately take advantage of any new 

authentication methods that it wants to deploy, such as 

biometric or fingerprint-type authentication options. 

“Authentication is probably one of the hottest areas 

in technology today, so we’re not prescriptive on exactly 

what forms we will leverage,” says Pfizer’s Barnes. “But as 

new ones emerge, we see this as the single place where 

we can make them available.” 

Of course, another important aspect of access 

management for Pfizer is being able to manage 

risk better by ensuring that the proper level 

of authentication is required for specific 

applications. For example, some applications 

might have a low risk associated with access 

to their data, while others might require 

very high data integrity. 

“Our authentication portal has multiple 

levels of trust associated with different levels 

of authentication,” Barnes says. “We think that 

this is really important. Going forward, it will 

allow application developers either to lower or 

raise the bar required to get access to information and 

protect the integrity of the data.” 

Eventually, using this framework, Pfizer expects that 

it could leverage the use of national IDs, which might 

be issued through the European Union or by individual 

countries. “As national and international identity providers 

emerge, we see this framework as giving us the ability to 

link directly to them,” adds Barnes. “And we will continue 

to work with Oracle to enhance the native capabilities of 

Oracle Audit Vault and Oracle Database Vault 

In addition to providing authentication 

and identity management, organizations 

must provide data security that addresses 

growing privacy and regulatory considerations. 

For example, compliance and auditing 

requirements have become a fact of 

life for most organizations. Beyond ensuring 

that the proper regulatory or industry 

requirements are followed, organizations 

also need to collect and analyze audit 

data to keep track of the activities within 

their systems. And because audit data can 

be distributed across many systems and 

stored in many databases, securing it and 

ensuring that it hasn’t been tampered with 

can be difficult. 

“Oracle Audit Vault provides the ability to 

consolidate audit data from different database 

sources into one secure and scalable 

repository, and then view all the audit trail 

data, from all those sources, in one report,” 

explains Tammy Bednar, senior principal 

product manager, database security, Oracle. 

“Oracle Audit Vault provides a consolidated 

view of all audit operations, making it easier 

to see the activities of your privileged users 

across all your databases and raise alerts 

on any suspicious activities.” 

Securing the data in the database from 

highly privileged users, Oracle Database 

Vault helps to ensure database security 

by protecting against insider threats and 

addressing regulatory compliance needs. 

It can also transparently enforce specific 

operational policies or fine-grained security 

requirements as specified by the auditors. 

“Oracle Database Vault helps companies 

implement separation of duties—managers 

might not want even powerful administrators 

to be able to look at important financial 

data, for example,” says Vipin Samar, vice 

president, database security, Oracle. “With 

Oracle Database Vault, organizations can 

increase the security level of an existing 

application without changing the application, 

which improves security throughout 

the enterprise and helps reduce risks posed 

by insider threats.” 


“The idea is that no matter what application a user is accessing, the organization can 

rely on the same types of authentication framework.” 

—Trent Henry, Senior Analyst, Burton Group 

Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Virtual Directory to provide 

the functionality of the logon.pfizer.com authentication portal.” 

THE EVOLUTION OF ACCESS MANAGEMENT 

Access management has come a long way in the past few 

years. But as organizations struggle to meet new compliance 

and security requirements and to reach out to partners and 

customers in a secure and manageable way, access management 

seems poised to play an even greater role in the corporate 

IT infrastructure. 

“Over the past few years, the adoption of federation technologies 

has become much more prevalent,” says Eric Leach, 

senior group product manager, access management, Oracle. 

“That means that organizations can use their baseline Web 

access management deployments and layer on standards-based 

federation products that can greatly simplify the integration of 

business partners.” 

For many companies, the need to interact efficiently with 

more organizations—whether it’s suppliers, outsourcers, partners, 

customers, or someone else—will only increase. At the 

same time, organizations need to increase their agility and 

keep pace with changing business environments. 

JULY/AUGUST 2006 

ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE 

Oracle Enterprise Manager 

Brings Order to Your Grid 

GROWING RETAIL 

BUSINESSES /44 

ID MANAGEMENT 

OPENS DOORS /49 

ARCHIVING 

XML /73 


“A lot of new requirements have come in since most organizations 

originally adopted access management,” Leach adds. 

“From compliance and auditing requirements to federation 

needs to stronger authentication requirements, now is the time 

for organizations to reconsider their access management solutions 

and opportunities in a broader context.” � 

David A. Kelly (dkelly@upsideresearch.com) is a business, technology, and travel 

writer who lives in West Newton, Massachusetts. 


Oracle Identity Management 

oracle.com/identity 

Oracle Audit Vault 

oracle.com/goto/auditvault 

Oracle Database Vault 

oracle.com/goto/databasevault 

Security Solutions from Oracle 


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JULY/AUGUST 2005 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE 

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THE POW 

Embedded Oracle databases drive

ER WITHIN 

technology at the edge of the enterprise. 

JUPITER IMAGES 

or Riverbed Technology, choosing the right database 

for its network-acceleration appliances isn’t something 

it takes lightly. The company’s Steelhead appliances 

help boost WAN speeds an average of 30 times for customers 

running anywhere from hundreds to several thousands 

of nodes, and what Riverbed needs is a database that’s robust 

and that can go the distance. To achieve the performance 

gains it needs with the smallest technology footprint possible, 

Riverbed relies on Oracle Berkeley DB, a member of Oracle’s 

family of embeddable databases. 

Unlike traditional databases, embedded versions reside 

within software applications or hardware appliances like 

Riverbed’s and don’t require day-to-day management by DBAs. 

Instead, they work behind the scenes, often without end users 

even knowing they’re using the data management technology. 

“Customers like our turnkey solution. They buy our appliances 

because they don’t want to mess around with operating 

systems and figure how to get this piece of hardware to work 

with that piece of software,” explains David Wu, Riverbed’s 

vice president of software development. “Our customers aren’t 

database experts, so it makes sense for us to bundle in an 

embedded database that just tunes itself.” 

NEW CHOICES 

Embedded databases aren’t new—developers have relied on 

them for decades. Many developers have built their own, 

because their application requirements were so unique, and 

commercial choices were inadequate. 

“Although custom development is very time-consuming 

and expensive, it enables developers to build very specific 

capabilities,” says Rex Wang, vice president of embedded 

product marketing at Oracle. “We understand that developers 

need technical flexibility and choice, so that’s why 

BY ALAN JOCH 

Oracle’s strategy is to offer developers the broadest selection 

of embeddable databases for the diverse range of applications 

out there.” In fact, Oracle offers four embedded database 

choices. (See the “Choosing an Embedded Database” sidebar 

for more information.) 

“Oracle offers a suite of embedded databases for network 

appliances, mobile devices, packaged applications, and other 

uses,” says Noel Yuhanna, principal analyst with Forrester 

Research. “Customers can choose among any of those products, 

with the additional advantage of having compatibility 

across the various databases.” 

PERFORMANCE DEMANDS 

Cisco Systems released the Cisco License Manager (CLM) at 

the beginning of 2007. The CLM enables Cisco customers to 

inventory and manage sometimes thousands of licenses for 

network devices running in their enterprises. 

“If a customer wants to upgrade any of the licenses, they 

place an order online and enter an authorization key into the 

CLM, and it automatically obtains the licenses and deploys 

them to the network devices,” says Niraj Gopal, CLM product 

manager at Cisco. When customers download the CLM, the 

product includes Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition for managing 

licensing and authentication information for each device. 

Before Cisco settled on Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition, 

the company considered several other databases, including 

several commercial offerings and a homegrown solution. Cisco 

chose Berkeley DB Java Edition after pilot tests convinced 

developers that it could meet their top design goals—the 

database had to be scalable and portable and work within a 

small resource footprint. 

“[The database] had to run on powerful servers as well as 

a single blade,” explains Shaw Li, Cisco software development 


“After an evaluation and a 

prototype, we decided that the 

scalability and portability of 

Berkeley DB Java Edition fit the bill.” 

—Shaw Li 

Software Development Manager 

Cisco Systems 

manager. The scalability test bed networked dozens 

of Windows PCs to simulate the traffic load of 

10,000 devices. 

“After an evaluation and a prototype, we decided 

that the scalability and portability of Berkeley DB 

Java Edition fit the bill,” says Li. In addition, Li says, 

because Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition is written 

in Java, “it gives us great portability across different 

operating systems.” 

REAL-TIME SERVICE 

Aspect Software uses both Oracle Database and Oracle 

TimesTen In-Memory Database within its contact 

center solutions for organizations to manage incoming 

questions and service requests from customers. 

“Traditionally, contact centers were measured by ‘handle 

time’—basically how long it takes to address each customer’s 

call. The quicker being the better,” says Mike Sheridan, 

Aspect’s senior vice president of strategy and marketing. “But 

now companies recognize that’s not the best performance measurement 

because it doesn’t speak to whether they satisfied 

the customer or what the propensity is for that person to buy 

more things from you in the future as a result of that call.” 

Contact centers are massive data generators that collect 

CHOOSING AN EMBEDDED DATABASE 

Hardware developers and ISVs have a range of 

Oracle high-performance, scalable embedded 

databases to choose from. These include 

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, 

Oracle Database Standard Edition, Oracle 

Database Standard Edition One, and 

Oracle Database Express Edition. These 

solutions provide advanced relational database 

capabilities in an embeddable package that 

requires no DBA and enables the embedding 

application to automatically install and configure 

it. Oracle Database is often embedded 

within medical equipment and telecommuni- 

Cisco’s Niraj Gopal, Product Manager for Cisco License Manager (left), and Shaw Li, Software 

Development Manager, find that Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition gives them great portability across 

different operating systems. 

cations systems that require advanced data 

management capabilities and do not have 

highly constrained memory and CPUs. 

Oracle Berkeley DB. The only nonrelational 

database in Oracle’s portfolio, Oracle Berkeley 

DB delivers very high performance for applications 

that have static, predictable access 

patterns. Top applications include networking 

equipment, storage appliances, and geospatial 

mapping software. 

Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database. 

This relational database keeps data in 

memory, so it delivers extremely fast response 

times and high transaction throughput. As a 


data for years. It must be possible to retrieve detailed records 

to service an individual call, as well as look at aggregated 

information about the contact center’s overall performance. 

To help meet this challenge, Aspect relies on Oracle Database 

for its enterprise data mart and Oracle TimesTen for real-time 

analytics about performance across multiple call centers. 

Oracle TimesTen also feeds a program that provides graphic 

visualizations of contact center performance to help managers 

and supervisors monitor the environment. 

Aspect Software chose Oracle TimesTen because it performs 

fast enough to serve real-time demands. “Traditional databases 

full relational database, Oracle TimesTen supports 

SQL, Open Database Connectivity, and 

Java DataBase Connectivity. It can run as a 

standalone database or as a cache to accelerate 

Oracle Database, and it often runs in telecommunications 

systems and customer-facing 

applications requiring low latency. 

Oracle Database Lite. This small-footprint 

relational database is designed for PDAs, 

smartphones, and automobile telematics 

units. Because it can synchronize with Oracle 

Database, it allows mobile employees to use 

their devices in the field and later sync data 

with the main enterprise database server. 

BOB ADLER

ANDREA MANDEL 

“Oracle is clearly investing 

in the Oracle TimesTen product 

going forward.” 

haven’t been quick enough for us to get the visualizations 

we needed in a timely fashion,” says 

Roger Sumner, senior vice president in the Aspect 

Software Office of Technology. 

But speed wasn’t the company’s only consideration. 

The database also needed to perform all of 

the essential data organization tasks of traditional 

information management systems, including replicating 

data, sorting through it, and retrieving 

information for reporting tools. 

“We looked for a fully functional relational database 

that could be used in an embedded setting,” 

Sumner says. 

An added bonus is that as a long-time Oracle 

customer, Aspect now works with a single vendor for both 

Oracle Database and Oracle TimesTen. “If we’re looking for 

consulting help, we can go to a single team,” Sumner says. 

“And we see staying power. Oracle is clearly investing in the 

Oracle TimesTen product going forward.” 

LIGHTWEIGHT IMPLEMENTATIONS 

The Riverbed Central Management Console (CMC) configures 

and manages Riverbed Technology’s Steelhead appliances and 

embeds Oracle Berkeley DB to hold traffic and performance 

data about each device on a network. The information ranges 

from details about performance from five minutes ago to 

historical trend summaries that span months or years, says 

Riverbed’s Wu. Customers may install dozens or thousands of 

SNAPSHOTS 

—Roger Sumner 

Senior Vice President, Office of Technology 

Aspect Software 

Riverbed Technology www.riverbed.com 

Location: San Francisco Industry: Wide area data services 

Employees: 450 Oracle products and services: Oracle Berkeley DB, 

Oracle E-Business Suite 

Cisco Systems www.cisco.com 

Location: San Jose, California Industry: IT networking systems 

Employees: 56,790 Oracle products and services: Oracle Berkeley DB 

Aspect Software www.aspect.com 

Location: Chelmsford, Massachusetts Industry: Software development 

Employees: 2,100 Oracle products and services: Oracle Database 10g, 

Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database 

Roger Sumner, Senior Vice President, Aspect Software Office of Technology, says that traditional 

databases haven’t been quick enough for his company to get the visualizations they needed 

in a timely fashion. 

appliances, depending on the size of their WANs. 

“Our requirements for an embedded database are that it 

needs to be robust, scale efficiently, and be enterprise grade,” 

Wu explains. “One of the top reasons we went with Berkeley 

DB is its low resource consumption when it comes to memory, 

CPU, and disk usage. It has such lightweight requirements 

that it doesn’t steal away important processing power.” 

Wu also appreciates the database’s “very clean” APIs, which 

were easy for developers to understand and which enabled 

them to integrate the product into Riverbed’s existing technology 

framework in only a couple of weeks. 

Quick development time was critical because Wu and 

his staff were under a tight deadline to roll out the CMC. To 

accomplish this goal, Riverbed tapped the Oracle technical 

support staff to apply integration strategies that worked for 

other customers to the CMC project. “Oracle support folks are 

top-notch, and it was very easy to get us up and running very 

quickly,” Wu says. � 

Alan Joch (ajoch@worldpath.net) is a technology writer based in New England who 

specializes in enterprise, Web, and high-performance-computing applications. 

READ more about Oracle Embedded Technology 

oracle.com/technologies/embedded 

VISIT the Embedded Developer Center 

otn.oracle.com/tech/embedded 

DOWNLOAD embeddable technology 

otn.oracle.com/software 


COMPANIES TRUST ORACLE 

WITH THEIR MOST VITAL INFORMATION. 

WHICH IS WHY ORACLE TRUSTS DELL. 

Oracle depends on its Austin Data Center to be ready and available 24/7/365. 

So Oracle turned to Dell to cluster and maintain 12,000 servers, hosting the 

Oracle On Demand Applications their customers rely on. Because Dell 

designs business solutions with one company in mind. Yours. 

Read the whole story online 

or call Dell to start your own. dell.com/oracle/oraclemag 1.877.485.DELL 

Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography or photography. Dell and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affi liates. Other 

trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of 

others. © 2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

developerFRAMEWORKS 

BY STEVE MUENCH 

Defining a Cascading List of Values 

Setting up LOVs is easier than ever with Oracle JDeveloper 11g. 

ost data-intensive applications 

require users to select values 

from lists of choices. In many 

cases, the list of valid choices 

for one field depends on the selection a 

user makes in another field. For example, 

in a global commerce application, a user 

might first pick a country, leading the 

application to display a list of products 

for sale in that particular country. 

The ability to simplify the creation 

of lists of values (LOVs) to support this 

kind of scenario has been one of the 

most common enhancement requests 

for Oracle Application Development 

Framework (Oracle ADF) 11g. In this 

column, I show how easy this task has 

become. In doing so, I take a first look at 

the upcoming Oracle JDeveloper/Oracle 

ADF 11g release and use it to build 

LOVs, including a list with cascading 

data dependencies. 

To follow along, download and 

install the Oracle JDeveloper 11.1.1.0 

Technology Preview release, available 

at otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/11. As 

with all of my other Frameworks tutorial 

articles, you should also have an Oracle 

Database instance available with access to 

the default SCOTT schema. 

SETTING UP THE MODEL 

Let’s start by creating a new application 

in Oracle JDeveloper. If you don’t have 

any other applications open, click the 

New Application node that appears 

in the Application Navigator. If you do 

have other applications open, select 

New Application from the application 

selector list at the top of the 

Application Navigator. In either case, 

the Create Application dialog box will 

appear. Enter OraMagDemo in the New 

Application field, and enter oramag 

.lovdemo in the New Application Prefix 

field. For Application Template, select 

Web Application [ADF Faces, ADF 

Page Flow, ADF BC], and then click 

OK to create the application. 

Next, let’s build our starter application 

(as in past Frameworks columns) by 

creating default business components for 

the DEPT and EMP tables in the SCOTT 

account. To do this, right-click the Model 

project in the Application Navigator and 

select New. In the New Gallery dialog box 

that appears, select the ADF Business 

Components category (in the Business 

Tier grouping) and double-click the 

Business Components from Tables 

wizard. When the Initialize Business 

Components Project dialog box appears, 

click New to create a new applicationlevel 

database connection. In the Create 

Database Connection dialog box, enter 

scott for the connection name, enter the 

appropriate username and password for 

the SCOTT schema, and enter the hostname 

and instance ID (SID) to connect 

to your database. Note that in Oracle 

JDeveloper 11g, the default SID is now 

XE. This default will work if you’re using 

Oracle Database Express Edition, but 

you’ll need to change this to the correct 

SID (such as ORCL) if you’re using a different 

Oracle Database edition. Click OK 

to create the database connection and OK 

again to start the Business Components 

from Tables wizard. As you’ve done 

before, go through the wizard to define 

entity objects for the DEPT and EMP 

tables, DeptView and EmpView, updatable 

view objects for each respective entity 

object, and an application module named 

HRModule. As before, don’t bother creating 

any read-only view objects or a business 

components diagram. 

When defining a list of values in 

Oracle JDeveloper, you reference a view 

object that provides the source of valid 

choices for your list. In this example, 

you’ll create two lists of values. First, 

you’ll define a list of values for the 

Deptno attribute in the EmpView view 

object created above, using the DeptView 

view object as the source for the list of 

valid departments. Then you’ll build a 

more complex list of values for the Mgr 

(manager) attribute. This list will reference 

a new view object that queries a 

filtered list of employees who can serve 

as the current employee’s manager. For 

the sake of this exercise, let’s assume 

that the list of available managers for a 

given employee will be the list of other 

employees in the same department, along 

with any employee without a manager 

(such as the president). 

To define this new view object, rightclick 

the Model project in the Application 

Navigator and select New. Select the ADF 

Business Components category, and 

double-click the View Object component 

to open the Create View Object wizard. 

In the Name panel, change the name to 

ManagerListForDepartment and click Next. 

In the Entity Objects panel, select the 

Emp entity object from the Available 

list, click Add (the right-arrow button), 

and click Next. In the Attributes panel, 

include the Empno and Ename attributes, 

and click Next twice to get to the SQL 

Statement panel. In the Where field, add 

the following WHERE clause: (DEPTNO = 

:CurrentDept OR MGR IS NULL) AND EMPNO 

! = :CurrentEmp. This clause will filter the 

list of employees to produce the set you 

defined above. Click Next to get to the 

Bind Variables panel. In this panel, create 

two new variables called CurrentDept and 

CurrentEmp (which are both referenced 

in the WHERE clause) and set both variables 

to be of type Number. Now click 

Finish to create the view object. 

DEFINING THE LISTS OF VALUES 

Now that the basic model layer objects 

are in place, the next step is to configure 


FRAMEWORKS 

FRAMEWORKS 

the two lists of values. In Oracle 

ADF 11g, you can configure a list 

of values as a declarative feature 

of any view object attribute. By 

defining the list of values at the 

model layer instead of within 

the user interface (UI), you can 

ensure that your UI will present a 

list of values correctly and consistently, 

regardless of the particular 

Oracle ADF–supported UI client 

technology you decide to use. 

In the Application Navigator, 

begin by double-clicking 

EmpView to open the view 

object editor. Note that in Oracle 

JDeveloper 11g, the business component 

editors appear as tabs within the 

main editor area instead of in a modal 

dialog box. Select the Attributes category 

along the left edge of the editor 

page, and select the Deptno attribute in 

the table that appears in the Attributes 

section near the top of the editor frame. 

Find the List of Values: Deptno section 

header below, and click the green plussign 

icon on the right side of the header 

to create a list of values for the Deptno 

attribute. When the List of Values dialog 

box appears, click the green plus-sign 

icon in the List Data Source section to 

add a datasource that will supply the 

list of valid choices for this attribute’s 

value. In the View Accessors dialog box 

that appears, select the DeptView view 

object in the Available View Objects list 

on the left and click the Add Instance 

(right-arrow) button to add a new 

view accessor named DeptView1 for the 

selected view object. Then click OK. 

Note that the newly added view accessor 

datasource DeptView1 appears in the 

List Data Source tree display in the List of 

Values dialog box. Expand it, and select 

its Deptno attribute. Note that the List 

Return Values section updates to show 

how attributes in the list datasource will 

be assigned to attributes in the base view 

object when the user makes a choice 

from the list. You won’t need to modify 

this section for this example, but note 

that you could map additional return 

value attributes in your application by 

adding to this list. 

Before leaving the List of Values dialog 

Figure 1: Testing view object with cascading lists of values 

box, click the Edit List UI Hints... 

button (near the top of the window) to 

open the List UI Hints dialog box. These 

settings provide information that defines 

how the list should appear within the 

user interface. Note that the default 

list type indicates a Choice List display 

style. You will use this default list type 

for this simple example, but if you click 

the list, you’ll see the other types of list 

controls you can use within your own 

applications. In the Display Attributes 

section, select the Dname attribute from 

the Available list and click the Add 

(right-arrow) button to add it to the 

list of selected attributes. This selection 

indicates that you want the user to see 

the department name, rather than the 

department number, in the list. Finally, 

click OK to close the List UI Hints 

dialog box and OK again to close the 

List of Values dialog box. 

Next, let’s configure the list of values 

for the Mgr attribute. As before, select 

this attribute in the Attributes section of 

the view object editor for the EmpView 

object. Then click the green plus-sign 

icon in the List of Values: Mgr section 

header. When the List of Values dialog 

box appears, click the green plus-sign 

icon in the List Data Source section to 

add a new datasource that will supply 

the list of valid choices for this attribute’s 

value. In the View Accessors dialog box, 

select the ManagerListForDepartment 

view object from the Available View 

Objects list on the left and click the 

Add Instance (right-arrow) button to 

add a new view accessor named 


ManagerListForDepartment1 for the 

selected view object. 

Because this view object has 

bind variables, you need to configure 

how those bind values will get 

their values. To do so, make sure 

the ManagerListForDepartment1 

view accessor is selected and click 

the Edit button. In the Edit View 

Accessor dialog box, note that the 

bind variable names CurrentDept 

and CurrentEmp appear in the Bind 

Parameter Values section. Check 

the Row-level bind values exist 

check box and double-click the 

Value column for the CurrentEmp 

bind variable in the table. You want to 

assign the value of this bind variable 

to be the value of the Empno attribute 

in the current row, so enter the (casesensitive) 

expression Empno in this cell. 

Similarly, double-click the value column 

for the CurrentDept bind variable, and 

enter the expression Deptno to assign 

this bind variable’s value to the value of 

the Deptno attribute in the current row. 

Finally, click OK to close the Edit View 

Accessor dialog box and OK again to 

close the View Accessors dialog box. In 

the List of Values dialog box, expand 

ManagerListForDepartment1 in the List 

Data Source tree and select its Empno 

attribute. Then, click Edit UI Hints as 

before to configure Ename as the list’s 

display attribute. Click OK to close the 

List UI Hints dialog box and OK again to 

close the List of Values dialog box. 

TESTING YOUR LISTS OF VALUES 

You can use the enhanced Oracle 

ADF 11g Oracle Business Component 

Browser to immediately test the LOVs 

you’ve just configured. To run the 

application module in the Oracle 

Business Component Browser, rightclick 

the HRModule component in the 

Application Navigator and select Run. 

After you click Connect in the dialog 

box that appears, the Oracle Business 

Component Browser will appear. 

Double-click the EmpView1 view object 

instance to see its data. As shown in 

Figure 1, both Mgr and Deptno appear 

as lists. If you select the Mgr list, you’ll 

notice that the list includes the employ-

ees in the current department (excluding 

the current employee) and employees 

such as KING who have no manager. 

When you navigate to different rows in 

the result set, you can see the lists automatically 

change to reflect the current 

department for the current employee. If 

you change an employee’s department 

by choosing a different department name 

from the list, you’ll notice that when you 

select the Mgr list, the set of choices will 

automatically update to reflect the 

new department. 

When you’re done experimenting, 

select File -> Exit to exit the Oracle 

Business Component Browser. Because 

the Oracle Business Component Browser 

has been reimplemented in the Oracle 

JDeveloper 11g release with Oracle ADF 

Swing, this example also serves as a quick 

illustration of how Oracle ADF Swing 

applications can make automatic use of 

model-defined LOVs. 

USING LISTS OF VALUES IN 

JAVASERVER FACES 

Now that you’ve configured and tested 

the LOVs on the EmpView view object, 

let’s see how simple it is to use them in an 

Ajax-enabled Web page using JavaServer 

Faces (JSF). In the Application Navigator, 

expand the ViewController project and 

its Web Content folder to display the 

project’s Page Flows folder. Inside this 

folder, double-click the adfc-config node 

to open the page flow diagram. Next, go 

to the Component palette and find the 

Activities section. In this section, drag 

a View component and drop it onto 

the page flow diagram. When the new 

view appears on the diagram, rename 

the component Employees and press 

Enter. To create the JSF page for this 

view, double-click the icon representing 

the new view. When the Create JSF JSP 

dialog box appears, click OK to create the 

Employees.jspx page, using the default 

settings. The new Web page appears in 

the visual page designer. 

The next step is to drop a data 

collection onto the page. First, take 

a look at the Application Navigator 

and note that the frame is grouped 

into several sections, each containing 

a titled heading bar and an arrow 

to enable you to expand or collapse 

the section contents. Below the 

Projects section of the Application 

Navigator is the Data Controls section. 

Expand that section, and then expand 

HRModuleDataControl to reveal the 

EmpView1 and DeptView1 data collections 

it contains. Drag the EmpView1 

data collection, and drop it onto the 

center of the visual JSF page editor. From 

the Create menu, select Forms -> ADF 

Form to create an editable form showing 

EmpView1 data. In the Edit Form Fields 

dialog box that appears, note that the 

Component To Use value for both the 

Mgr and Deptno attributes is set to ADF 

Select One Choice. Oracle JDeveloper 

selects these UI component values by 

default as a result of the List Type UI hint 

you configured earlier when defining 

the list of values for those two attributes. 

Check the Include Navigation Controls 

check box, and click OK to create the 

form. Note that as expected, both the 

Mgr and Deptno fields appear as lists. 

On a traditional Web page, when a 

user makes a change (such as picking a 

department from a list), those changes 

don’t take effect until that person clicks 

a Submit button to send form results 

to a server. However, the Oracle ADF 

Faces JSF components make it easy to 

build more-interactive Web pages. For 

example, you can enable the Deptno list 

to automatically submit changes to the 

server whenever the end user changes its 

value, simply by setting its AutoSubmit 

property to true. To do this, select 

View -> Property Inspector from the 

Oracle JDeveloper main menu to show 

the Property Inspector. Next, select the 

Deptno list in the visual editor. In the 

Property Inspector window, note that the 

properties are grouped into categories 

such as Common, Data, Appearance, 

Style, and Behavior. Click the Behavior 

category, and set the AutoSubmit property 

to true. 

Because you configured the list of 

values for the Mgr attribute to depend 

on the current value of the Deptno 

attribute, you need to perform two 

additional declarative steps to force 

the Mgr list to immediately update to 

reflect a changed list of managers. The 

first step is to assign a unique name to 

identify the Deptno list on the page. To 

do this, select the Common category in 

the Property Inspector, type the name 

DeptList in the Id field, and press Enter. 

The second step is to configure the Mgr 

list to refresh whenever the value of the 

Deptno component changes. To perform 

this step, select the Mgr list in the visual 

editor. Then select the Behavior category 

in the Property Inspector, type the same 

DeptList name into the PartialTriggers 

field, and press Enter. 

The online version of this column, 

at otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07sep/o57frame.html, 

concludes with a 

test of the sample application in your 

browser and a demonstration of the lists 

of values you created. 

In this column I’ve shown how, by 

using a few declarative settings, you 

can configure both simple and cascading 

lists of values and use them within 

Web pages without writing any code. 

This example highlights the first in a 

series of new declarative features due 

in the Oracle JDeveloper/Oracle ADF 

11g release. In future columns, I’ll 

explore many more. For more information 

on Oracle JDeveloper/Oracle ADF 

11g new features, see otn.oracle.com/ 

products/jdev/11. � 

Steve Muench is a consulting product manager for 

Oracle JDeveloper and an Oracle ACE. In his more than 

17 years at Oracle, he has developed and supported 

Oracle tools and XML technologies and continues to 

evangelize them. Muench coauthored the Oracle ADF 

Developer’s Guide for Forms/4GL Developers (Oracle, 

2006), and wrote Building Oracle XML Applications 

(O’Reilly Media, 2000). He shares tips and tricks on 

Oracle Technology Network (otn.oracle.com) and in his 

Dive into ADF blog (radio.weblogs.com/0118231). 

READ online-only column content 

otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-sep/ 

o57frame.html 

READ more about Oracle JDeveloper 

and Oracle ADF 

otn.oracle.com/products/jdev 

otn.oracle.com/products/adf/learnadf.html 

DOWNLOAD Oracle JDeveloper 

otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/11 

otn.oracle.com/products/jdev 


‘07 Copyright 

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© 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 0702894 

PREMIER

developerBROWSER-BASED 

Express Web 2.0 

Create dynamic interfaces that minimize page refresh with Oracle Application Express. 

he term Web 2.0 refers to a 

second generation of Web-based 

applications that emphasize 

online collaboration, participation, 

and interactivity. This includes 

social networking sites, wikis, and communication 

tools. 

For Web application developers, Web 

2.0 is also synonymous with technologies 

that underpin modern, dynamic, 

rich-client Web applications that mimic 

personal computer applications and can 

improve the user experience in browserbased 

applications. These technologies 

include Asynchronous JavaScript and 

XML (Ajax), partial page refresh (PPR), 

Dynamic HTML (DHTML), Flash, and 

JavaScript. They enable a Web page to 

request an update for some part of its 

content and to alter that part in the 

browser, without needing to refresh the 

whole page. These techniques are not 

a replacement for underlying protocols 

such as HTTP but an additional layer of 

abstraction on top of them. 

Oracle Application Express is 

designed to help facilitate the creation 

of Web 2.0 applications. More specifically, 

it is designed to take much of the 

complexity out of building scalable 

dynamic applications by providing a 

declarative database-centric framework. 

Some Web 2.0 technologies, such 

as PPR, Flash, and many JavaScriptenabled 

controls, are built into the latest 

release of Oracle Application Express. 

The following are some of the Web 

2.0 features and capabilities of Oracle 

Application Express: 

��PPR reporting is incorporated into 

the report templates so that only the 

report changes when the next set of 

data is retrieved—no other page components 

are refreshed. 

��Flash charting enables sophisticated 

charting capabilities and display attri- 

BY DAVID PEAKE 

codeLISTING 1: Code for creating a tooltip structure, including image layout 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

butes, including animations. 

��Tooltips enable page elements to 

include tooltips—using Ajax—that 

are invoked when the mouse moves 

over the item. 

��Expanding trees are based on hierarchical 

elements, such as a company’s 

organizational structure, and with Ajax, 

they load only the initial hierarchy 

and later populate nodes when they 

are expanded. 

��Detail frames use Ajax to enable the 

dynamic display of detail information 

within a master report. 

��Dynamic menus use Ajax to provide 

a context-sensitive list of actions to 

the user. 

��Cascading select lists narrow the 

choices available during the cascade 

through subsequent select lists. 

For more details on Web 2.0 features 

in Oracle Application Express, including 

sample applications and additional 

code snippets, go to otn.oracle.com/ 

products/database/application_express/ 

html/web2.0.html. 

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR 

ADDING TOOLTIPS 

The following steps demonstrate how 

to integrate Ajax-powered tooltips 

into an Oracle Application Express 

application. The o57browser.zip file, at 

otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-sep, 

provides the SQL and the images used 

to develop the tooltips in this column. 

Step 1. Download and unzip the Aria 

employee lookup application from 

otn.oracle.com/products/database/ 

application_express/packaged_apps/ 

packaged_apps.html, and install it in 

your local Oracle Application Express 

instance or in the public instance at 

apex.oracle.com. Select Application 

Builder -> Import -> Application, click 

Browse, select the aria_people_search_ 


BROWSER-BASED 

installer-0.91.sql file from the downloaded 

application files, and click Next. 

Step 2. Download, unzip, and install 

the images and JavaScript file from 

the o57browser.zip file. Select Shared 

Components -> Files -> Images, 

click Create, browse to an image file, 

select the Aria application from the 

Application list, and click Upload. 

Repeat the upload process for each 

image. To install the aria.js file, select 

Shared Components -> Files -> Static 

Files, click Create, browse to the aria.js 

file, select the Aria application from the 

Application list, and click Upload. 

Step 3. Add the code to create the tooltip 

structure, including the image layout. 

In the application builder and the Aria 

application, click Page 0 to display the 

page definition. In the Regions section, 

click the Create (+) icon, and then click 

HTML (on two successive screens). 

Enter a title, select No Template from 

the Region Template list, select After 

Header from the Display Point list, 

and click Next. Enter the HTML from 

Listing 1 as the region source, and click 

Create Region. 

Step 4. Create an on-demand application 

process named Person_Detail. 

Select Shared Components -> Logic -> 

Application Processes, click Create, 

enter Person_Detail in the Name field, 

select On Demand: Run this application 

process when requested by a 

page process from the Process Point 

list, and click Next. In the Process Text 

field, enter aria_detail;, click Next, and 

click Create Process. 

Step 5. Install the aria_detail procedure 

(provided as part of the o57browser.zip 

download for this column). Select SQL 

Workshop -> SQL Scripts -> Upload, 

click Browse, choose the aria_detail.sql 

file, and click Upload. 

Step 6. Create two application-level 

items named TEMP_ID and TEMP_ 

PAGE_ID, respectively. Select Shared 

Components -> Logic -> Application 

Items. Click Create, enter the name for 

the item, and click Create. 

Step 7. Add the following JavaScript 

snippet to any element that should 

display a person detail, where PERSON_ 

ID is a valid employee ID: 

Figure 1: A tooltip over a name in a list of results 

Figure 2: A tooltip over a name in a detail result 

onmouseover= 

”ARIA_DETAIL(this, ’#PERSON_ID#’)” 

For example, to create the tooltip 

shown in Figure 1, in the application 

builder, click Page 1, click Report (in 

the Regions section), click Column 

Attributes, and click the icon (edit) 

next to the REVERSE_NAME column 

alias. Under Column Link, enter the 

JavaScript snippet in the Link Attributes 

field, and click Apply Changes. 

To create the tooltip shown in Figure 

2, select Shared Components -> User 

Interface -> Templates, and under the 

Report Type, click Person_Detail. In 

the Row Template 1 text field, replace 

 

 

#MANAGER_NAME# 

with 

 

 

#MANAGER_NAME# 

Finally, run the application to see 


your tooltips in action. Figure 1 shows 

an example tooltip appearing over a 

name in a list of results. Figure 2 shows 

an example tooltip appearing over a 

manager name in a detail result. 

CONCLUSION 

Oracle Application Express is a very 

easy-to-use, rapid development tool 

optimized for building Web 2.0–enabled 

applications. The underlying framework 

provides built-in declarative Web 2.0 

capabilities and several “hooks” and 

APIs to enable developers to readily 

incorporate Web 2.0 functionality. � 

David Peake (david.peake@oracle.com) is a principal 

product manager in Oracle’s Server Technologies 

division. He has been with Oracle since 1993. 


Oracle Application Express 

otn.oracle.com/apex 

DOWNLOAD 

Oracle Application Express 

otn.oracle.com/products/database/application_ 

express/download.html 

packaged applications 

otn.oracle.com/products/database/application_ 

express/packaged_apps/packaged_apps.html 

sample content for tooltips 

otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57browser.zip

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PL/SQL Developer is an Oracle development tool that gives you maximum productivity, 

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ORIGINAL • AUTHENTIC 

ONLY FROM OSBORNE

developerPL/SQL PRACTICES 

BY STEVEN FEUERSTEIN 

On the PL/SQL Function Result Cache 

Best practices—and preparation—for PL/SQL in Oracle Database 11g 

have been reading that Oracle is launching 

the 11th release of its database. Very exciting! 

But here’s the problem: I don’t think I’ll 

be able to use it for another two years. So 

why should I even care about the new PL/SQL 

features of this future (for me) release? 

Ah, yes, the real world. Oracle 

comes out with a new database release, 

and by the time it does so, its developers 

are already focused on the next new 

release. People like me start writing 

about, demonstrating, and even training 

on the newer release. And then 

there’s almost everybody else: still on 

older releases, hoping and praying that 

someday maybe their management will 

see fit to catch up. 

I feel your pain. 

Having said that, I do think it makes 

an awful lot of sense to learn now 

about what Oracle Database 11g will 

have to offer you and your company in 

the future. The reason is very simple: 

once you see what is going to be available 

in Oracle Database 11g, you will 

probably change the way you write 

your code now! 

I would say that the single most 

important new PL/SQL feature in Oracle 

Database 11g is the PL/SQL function 

result cache. Quite a mouthful, but then 

it is quite a feature. 

I offer in this answer a quick overview 

of this feature, and I conclude 

by discussing how knowing about this 

feature should affect the way you write 

PL/SQL programs for earlier Oracle 

Database releases. 

Suppose I am on a team that is 

building a human resources application. 

The employees table is one of 

the key structures, holding all the 

data for all the employees. Hundreds 

of users execute numerous programs 

in the application that read from this 

table—and read from it very often. Yet 

the table changes relatively infrequently, 

perhaps once or twice an hour. As a 

result, the application code repeatedly 

retrieves from the block buffer cache 

what is mostly static data, enduring the 

overhead of checking to see if the particular 

query has already been parsed, 

finding the data in the buffer, and 

returning it. 

The team needs to improve the 

performance of querying data from the 

employees table. Currently, we use the 

following function to return a row from 

the employees table: 

FUNCTION one_employee (employee_id_in 

IN employees.employee_id%TYPE) 

RETURN employees%ROWTYPE 

IS 

l_employee employees%ROWTYPE; 

BEGIN 

SELECT * 

INTO l_employee 

FROM employees 

WHERE employee_id = employee_id_in; 

RETURN l_employee; 

EXCEPTION 

WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND 

THEN 

/* Return an empty record. */ 

RETURN l_employee; 

END one_employee; 

In Oracle Database 11g, however, 

we can add a line to the header of this 

function as follows: 

FUNCTION one_employee (employee_id_in 

IN employees.employee_id%TYPE) 

RETURN employees%ROWTYPE 

RESULT_CACHE RELIES_ON (employees) 

IS 

l_employee employees%ROWTYPE; 

BEGIN 

... 

This RESULT_CACHE clause tells 

Oracle Database that it should remember 

(store in a special in-memory 

result cache) each record retrieved for 

a specific employee ID number. And 

when a session executes this function 

and passes in an employee ID that was 

previously stored, the PL/SQL runtime 

engine will not execute the function 

body, which includes that query. 

Instead, it will simply retrieve the 

record from the cache and return that 

data immediately. The result is much 

faster retrieval. 

In addition, by specifying RELIES_ 

ON (employees), we inform Oracle 

Database that if any session commits 

changes to that table, any data in the 

result cache drawn from the table must 

be invalidated. The next call to the one_ 

employee function would then have to 

execute the query and retrieve the data 

fresh from the table. 

Because the cache is a part of the 

System Global Area (SGA), its contents 

are available to all sessions connected 

to the instance. Furthermore, Oracle 

Database will apply its “least recently 

used algorithm” to the cache, to ensure 

that the most recently accessed data will 

be preserved in the cache. 

Prior to Oracle Database 11g, a 

similar kind of caching was possible 

with package-level collections, but this 

cache is session-specific and located 

in the Process Global Area (PGA). 

This means that if I have 1,000 different 

sessions running the application, I 

could use up an enormous amount of 

memory in addition to that consumed 

by the SGA. 

The PL/SQL function result cache 

minimizes the amount of memory 

needed to cache and share this data 

across all sessions. This low memory 

profile, plus the automatic purge of 


PL/SQL PRACTICES 

cached results whenever changes are 

committed, makes this feature of Oracle 

Database 11g very practical for optimizing 

performance in PL/SQL applications. 

ANALYZE PERFORMANCE AND PGA 

MEMORY IMPACT 

To test the improvement in performance 

and the impact on PGA memory 

over repeated queries of the data, I put 

together a set of scripts, available at 


o57plsql.zip, that compares three 

different ways to retrieve a row of 

employee data: 

1. Execute the query repeatedly 

2. Cache all the rows of the employees 

table in a packaged collection and then 

retrieve the data from that cache 

3. Use the PL/SQL function result cache 

to avoid repetitive querying 

To try this out yourself, unzip the 

o57plsql.zip file and run the 11g_ 

emplu.tst script. It should take about 

five or six seconds to complete, and 

then you should see results like this: 

PGA before tests are run: 

session PGA: 910860 bytes 

Execute query each time 

Elapsed: 4.5 seconds. 


Cache table in PGA memory 

Elapsed: .11 seconds. 


Oracle Database 11g result cache 

Elapsed: .27 seconds. 


Here are my conclusions from this 

admittedly incomplete analysis: 

� The Oracle Database 11g PL/SQL function 

result cache is, indeed, much faster 

than repetitive querying. In this test, it 

was over an order of magnitude faster. 

� A packaged collection cache is even 

faster, most likely because the PL/SQL 

runtime engine can access the data 

from PGA memory rather than SGA 

memory. Unfortunately, this also means 

that the consumption of memory 

occurs on a per-session basis, which is 

not very scalable. 

� The packaged collection approach 

consumed additional PGA memory, but 

the Oracle Database 11g function result 

cache did not. 

And then, of course, there are the 

other key advantages of the function 

result cache: automatic invalidation of 

cache contents when a dependent table 

is changed, the fact that the cache is 

shared across sessions, and the application 

of the least recently used algorithm 

to the memory in the cache. 

SO WHY SHOULD YOU CARE NOW? 

“All right,” you may be saying to yourself, 

“It’s cool. Super cool. But I still can’t 

use it for two years or more, so what 

good does that do me now?” 

You may not be able to use the 

PL/SQL function result cache yet, 

but you can write your code now so 

that when you eventually upgrade to 

Oracle Database 11g, you will be able 

to quickly and easily use this cache in 

your application code. 

In other words, you can and should 

prepare now for this future feature. 

How do you do that? By placing 

all your queries (at least those against 

tables that change infrequently but 

are queried often) inside functions, so 

that you can easily add the RESULT_ 

CACHE clause. 

Think about it: today you probably 

don’t do that. Instead, whenever 

you need data from the database, you 

write the required query, right there in 

the application logic you are writing 

(whether that logic resides in the back 

end—other PL/SQL programs—or the 

front end—languages such as Java). 

And that same query (or some minor 

variation on it) will likely appear in 

multiple places in your application 

code. Why not? It is so easy to write 

those SQL statements; that’s one of the 

beauties of PL/SQL. But that ease of use 

in executing SQL inside PL/SQL makes 

us all take SQL for granted, and when 

you upgrade to Oracle Database 11g, 

you will pay the price. 

If after upgrading, you want to take 

advantage of RESULT_CACHE, you 

will have to find every affected SQL 


statement and either put the RESULT_ 

CACHE hint inside that query (that’s 

right, this feature is available natively 

within SQL as well as for functions) or 

construct the function, put the query 

inside it, find each of the applicable 

queries, and replace the query with the 

function call. 

Certainly both of these approaches 

are eminently doable, but they are also 

very unlikely to happen. IT managers 

are loathe to go into existing, working 

production code and upset the applecart 

by making lots of changes. 

If, conversely, you start right now, in 

Oracle9i Database or Oracle Database 

10g, to place your queries inside functions, 

you will almost instantly be able 

to upgrade your code to use this fantastic 

new feature when you upgrade to 

Oracle Database 11g. 

And, best of all, the application code 

that calls the function will not have to 

be changed at all! Your manager will be 

very impressed. 

And that is why you should learn 

about the new features of Oracle 

Database 11g. Today. � 

Steven Feuerstein (steven.feuerstein@quest.com) is 

Quest Software’s PL/SQL evangelist. He has published 

10 books on Oracle’s programming language, including 

Oracle PL/SQL Programming and Oracle PL/SQL Best 

Practices (O’Reilly Media). Feuerstein’s self-appointed 

mission in life these days is to improve the quality and 

quantity of PL/SQL code testing. 


PL/SQL function result cache 


o57asktom.html 


READ more 

Best Practice PL/SQL 

otn.oracle.com/pub/columns/plsql 

PL/SQL Practices 

otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/plsql 

DOWNLOAD 



test scripts for comparing row 

retrieval speed 

otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57plsql.zip

TIM WEBB 

technologyPARTITIONING 

More Partitioning Choices 

Learn when and how to use new partitioning schemes in Oracle Database 11g. 

he July/August 2006 issue of 

Oracle Magazine included an 

article I wrote on the various types 

of database partitioning and how 

to choose a partitioning strategy to meet 

your specific requirements. In Oracle 

Database 11g, the partitioning schemes 

have been greatly expanded to offer more 

functionality, including the 

ability to define new composite 

partitioning, choose 

a partition interval, specify 

a foreign key to inherit the 

partitioning key of its parent 

table, and partition on 

virtual columns. 

REFERENTIAL PARTITIONING 

Consider a hypothetical 

company, Acme Hotels, for 

which you are building a 

hotel reservation system. 

One core table, named 

RES, stores the reservation 

information. Here are the 

columns of the RES table: 

RES_ID NUMBER 

RES_DATE DATE 

HOTEL_ID NUMBER(3) 

GUEST_ID NUMBER 

The res_id, res_date, hotel_id, and 

guest_id columns refer to a unique ID 

number for the reservation, the date for 

which the reservation was made, the 

unique ID of the hotel for which the 

reservation was made, and the unique 

identifier of the guest who made the 

reservation, respectively. Because most 

users query on the res_date column and 

it is also used to identify records for partitioning, 

you decide to range-partition 

the table on that column with a partition 

per quarter, as shown in Listing 1. 

Next, you want to create a table to 

hold the transactions resulting from the 

reservations. The table, called TRANS, 

looks like this: 

TRANS_ID NUMBER 

RES_ID NUMBER 

TRANS_DATE DATE 

AMT NUMBER 

There can be many transactions for 

a specific reservation, and each record 

is uniquely identified by a trans_id. 

Because TRANS is a child table of RES, 

there is a foreign key on the TRANS.res_ 

id column, pointing to the RES table. 

Because the TRANS table has the same 

archival requirements as the RES table, 

you want to partition it in exactly the 

same way—range-partition on res_date, 

with one partition per quarter. 

But there is a problem: the TRANS 

table does not have a res_date column, 

so how can you partition on a column 

that does not exist? 

Enter Oracle Database 11g. 

Oracle Database 11g provides a very 

useful new feature: referential partition- 

BY ARUP NANDA 

ing. So instead of adding a res_date 

column to the TRANS table and specifying 

the partitioning clause, as you did for 

RES in Listing 1, you can specify a simple 

PARTITION BY REFERENCE clause in 

Oracle Database 11g, as shown in Listing 

2. You must pass the foreign key constraint 

name as an argument that tells 

how the references are established. 

For instance, in this 

case, you are creating referential 

partitions on TRANS, 

referencing the foreign key 

as FK_TRANS_01, which 

points to the parent table 

RES. The TRANS table will 

inherit the partitioning 

strategy of the RES table, 

even though the partitioning 

column is not present 

in TRANS. Referential 

partitioning essentially 

instructs Oracle Database to 

equipartition the child table 

(TRANS, in this example) in 

exactly the same way as the 

parent table (RES). 

You can see how the 

referential partitioning has been set up, 

by querying the USER_PART_TABLES 

dictionary view, as shown in Listing 3. 

The partitioning_type column shows 

the type of partitioning scheme; in 

Listing 3, the type is REFERENCE, and 

the ref_ptn_constraint_name column 

shows the foreign key constraint name, 

FK_TRANS_01, when the partition 

type is REFERENCE. 

To check the boundaries of the 

partitions, query the USER_TAB_ 

PARTITIONS dictionary view, as shown 

in Listing 4. Note that the boundaries of 

the partitions of the TRANS child table, 

shown in the HIGH_VALUE column, 

are all null. This indicates that the 

boundaries are the same as those of the 


PARTITIONING 

partitions of the RES parent table and 

are not independently defined. 

With referential partitioning, you can 

partition any child table in the same way 

as its parent to improve performance 

and meet archival requirements, even 

though the partition key column is not 

present in any of the child tables. 

Suppose you purge the RES table by 

dropping partitions. All the child tables 

are consequently purged as well, automatically. 

When you add a partition to 

the parent, a corresponding partition is 

added to the child table, automatically. 

Similarly, when you split the PM partition 

of the RES table to carve out a new 

partition, the PM partition of the TRANS 

table is also split into two partitions, at 

exactly the same point. Here is how you 

can split the PM partition of the RES 

table at the value 401: 

alter table res 

split partition pm 

at (401) 

into (partition p4, partition pm); 

Now if you query the partitions of 

the TRANS table, the child, you see 

select partition_name 

from user_tab_partitions 

where table_name = ‘TRANS’; 

PARTITION_NAME 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– ––––––– 

P1 

P2 

P3 

P4 

SYS_P45 

Note the new partition, SYS_P45, 

which was created when the PM partition 

was split. (The SYS_P45 name 

comes from a sequence number prefixed 

by SYS_P.) You may want to change its 

name to be consistent with the naming 

of the PM partition in RES. To rename it, 

use the following SQL: 

alter table trans rename partition 

SYS_P45 to PM; 

Note that if the child table had any 

codeLISTING 1: Creation of RES table 

create table res ( 

res_id number primary key not null, 

res_date date, 

hotel_id number(3), 

guest_id number 

) 

partition by range (res_date) ( 

partition p1 values less than (to_date(‘01/01/2007’,’mm/dd/yyyy’)), 




partition pm values less than (maxvalue) 

); 

create table trans ( 

trans_id number not null, 

res_id number not null, 

trans_date date not null, 

amt number, 

constraint fk_trans_01 

foreign key (res_id) 

references res 

) 

partition by reference 

(fk_trans_01); 


codeLISTING 2: Creating TRANS table, using reference partitioning 

codeLISTING 3: Checking for foreign key in reference partitioning 

SQL> select table_name, partitioning_type, ref_ptn_constraint_name 

2 from user_part_tables 

3 where table_name in (‘RES’, ’TRANS’); 

TABLE_NAME PARTITIONING_TYPE REF_PTN_CONSTRAINT_NAME 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

RES RANGE 

TRANS REFERENCE FK_TRANS_01 

locally partitioned indexes, their corresponding 

partitions would have been 

split as well. When you drop or split 

partitions on the parent, the operations 

are performed on the corresponding 

partitions on the child. If the parent has 

multiple referentially partitioned child 

tables, the operations are performed 

automatically on all of them. Referential 

partitioning enables you to define an 

appropriate partitioning strategy for the 

parent table while leaving the details out 

for the child tables. This not only simplifies 

the administration of partitioned 

objects significantly but also allows equipartitioning 

even when it is not desirable 

to include the partition key columns 

in the child table—or even possible to 

include them, such as with prepackaged 

applications where adding an extra 

column in a table is not allowed. 

INTERVAL PARTITIONING 

What happens when an incoming record 

in an INSERT statement has a value 

in the partitioning key column, for 

which no partitions have been defined? 

The INSERT will fail. However, if you 

have defined a default partition by, for 

example, using the MAXVALUE clause 

in a range-partition scheme (as shown in 

Listing 1) or the DEFAULT partition for 

a list-partitioned table, the INSERT will 

not fail but the new record will go into 

the default partition, which defeats the 

purpose of partitioning. So you have to 

ensure that you have a partition available 

for all possible records coming into 

the table; you have to carefully identify 

all possible values and then create partitions 

for all of them before the actual 

data arrives. For instance, suppose that 

the RES table is partitioned on the res_

id column with partitions defined on 

value ranges 1–100, 101–200, and 201– 

300, so that you have defined partitions 

up to res_id = 300. You can monitor the 

maximum res_id column value, and just 

before it approaches 300, you can create 

a new p4 partition for values 301–400. 

This task may be easier said than 

done. If you forget to add the partition, 

the new record with res_id = 301 will 

either fail to insert or go into the default 

partition, if you have defined one. 

Wouldn’t it be great if the partitions were 

somehow created automatically? 

Oracle Database 11g can do exactly 

that: create partitions automatically as 

needed without your intervention. To 

accomplish this, implement an interval 

partitioning method, as follows: 






) 

partition by range (res_id) 

interval (100) store in (users) 

( 

partition p1 values less than (101) 

); 

This script creates a partition named 

p1 for records in which the value of 

the res_id column is 1–100. When 

records with a res_id value of less 

than 101 are inserted, they go into the 

p1 partition, but when a new record 

shows up with a res_id value equal to 

or greater than 101, Oracle Database 

11g creates a new partition for it with a 

system-generated name. For instance, 

suppose you insert a record that has a 

res_id value of 901, as follows: 

insert into res values (901,sysdate,1,1); 

Now check the partitions defined on 

the table by executing the query shown 

in Listing 5. Note how the partition 

SYS_P82 was created automatically to 

hold the new 901 value, which was not 

within the boundary value of the P1 partition. 

At this time, if you insert another 

record with a res_id value of 301, the 

codeLISTING 4: Checking partitions of tables 

SQL> select table_name, partition_name, high_value 

2 from user_tab_partitions 

3 where table_name in (‘RES’, ’TRANS’); 

TABLE_NAME PARTITION_NAME HIGH_VALUE 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– ––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

RES P1 TO_DATE(‘ 2007-01-01 00:00:00’, ‘SYYYY-M 

M-DD HH24:MI:SS’, ‘NLS_CALENDAR=GREGORIA 







RES PM MAXVALUE 

TRANS P1 

TRANS P2 

TRANS P3 

TRANS P4 

TRANS PM 

codeLISTING 5: Checking partitions generated in interval partitioning 

SQL> select partition_position, partition_name, high_value 

2 from user_tab_partitions 

3 where table_name = ‘RES’ 

4 order by 1; 

PARTITION_POSITION PARTITION_NAME HIGH_VALUE 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– ––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

1 P1 101 

2 SYS_P82 1001 

The result of the same query after inserting res_id = 301: 

PARTITION_POSITION PARTITION_NAME HIGH_VALUE 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– ––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

1 P1 101 

2 SYS_P83 401 

3 SYS_P82 1001 

partition SYS_P82 is split in two, as 

shown in the output at the bottom half 

of Listing 5. 

You may want to address partitions 

by name, such as when you are truncating 

a specific partition. Given that the 

partition names are generated at runtime 

and you don’t know them in advance, 

how can you address the specific partition 

of the table? For instance, suppose 

you want to truncate the partition that 

contains the value 901 as the res_id 

but you don’t know the name of the 

partition. One way to find the partition 

name is to query the USER_TAB_ 

PARTITIONS data dictionary view, 

as shown in Listings 4 and 5, but an 

easier way is to use the expanded partition 

access syntax in Oracle Database 

11g. You can truncate that partition by 

issuing the following SQL: 

alter table res truncate partition 

for (901); 

You can use the FOR (value) syntax 

in any direct partition access SQL statement 

for any kind of partitioned table, 

not only for interval-partitioned tables. 

In interval partitioning, the first partition 

you specify in the table creation 

script is created in the default tablespace 

of the user but the subsequent partitions 

are created in the default tablespace of 

the database, not that of the user. Even 

if you change the attributes of the table 

to change the default tablespace, the 

new partitions still go into the default 

tablespace of the database. To force them 

to go to different tablespaces, you have 

to specify an additional clause at table 

creation time. To specify the RESDATA1 

and RESDATA2 tablespaces as the loca- 


PARTITIONING 

tions for all new partitions, include the 

STORE IN clause after the INTERVAL 

clause, as follows: 

interval (100) store in (resdata1,resdata2) 

Now the new partitions will be 

spread over these two tablespaces in a 

round-robin manner. 

You can also use a time stamp as the 

partitioning interval. This comes in handy 

for creating a table containing date ranges 

and a partition for each month of records. 

To accomplish that, write the INTERVAL 

clause as follows: 

interval (numtoyminterval(1, ’MONTH’)) 

EXPANDED COMPOSITE PARTITIONING 

In my earlier partitioning article, I showed 

another important feature: composite partitioning. 

A composite partition is a partition 

further broken up into subpartitions. 

Up through Oracle Database 10g Release 

2, you could divide only range partitions 

into hash or list subpartitions. Although 

this was adequate for most partitioning, 

some situations could really benefit 

from a range subpartition. For instance, 

consider the example of the hotel reservations 

table (RES) you saw earlier. 

Suppose the hotel ID shows the type of 

hotel: values 1–100 are for 5-star hotels, 

values 101–200 indicate 4-star hotels, 

and so on. Because a comparative revenue 

analysis is usually done within the same 

star rating, users tend to select the data 

for a specific range of hotel IDs, such as 

1–100 only. Therefore, it makes a lot of 

sense to range-partition the RES table on 

the hotel_id column. However, users also 

tend to select the most recent data and 

you may want to store the older data on 

cheaper disks to save storage costs. So a 

perfectly valid competing argument may 

be to range-partition the table on the 

res_date column. Both are attractive alternatives—which 

one should you choose? 

Why not both? In Oracle Database 

11g, you can create—in addition to 

already available range-hash and rangelist 

composite partitioning—the following: 

range-range, list-range, list-hash, 

and list-list composite partitioning. In 

this example, you can create range parti- 

codeLISTING 6: Range-range composite subpartitioning 






) 

partition by range (res_date) 

interval (numtoyminterval(1,’MONTH’)) store in (example) 

subpartition by range (hotel_id) 

subpartition template 

( 

subpartition s1 values less than (101), 




subpartition sm values less than (maxvalue) 

) 

( 

partition p1 values less than (to_date(‘01-FEB-2007’,’DD-MON-YYYY’)) 

); 

tions on res_date and then create a range 

subpartition on the hotel_id column, 

as shown in Listing 6. Note that I have 

deliberately chosen an interval scheme 

for the partitioning. I could have chosen 

explicit partition names and high values 

as well, but I wanted to show how you 

can use interval partitioning to ease 

maintenance. I could instead have chosen 

to reverse the order of partitioning—I 

could have partitioned on hotel_id and 

then subpartitioned on res_date. To find 

the subpartitions created, you can select 

from the USER_TAB_SUBPARTITIONS 

data dictionary view, as follows: 

SQL> select partition_name, 

2 subpartition_name 

3 from user_tab_subpartitions 

4 where table_name = ‘RES’; 

PARTITION_NAME SUBPARTITION_NAME 

–––––––––––––––––– – –––– ––––––– ––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––– 

P1 P1_SM 

P1 P1_S4 

P1 P1_S3 

P1 P1_S2 

P1 P1_S1 

SYS_P106 SYS_SUBP105 





The online version of this article, at 


o57partition.html, includes information 


on partitioning with new virtual columns 

available in Oracle Database 11g. 

CONCLUSION 

Partitioning is a powerful feature in 

modern database design that enables 

easier database administration with no 

change in logical design. In most cases, it 

helps accomplish the seemingly contradictory 

objectives of fine-grained storage, 

backup, archival, and retrieval—all 

with no application changes. In Oracle 

Database 11g, the partitioning option is 

further enhanced with the introduction 

of referential and interval partitioning, 

extended composite partitioning, and 

partitioning on virtual columns to offer a 

compelling reason to include partitioning 

in your physical database design. � 

Arup Nanda (arup@proligence.com) has been an 

Oracle DBA for more than 12 years, handling all 

aspects of database administration, from performance 

tuning to security and disaster recovery. He was Oracle 

Magazine’s DBA of the Year in 2003. 

READ online-only article content 


o57partition.html 

READ more about partitioning 


“Partition Decisions” 





JOSEF GAST 

technologySTORAGE 

BY JONATHAN GENNICK 

Faster, Safer, and Smaller LOBs 

Oracle SecureFiles provides increased performance, better security, and reduced disk usage. 

any organizations today face 

the challenge of an explosion 

in the amount of unstructured, 

often file-based data 

that must be managed in conjunction 

with the more-structured data typically 

associated with relational databases. 

Banking applications store check 

images for cleared checks, 

healthcare applications 

store digital images from 

X-rays and CAT scans, 

geospatial systems store 

satellite imagery, enterprise 

resource planning systems 

store invoice images, and 

the list goes on. 


makes significant strides 

in addressing the problem 

of unstructured data, by 

introducing a completely 

new storage infrastructure 

for data that today is often 

left in file systems. This 

new infrastructure is called 

Oracle SecureFiles, and 

it is a complete, drop-in 

replacement of Oracle’s previous largeobject 

(LOB) infrastructure (now called 

BasicFiles). Every facet of the Oracle 

SecureFiles LOB architecture, from disk 

format to network protocol to redo and 

undo algorithms, has been rethought 

and reimplemented to 

��Improve performance 

��Improve security 

��Reduce disk usage 

Suppose you’re migrating digital 

assets from databases and file systems 

and developing a more-complete digital 

asset management system such as one 

a magazine publisher might use. Your 

system must manage article drafts 

and the workflow involved in writing, 

editing, revising, and publishing that 

content. This article describes how to set 

up and configure Oracle SecureFiles and 

how to migrate sample content for this 

digital asset management system. 

CONFIGURING YOUR INSTANCE 

After installing Oracle Database 11g and 

before using Oracle SecureFiles, check 

the setting of the new Oracle Database 

11g db_securefile initialization parameter. 

The default setting is 

db_securefile = permitted 

This setting makes BasicFiles, not 

SecureFiles, the default storage approach 

for any new LOB columns you create 

while enabling you to explicitly specify 

SecureFiles when needed. (BasicFiles is 

also the LOB architecture in previous 

database releases.) Other settings give 

you various options for forcing the use 

of one or the other storage type. For 

example, you can set db_securefile = 

force to ensure that all LOBs are created 

as SecureFiles even when the creating 

user explicitly specifies otherwise. You 

should be aware of which db_securefile 

setting is in effect for your database. 

CREATING TABLESPACES 

Any tablespaces you plan to use with 

Oracle SecureFiles need to be configured 

for automatic segment space management 

(ASSM). The key here is to 

specify SEGMENT SPACE 

MANAGEMENT AUTO 

when creating your LOB 

tablespaces. The following 

creates the ARTICLE_LOBS 

tablespace for this article: 

CREATE TABLESPACE 

article_lobs 

DATAFILE ‘H:\APP\ 

JONATHAN\ORADATA\ORCL\ 

ARTICLE_LOBS.DBF’ 

SIZE 5M 

EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL 

SEGMENT SPACE 

MANAGEMENT AUTO; 

If you are following 

along with this article’s 

example, be sure to give yourself adequate 

quota on the ARTICLE_LOBS tablespace. 

You’ll also need to adjust the datafile path 

to something appropriate for your system. 

SETTING UP FOR ENCRYPTION 

Oracle SecureFiles provides optional 

transparent data encryption of LOBs. 

Transparent data encryption protects 

LOB data from unauthorized users who 

might somehow gain access to a datafile. 

This encryption is completely transparent 

to end users and applications. 

If you plan to use encryption with 

Oracle SecureFiles, you’ll need to create 

a transparent data encryption wallet to 

hold the encryption key. First, create 

a directory to contain the wallet. You 


STORAGE 

can place that directory underneath 

$ORACLE_HOME. For example 

mkdir H:\app\Jonathan\product\11.1.0\ 

db_1\wallet 

Next, add an ENCRYPTION_ 

WALLET_LOCATION setting to your 

sqlnet.ora file. You’ll find sqlnet.ora 

in $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin. 

Following is the setting corresponding 

to the directory just created: 

ENCRYPTION_WALLET_LOCATION= 

(SOURCE=(METHOD=FILE)(METHOD_DATA= 

(DIRECTORY= H:\app\Jonathan\product\ 

11.1.0\db_1\wallet))) 

Be certain to include the 

ENCRYPTION_WALLET_LOCATION 

setting in sqlnet.ora as one long line. 

And again, if you are following along 

with this article’s example, you’ll need to 

adjust the wallet directory to something 

appropriate for your own system. 

Finally, set an encryption key: 

ALTER SYSTEM SET ENCRYPTION KEY 

AUTHENTICATED BY “My secret key”; 

With this setting, your Oracle 

Database instance will generate an 

encryption key and place it in the 

wallet. The wallet is then protected by 

the password “My secret key.” 

CREATING SECUREFILE LOBS 

Creating an Oracle SecureFiles LOB 

can be as simple as specifying STORE 

AS SECUREFILE in the LOB storage 

clause of a CREATE TABLE or ALTER 

TABLE statement. (Be sure to assign 

your SecureFiles LOBs to appropriate, 

ASSM-enabled tablespaces.) Listing 1 

creates the article_draft_redef table, 

with a single, SecureFiles LOB column 

named article_content. Data for that 

LOB is assigned to the ARTICLE_LOBS 

tablespace (created earlier in this 

article). Each row in the table contains a 

magazine article at a specific stage in the 

writing/editing/revising cycle. 

Listing 1 shows some of the options 

available when creating a new LOB. 

RETENTION MIN 3600 ensures 

codeLISTING 1: Creating an Oracle SecureFiles LOB 

CREATE TABLE article_draft_redef ( 

article_id NUMBER, 

article_stage VARCHAR(10), 

article_content BLOB, 

CONSTRAINT article_stage_check_b 

CHECK (article_stage IN ( 

‘1st Draft’, ‘Edit Pass’, ‘2nd Draft’, 

‘Copyedit’, ‘Review’, ‘Final’)), 

CONSTRAINT article_draft_pk_b 

PRIMARY KEY (article_id) 

) 

LOB (article_content) STORE AS SECUREFILE 

article_content ( 

TABLESPACE article_lobs 

RETENTION MIN 3600 

KEEP_DUPLICATES NOCOMPRESS DECRYPT 

CACHE READS); 

that at least one hour (60 minutes x 60 

seconds/minute = 3,600) of undo data 

is retained for the LOB column. This 

ability to specify a minimum retention 

time is helpful for running your database 

in flashback mode. The default is 

RETENTION AUTO, which retains only 

enough undo to satisfy consistent read 

requests while a transaction is in progress. 

You can also specify a maximum 

retention in bytes or no retention at all. 

See the Oracle SQL Reference for details 

on the syntax for retention. 

KEEP_DUPLICATES, 

NOCOMPRESS, and DECRYPT explicitly 

disable deduplication, compression, 

and encryption. I’ll come back to these 

options later in the article. In real life, 

you would likely enable one or more of 

them from the beginning. 

CACHE READS causes LOB data to 

be placed into the buffer cache during 

read operations but not during write 

operations. You gain improved read performance 

here at the price of potentially 

crowding other data out of the buffer 

cache. NOCACHE specifies the default 

behavior, which is never to bring a 

LOB’s data into the buffer cache. 

I’ve created the article_draft_redef 

table in Listing 1 to migrate a table that 

uses the older BasicFiles to the newer 

SecureFiles storage method. To follow 

along with the migration, download the 

o57securefiles.zip file referenced under 

“nextSTEPS” at the end of this article, 

unzip that file, and follow the instructions 

in readme.txt to create the original 


table named article_draft that I will be 

migrating. The logical column structure 

of article_draft is exactly the same as 

that of article_draft_redef. 

The article_draft table contains existing 

LOB data stored with BasicFiles. 

I’ll assume that that data is in use by 

running applications and that I want 

to migrate that data from BasicFiles 

to SecureFiles. The article_draft_redef 

table, with its SecureFiles LOB column, 

represents the destination of the 

article_draft table data. (Bonus! There is 

even a real article for you to read in the 

example data.) 

PLANNING A MIGRATION 

Because Oracle SecureFiles represents a 

completely new way of writing LOB data 

to the database, the only way to migrate 

LOB data from BasicFiles to SecureFiles 

is essentially to rewrite the data by recreating 

or redefining the tables containing 

BasicFiles columns. If you can afford 

to take your data offline, you can simply 

select data from your old table and 

insert it into the new one. Begin with a 

statement such as 

INSERT INTO article_draft_redef 

SELECT article_id, 

article_stage, 

article_content 

FROM article_draft; 

Follow this INSERT with a DROP 

and a RENAME to make the new table 

take the place of the old one:

DROP TABLE article_draft; 

RENAME article_draft_redef 

TO article_draft; 

There’s really no need to take your 

data offline, though. Instead, consider 

using the online table redefinition 

feature introduced in Oracle9i Database 

Release 1. Listing 2 shows a PL/SQL 

block that migrates the article_draft 

table to the structure indicated by the 

article_draft_redef table. Online table 

definition is very easy to do, and it 

makes the migration transparent to 

users and applications, because the 

table being migrated remains available 

the entire time. 

If your LOB table happens to be 

partitioned, another approach to consider 

is partition exchange. You can 

specify LOB storage on a perpartition 

basis, giving you the option 

of migrating one partition at a time 

from BasicFiles to SecureFiles. Use the 

URL under “nextSTEPS” to go to Arup 

Nanda’s article on partitioning features, 

“Partition Decisions,” where you will 

find an example showing how partition 

exchange is done. 

Be sure you have enough tablespace 

and disk space set aside to support 

whatever migration method you 

choose. For the online redefinition 

approach, you’ll need enough space 

for two complete copies of your data 

to coexist. Partition exchange requires 

only enough disk space to hold two 

copies of whichever partition you are 

exchanging. Bear in mind that one 

downside of partition exchange is that 

the partition being swapped needs to 

be briefly taken offline. In the end, 

you’ll have to weigh the different 

approaches and their trade-offs and 

choose the approach that works best in 

your own situation. 

CONFIRMING MIGRATION 

You can confirm the SecureFiles status 

of a given LOB column by checking 

that column’s segment subtype. For 

example, execute the following to 

confirm that article_content is now a 

SecureFiles LOB: 

codeLISTING 2: Migrating by online redefinition 

DECLARE 

error_counter PLS_INTEGER; 

BEGIN 

--Begin the redefinition process 

DBMS_REDEFINITION.START_REDEF_TABLE ( 

‘gennick’, ’article_draft’, ’article_draft_redef’, 

‘article_id, article_stage, article_content’); 

--Finish the redefinition process 

DBMS_REDEFINITION.FINISH_REDEF_TABLE ( 

‘gennick’, ’article_draft’, ’article_draft_redef’); 

END; 

codeLISTING 3: Checking space used by a LOB 

DECLARE 

seg_blocks NUMBER; 

seg_bytes NUMBER; 

used_blocks NUMBER; 

used_bytes NUMBER; 

expired_blocks NUMBER; 

expired_bytes NUMBER; 

unexpired_blocks NUMBER; 

unexpired_bytes NUMBER; 

BEGIN 

DBMS_SPACE.SPACE_USAGE ( 

‘GENNICK’, ‘ARTICLE_CONTENT’, ‘LOB’ 

, seg_blocks, seg_bytes, used_blocks, used_bytes 

, expired_blocks, expired_bytes, unexpired_blocks, unexpired_bytes); 

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘Bytes used = ‘ || to_char(used_bytes)); 

END; 

SELECT segment_subtype 

FROM user_segments 

WHERE segment_name=’ARTICLE_CONTENT’; 

The result you want to see is 

SECUREFILE, which indicates 

SecureFiles storage. If you see ASSM, 

you’re still set for BasicFiles storage. 

ENABLING DEDUPLICATION 

Having migrated to Oracle SecureFiles, 

you can choose to enable deduplication, 

an Oracle SecureFiles feature whereby 

the database server stores only one 

copy of a given LOB in a given column 

within the same partition. Two or more 

users can independently store the same 

data in a LOB column—storing the 

same article draft twice, for example— 

and the database keeps track of that 

duplication, storing only one copy of 

the data. Deduplication is transparent. 

Users each perceive that they have their 

own copy of deduplicated data, even 

though that is not really the case. 

In a real-life migration, it would 

likely make sense to deduplicate during, 

not after, the migration process. For 

example purposes, though, it’s nice to 

be able to see that removal of duplicates 

is actually occurring. Run the 

code in Listing 3 to see how many 

bytes are in use by the LOB segment. 

(Be sure to change the first parameter 

of the procedure call to a valid schema 

name on your system.) On my system, 

the result is 

Bytes used = 450560 

To deduplicate the data in the 

article_content column in the 

article_draft table, issue the following 

ALTER TABLE statement: 


STORAGE 

ALTER TABLE article_draft 

MODIFY LOB(article_content) 

(DEDUPLICATE LOB); 

Existing LOBs in the article_content 

column will be scanned, and any current 

duplicates will be detected and eliminated. 

Any new LOB values written to 

the column will be checked against existing 

values to prevent future duplication. 

Now, run the code in Listing 3 again, 

and you can see the effects of the deduplication. 

The number of bytes used by 

the segment should be reduced. On my 

system, I see the following, lower usage: 


The number of bytes used in the LOB 

segment has dropped because document 

#6 is a duplicate of an article stored in a 

different row. Because of deduplication, 

that article is not stored twice. Instead, a 

pointer is stored to the LOB in that other 

row. When you read the contents of the 

LOB for document #6, that pointer is 

dereferenced for you in a completely 

transparent manner. 

Duplicate detection is based on 

checksums computed with the SHA1 

cryptographic hash algorithm. When you 

write a new LOB into a LOB segment, a 

checksum is computed over the first n 

bytes of that new LOB. If that checksum 

doesn’t match that for any existing LOB 

in the segment, the new LOB is written 

to the database. Checksums are saved for 

each LOB, for future deduplication. 

When the checksum for a newly 

incoming LOB matches an existing 

checksum, there is the strong possibility 

that the two LOBs are identical. The 

database instance will begin doing a 

byte-by-byte comparison of the incoming 

LOB data with the possible duplicate that 

is already stored. That possible duplicate 

is referred to as the primary LOB. The 

comparison process reads the primary 

LOB, but no new data is written, so long 

as the LOB data continues to match. 

If the LOBs compare as equal, only a 

pointer to the primary LOB is written. 

If the comparison fails, data from the 

primary LOB up to that point is used to 

construct the first part of the new LOB, 

and remaining incoming data for the 

new LOB is written to disk. 

ENABLING COMPRESSION 

Compression encodes the data in a LOB to 

reduce the number of bytes required to 

store that LOB. Compression is transparent 

and reduces the amount of storage 

needed for your LOB data, giving you 

more benefit from each dollar your organization 

spends on disk storage systems. 

Compression requires additional CPU 

cycles, so be sure that compression is 

worthwhile before enabling it on a LOB 

column. For example, image data, such 

as PNG files and JPEG files, is often compressed 

as part of the encoding scheme 

used. Further compression of image 

files may be a waste of CPU cycles. But 

text-based data such as XML and wordprocessing 

documents tends to compress 

a great deal, making the trade-off of CPU 

time for more disk space very worthwhile. 

To enable compression on the sample 

SecureFiles LOB column, issue the following 

ALTER TABLE statement: 

ALTER TABLE article_draft 

MODIFY LOB(article_content) 

(COMPRESS HIGH); 

This statement activates a high level 

of compression on the column data. 

You can specify MEDIUM to trade away 

some of that compression for reduced 

CPU cycles. There is currently no LOW 

compression option, but that keyword is 

reserved for future implementation. 

If you rerun the code in Listing 3, 

you should see that even less space is 

now used by the LOB segment. I get the 

following result: 


The online version of this article, at 


o57securefiles.html, includes information 

on compression benefits and 

instructions for enabling encryption 

with Oracle SecureFiles. 

REAP THE BENEFITS! 

Oracle SecureFiles offers three compelling 

features you can take advantage 


of immediately without making any 

changes to your LOB-using applications: 

��Deduplication 

��Compression 

��Encryption 

Preliminary testing also shows significant 

increases in performance through 

use of Oracle SecureFiles. Oracle’s inhouse 

testing shows a 200 to 900 percent 

increase in write performance, depending 

on LOB size and whether existing 

segment space is being reused. Earlyadopter 

clients have reported 300 to 700 

percent increases in performance of key 

application functions. 

Because Oracle SecureFiles is completely 

backward-compatible with 

BasicFiles, even to the point of using 

the same datatype names, you can begin 

to take advantage of everything Oracle 

SecureFiles has to offer, almost from the 

moment you upgrade to Oracle Database 

11g. You do need to rewrite your LOB 

data in the database, but you can do that 

while keeping the data online, and the 

change is completely transparent to both 

users and applications. 

Oracle SecureFiles is a gift. Drop it in. 

Take immediate advantage of improved 

performance, save money on disk 

storage, and secure your data from those 

who would do you harm. � 

Jonathan Gennick (www.gennick.com) is an 

experienced Oracle professional and member of 

the Oak Table Network. He wrote the best-selling 

SQL Pocket Guide and the Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket 

Reference, both from O’Reilly Media. 

READ online-only article content 


o57securefiles.html 


partition exchange 

“Partition Decisions” 



Oracle SecureFiles 

Oracle Database 11g Large Object’s Developer’s Guide 


DOWNLOAD 

sample code for this article 


o57securefiles.zip 


otn.oracle.com/products/database

technologySQL DEVELOPER 

BY SUE HARPER 

Moving to an Oracle Database 

Use Oracle Migration Workbench to migrate third-party schema objects to an Oracle database. 

oes your business have a collection 

of different databases 

in house? Do you want an easy 

way to review all the data in 

these various databases by using one tool 

and then, in some cases, to consolidate 

the databases by migrating objects and 

data to an Oracle database? This column 

introduces the new Oracle Migration 

Workbench, a powerful extension to 

Oracle SQL Developer that enables you 

to access data in Oracle and third-party 

databases and migrate third-party 

databases—including the schema objects, 

triggers, and stored procedures—to an 

Oracle9i Database or Oracle Database 

10g. Third-party databases currently supported 

include Microsoft SQL Server, 

Microsoft Access, and MySQL. 

This column shows you how to set 

up your environment and then, using 

a Microsoft SQL Server database as an 

example, how to browse and migrate 

database objects and data from SQL 

Server to an Oracle database. 

CONFIGURING THE ENVIRONMENT 

Before you migrate your third-party 

database objects, you need to configure 

your Oracle SQL Developer and Oracle 

Migration Workbench environment to 

work with your third-party database(s). 

Oracle Migration Workbench is available 

in Oracle SQL Developer as of Release 

1.2.0.29.98. You can download Oracle 

SQL Developer at otn.oracle.com/ 

products/database/sql_developer. 

Oracle SQL Developer uses Java 

DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) to 

connect to databases, so in addition to 

installing Oracle SQL Developer, you 

need to install and set up the JDBC 

drivers for the third-party database to 

which you want to connect. The following 

includes download requirements 

and location information for supported 

third-party databases: 

��The MySQL JDBC driver, version 5.04, 

is available at http://dev.mysql.com/ 

downloads/connector/j/5.0.html. 

��Microsoft SQL Server requires the jTDS 

driver, available at http://jtds.sourceforge 

.net. The download for version 1.2 is 

available at http://sourceforge.net/project/ 

showfiles.php?group_id=33291. 

��Microsoft Access does not require 

an additional driver, because it uses a 

JDBC/ODBC bridge. 

SETTING UP JDBC DRIVERS 

Once you have downloaded the JDBC 

drivers you need, expand the driver 

binary JAR file, typically a separate JAR 

file inside the downloaded archive file: 

�� For MySQL, the mysql-connectorjava-5.0.4.tar.gz 

(or .zip) download 

includes a binary driver JAR file called 

mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar. 

��For SQL Server, the jtds-1.2-dist.zip 

file includes a file called jtds-1.2.jar. 

Ensure that your third-party database 

is up and running, and start up Oracle 

SQL Developer. From the main menu, 

select Tools -> Preferences…, expand 

the Database node, select Third Party 

JDBC Drivers, and click Add Entry.… 

Then browse to and select the JAR file 

mentioned above, and click OK. 

CREATING DATABASE CONNECTIONS 

Before you can work with a database 

in Oracle SQL Developer, you need to 

create a database connection. Create 

a connection for any third-party database 

you plan to browse or migrate 

from and a connection for any Oracle 

database you plan to browse or migrate 

database objects to. 

To create a database connection 

in Oracle SQL Developer, click 

the Connections tab, right-click the 

Connections node, and select New 

Connection. For a SQL Server connection, 

click the SQLServer tab and complete 

the following: 

��Connection name, such as 

SQLServer2005_mwb 

��Username and password 

��Hostname of the machine where the 

SQL Server database resides 

�� Port 

Now click Retrieve database to 

populate the list of available SQL Server 

databases. For this column, I am using 

Northwind, a sample database provided 

with SQL Server. 

Finally, click Test, to ensure that 

you can connect successfully, and then 

click Connect to save the connection, 

close the dialog box, and connect to the 

selected SQL Server database. 

BROWSING YOUR DATA 

When you open a database connection 

in Oracle SQL Developer, a SQL worksheet 

opens to enable you to write basic 

queries and commands. Expand the SQL 

Server connection you have created, and 

navigate to the Tables node under dbo. 

You can select and drag any table onto 

the SQL worksheet, and the action will 

create a SELECT statement. Press F9 to 

execute the query. 

If you have multiple queries you 

want to execute, press F5. As with any 

other Oracle database connection, you 

can sort the returned data by clicking 

the column headings. 

To view the definition of a table 

such as Customers in the Connections 

Navigator, click the table. Note that the 

tabs displayed are slightly different from 

those available when the connection is to 

an Oracle database. Also note that when 

Oracle SQL Developer is connected to 

an Oracle database, the context menus 

offer many Data Definition Language 

(DDL) commands or utilities; the context 


SQL DEVELOPER 

menus for third-party databases are 

focused on browsing and migration. 

SETTING UP A REPOSITORY 

Oracle Migration Workbench uses an 

Oracle database schema as a migration 

repository to store the metadata it collects 

and transforms for the migration 

process. You need to set up a migration 

repository only once, regardless of how 

many migrations you perform. The 

repository consists of 37 tables, with 

associated primary keys and indexes, 

eight views, triggers, and PL/SQL code. 

Although this is not required, Oracle 

recommends that you configure a dedicated 

database schema for the repository. 

The user who creates and owns the 

repository must be granted various 

system privileges and roles. Listing 1 

creates a user named migration and 

grants the necessary privileges. 

Once you have created this user, 

you’ll need to create a new database 

connection, such as Migration_Repos, 

for this user in the same way you did 

before. However, for this user you are 

creating the connection for an Oracle 

database. After you have entered the 

necessary information, click Connect 

to save the connection and close the 

dialog box. From the main menu, select 

Migration -> Repository Management 

-> Create Repository (as shown in 

Figure 1). Select the connection for 

your new repository, and click Create. 

An Installing Repository dialog box will 

appear, showing the progress. When the 

process completes, close the dialog box. 

Two additional windows open below 

the Connections Navigator, displaying 

captured and converted models. 

MIGRATION 

The migration process comprises a few 

separate activities. Once you have connected 

to the database you want to 

migrate and have built the migration 

repository, the process is as follows: 

1. Capture the source database 

2. Convert the captured database 

3. Generate DDL for the new Oracle 

schema objects 

4. Run the generated DDL script to 

create the new user and objects 

Figure 1: Creating a repository 

Figure 2: Captured and converted models 

5. Copy any data from the source database 

to the new database, if required 

Quick Migration. Oracle SQL Developer 

also provides a Quick Migration feature. 

This wizard-driven approach migrates 

schemas and data to an Oracle database 

and supports least privilege migration, 

which means that users can migrate 

source database objects for which they 

have access to the target database without 

the DBA privilege. The Quick Migration 

wizard completes the migration process 

without user intervention. 

To invoke the Quick Migration option, 

select Migration -> Quick Migrate from 

the main menu. The wizard provides a 

single dialog box that requires you to 

select the source connection, which is the 

connection to the third-party database, 

and the target connection, which is the 


connection to the Oracle database for 

the new data. The wizard determines 

whether you have an available repository, 

and if there is none, it creates one during 

the migration process. (You can also elect 

to save or delete the repository once the 

migration is complete.) Click Verify to 

connect to the third-party and Oracle 

databases and verify that the schema in 

the Oracle database has been granted the 

necessary privileges. With verification 

complete, click Migrate to complete the 

quick migration. 

Manual Migration. Using manual migration, 

you have much more control over 

the process and can select individual 

tables or schema objects to migrate. You 

can also make updates at various stages of 

the migration process, such as renaming 

the schema and dropping or renaming

tables after they have been captured and 

before they are converted to the Oracle 

model. Let’s take them one at a time: 

Step 1. Capture the source database. Rightclick 

the source database connection 

node (SQL Server2005_mwb in this 

example) in the Connections Navigator, 

and select Capture Microsoft SQL 

Server. A progress dialog box showing 

you the capture process appears. Once 

it is complete, click Close. After the 

source has been captured, the metadata 

definitions are stored in the Migration 

Repository and are ready to be converted. 

The captured definitions are available in 

the Captured Objects window. Expand 

the new node, \\sourcehostname:port\ 

Northwind (Microsoft SQL Server), 

and browse the output. You can make 

any modifications, such as renaming 

tables, at this point. 

Step 2. Convert the captured database. 

Once you are satisfied with it, rightclick 

the newly captured model, 

\\sourcehostname:port\Northwind 

(Microsoft SQL Server), and select 

Convert to Oracle Model. A data map 

appears for you to accept or modify. For 

this exercise, click Apply to accept the 

mappings offered. A progress dialog box 

appears; click Close when the process 

completes. Figure 2 illustrates the status 

thus far. Both Captured Models and 

Converted Models reflect the metadata 

stored in the Migration Repository. 

Step 3. Generate DDL for the new Oracle 

schema objects. At this stage, you can 

elect to generate the DDL for individual 

objects or categories of objects. To generate 

all the converted objects, rightclick 

the high-level converted model, 

Converted: \\hostname:port\ 

Northwind (Microsoft SQL Server), 

and click Generate. 

Step 4. Run the script to create the new 

user and schema objects. When the DDL 

generation is complete, the DDL script 

opens in the SQL worksheet. Note that 

the opening commands create a new database 

user and grant the new user privileges. 

This means that you need to run 

the script as a user who has these privileges, 

such as SYSTEM. At the top right 

side of the SQL worksheet, select the user 

you want to run the script, as shown in 

Figure 3: Run script as system 

codeLISTING 1: Creating the migration user 

CREATE USER migration IDENTIFIED BY migration 

DEFAULT TABLESPACE users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp; 

GRANT CONNECT, RESOURCE, CREATE VIEW, CREATE PUBLIC SYNONYM 

TO migration WITH ADMIN OPTION; 

GRANT ALTER ANY ROLE, ALTER ANY SEQUENCE, ALTER ANY TABLE, ALTER TABLESPACE, ALTER ANY 

TRIGGER, COMMENT ANY TABLE, CREATE ANY SEQUENCE, CREATE ANY TABLE,CREATE ANY TRIGGER, 

CREATE ROLE, CREATE TABLESPACE, CREATE USER, DROP ANY SEQUENCE, DROP ANY TABLE, DROP ANY 

TRIGGER, DROP TABLESPACE, DROP USER, DROP ANY ROLE, GRANT ANY ROLE, INSERT ANY TABLE, 

SELECT ANY TABLE, UPDATE ANY TABLE 

TO migration; 

Figure 3, and press F5 to run the script. 

Once the script is complete, create 

a new database connection, such 

as ConvertedSQLServer_mwb, in the 

Connections Navigator to browse and 

review the newly migrated objects. 

Step 5. Copy the data from the source 

database to the new database, if required. 

The last phase of the migration process is 

to copy any data you have in the source 

database to the target database. From the 

main menu, select Migration -> Migrate 

Data. In the dialog box, select the Source 

Connection, the Target Connection, 

and the Converted Model (in this 

example, Converted: \\hostname:port\ 

Northwind (Microsoft SQL Server)), 

and click OK. You can now browse, edit, 

and work with your new objects and data 

as you would with any other schema in 

your Oracle database. 

CONCLUSION 

Oracle Migration Workbench supports 

the migration of Microsoft Access, 

Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL database 

schemas to Oracle Database. It also 

reduces the risks involved in migration 

and reduces migration time by automating 

a large portion of the process. � 

Sue Harper (sue.harper@oracle.com) is an Oracle 

senior principal product manager based in London. 

LEARN more about Oracle 

Migration Workbench 

otn.oracle.com/products/database/sql_developer 

DOWNLOAD Oracle SQL Developer 

otn.oracle.com/software/products/sql 

DISCUSS Oracle Migration Workbench 

forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=1 


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technologyASK TOM 

On Oracle Database 11g 

Our technologist takes a look at the server results and PL/SQL function caches. 

ver the next few months, I’ll be 

looking at new features coming 

out with the latest release 

of Oracle Database, Oracle 

Database 11g. There are so many to 

choose from that it was hard to pick a 

few to start with. So I’ve been talking 

with Bryn Llewellyn, the PL/SQL 

product manager, and he filled me in 

on a couple of great new SQL and 

PL/SQL features. 

CACHE IT 

Oracle Database 11g raises the bar 

on data caching. In the past, Oracle 

Database cached database blocks. It 

could cache these blocks in various 

places, such as the default pool, a keep 

buffer pool, or a recycle buffer pool. 

But it always cached blocks of data—the 

building blocks used to build result sets. 

Starting with Oracle Database 

11g, the database can also now cache 

result sets! If you have a query that is 

executed over and over again against 

slowly or never-changing data, you will 

find the new server results cache to be 

of great interest. This is a feature from 

which virtually every application can 

and will benefit. 

In a nutshell, the concept is this: 

when you run a query, Oracle Database 

11g will first see if the results of that 

query have already been computed and 

cached by some session or user, and if 

so, it will retrieve the answer from the 

server result cache instead of gathering 

all of the database blocks and computing 

the answer all over again from 

scratch. The first execution of the query 

will take as long as usual (because it is 

computing the result), but subsequent 

executions will appear to be instantaneous, 

because the answer is being 

returned immediately—instead of being 

computed and then returned. 

I view this feature as being analogous 

to a just-in-time materialized 

view. In Oracle8i Database Release 1, 

Oracle introduced the concept of materialized 

views, whereby DBAs could 

create a summary table, much as they 

might create an index, and the database 

optimizer would recognize that this 

summary table existed and, when possible, 

use it to respond to queries rather 

than query and process the detailed 

information stored in the base tables. 

This method of operation works well 

but is rather static, much like an indexing 

scheme. The Oracle Database 11g 

server results cache, however, is in 

effect creating and maintaining materialized 

views on the fly, using a cache. The 

server result cache (a just-in-time materialized 

view) is populated as needed 

without DBA intervention. 

By way of example, I’ll copy the 

ALL_OBJECTS table into a table: 

SQL> create table t 

2 as 

3 select * 

4 from all_objects; 

Table created. 

Now I’ll create a small function that 

executes a report—a query against this 

table. To clearly demonstrate the difference 

in performance of this query, 

I’ll do nothing inside the loop (where 

I would normally be printing the rows 

and performing some computation): 

SQL> create or replace procedure 

2 my_function 

3 as 

4 begin 

5 for x in 

6 (select owner, 

7 object_type, 

8 count(*) cnt 

BY TOM KYTE 

9 from t 

10 group by owner, object_type 

11 order by owner, object_type ) 

12 loop 

13 -- do_something 

14 null; 

15 end loop; 

16 end; 

17 / 

Procedure created. 

Now I execute this process three 

times, noting the time it takes to 

execute each invocation: 

SQL> set timing on 

SQL> exec my_function 

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. 

Elapsed: 00:00:01.54 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.10 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.11 

SQL> set timing off 

Note that the first execution took 

a significant amount of time, about 

1.5 seconds, due to the physical I/O 

required to read the data from disk 

into the conventional buffer cache. The 

second and third executions took much 

less time, about 0.1 second, because 

the blocks needed to answer the query 

were found in the cache, not on disk. 

Compare what happens if I add a 

“cache the results” hint to the query: 

SQL> create or replace procedure 

2 my_function 

3 as 


ASK TOM 

4 begin 

5 for x in 

6 (select /*+ result_cache */ 

7 owner, 

8 object_type, 

9 count(*) cnt 

10 from t 

11 group by owner, object_type 

12 order by owner, object_type ) 

13 loop 

14 -- do_something 

15 null; 

16 end loop; 

17 end; 

18 / 





Elapsed: 00:00:00.10 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.00 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 


Note how the first execution took 

about 0.1 second, because the answer 

was assembled for the first execution, 

but that the subsequent executions were 

blindingly fast—sometimes so fast that 

they appear instantaneous. 

The nice thing about this is that the 

cache is invalidated and refreshed by 

the database—and the process is completely 

transparent to the application. 

The application need not worry about 

“stale” or invalid results. For example, 

if I update a single row, thus changing 

the results— 

SQL> update t 

2 set owner = lower(owner) 

3 where rownum = 1; 

1 row updated. 

SQL> commit; 

Commit complete. 

—I observe the following behavior: 




Elapsed: 00:00:00.10 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.00 



Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 


Note that the first execution after 

the UPDATE went back up to about 0.1 

second of execution time because it had 

to build the new answer. The subsequent 

executions benefit from this work 

and appear instantaneous. 

I’m sure that if you sit back and 

ponder your own applications, you 

will be able to think of more than one 

place where the server results cache 

feature will come in handy. It provides 

many of the benefits of some materialized 

views, but without the setup and 

administrative overhead associated 

with them. 

BUT WAIT—THERE’S MORE. . . . 

As they say on late night television, 

“If you thought that was really good, 

wait till you see this!” Oracle Database 

11g has a new PL/SQL function results 

cache as well. Whereas the aforementioned 

server results cache is about 

caching SQL result sets, this extension 

of the server results cache feature caches 

the results of PL/SQL function and procedure 

calls. 

In the past, if you called a PL/SQL 

function 1,000 times and each function 

call consumed 1 second, the 1,000 

calls would take 1,000 seconds. With 

this new function results cache feature, 

depending on the inputs to the function 

and whether the data underlying 

the function changes, 1,000 function 

calls could take about 1 second, total. A 

small example will be useful: I’ll create 


two functions, identical except in name 

and compiler parameter options. They 

will both access the previously created 

table T: 

SQL> create or replace 

2 function not_cached 

3 ( p_owner in varchar2 ) 

4 return number 

5 as 

6 l_cnt number; 

7 begin 

8 select count(*) 

9 into l_cnt 

10 from t 

11 where owner = p_owner; 

12 dbms_lock.sleep(1); 

13 return l_cnt; 

14 end; 

15 / 

Function created. 


2 function cached 

3 ( p_owner in varchar2 ) 

4 return number 

5 result_cache 

6 relies_on(T) 

7 as 

8 l_cnt number; 

9 begin 

10 select count(*) 

11 into l_cnt 

12 from t 

13 where owner = p_owner; 

14 dbms_lock.sleep(1); 

15 return l_cnt; 

16 end; 

17 / 

Function created. 

The only difference in the functions 

besides the names are the compiler 

parameters RESULT_CACHE and 

RELIES_ON. The RESULT_CACHE 

directive tells Oracle Database that you 

would like the answers from this function 

to be saved, so that if someone 

invokes this function again with the 

same inputs, the code should not 

actually be executed but, rather, that 

person should just receive the already 

known answer. The RELIES_ON clause 

tells the database when to invalidate 

this function result cache value—in

this case, if the table T is modified 

(which would change the answer from 

my cached function, hence I need it to 

be re-executed). Note that for effect, 

I’ve put a 1-second sleep in both functions 

and that that sleep call will make 

it painfully obvious when the function 

is actually invoked and when the 

results are reused. 

I start by calling the conventional 

(not_cached) function three times with 

timing on: 

SQL> exec dbms_output.put_line( not_ 

cached( ‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.93 



6 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.29 



6 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.07 

As you can see, each invocation 

takes at least one second—the work 

done by the function plus the SQL 

it executes take a little more than a 

second. Now I try out the cached 

version of this function: 

SQL> exec dbms_output.put_line( cached( 

‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.09 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 

If you have a query that is executed over and over 

again against slowly or never-changing data, you 

will find the new server results cache to be of 

great interest. 

As you can see, the first execution 

takes a little more than a second, just 

like the noncached versions, but the 

subsequent ones run at light speed, 

simply because the cached function is, 

in fact, not being executed. If I modify 

the table this function relies on or 

change the inputs I use, I can see that 

the database does the right thing: 

SQL> update t set owner = initcap(owner) 

where rownum = 1; 

1 row updated. 

SQL> commit; 

Commit complete. 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.25 

This first execution of the cached 

function takes more than a second, 

because it must refresh the result cache, 

but subsequent executions benefit from 

this cached result: 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 

And just to show that the PL/SQL 

function results cache understands 

that different inputs result in different 

outputs, I can call the cached function 

with a different username: 


‘SYS’ ) ); 

29339 


Elapsed: 00:00:01.21 


‘SYS’ ) ); 

29339 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 

Note that the first execution takes a 

relatively long time (to build the result 

cache), a subsequent execution is fast, 

and calling the function with a different 

username does not invalidate or throw 

away other cached results: 


‘SCOTT’ ) ); 

6 


Elapsed: 00:00:00.00 

Function calls that use SCOTT as 

the input will remain fast until the 

cache must be invalidated or until it 

runs out of room and must make way 

for other elements. 

Again, this is a feature that can be 

implemented without massive rearchitecting 

of your applications—in fact, 

without rearchitecting at all. The compiler 

parameter RESULT_CACHE can 

activate this feature, and any client that 

invokes the function will benefit. For 

example, informal tests with Oracle 

Application Express show an approximately 

15 percent decrease in runtime 

in a standard benchmark harness—your 

mileage may vary, of course! 

WHEN OTHERS THEN NULL REDUX 

In the July/August 2007 issue of Oracle 

Magazine (at otn.oracle.com/oramag/ 

oracle/07-jul/o47asktom.html), I wrote 

about a certain PL/SQL programming 

construct, the WHEN OTHERS 


ASK TOM 

exception handler. I wrote 

There’s a programming construct, 

WHEN OTHERS, in PL/SQL that I wish 

weren’t there. 

Well, I knew Oracle could never 

really remove this language feature—but 

Oracle certainly has made it safer. Just 

to reiterate why I wish this programming 

construct did not exist, I’ll quote 

myself again: 

But the problem I see is that far too 

many people use the WHEN OTHERS 

clause without following it by a RAISE or 

RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR call. That 

effectively hides the error. In reality, the 

error happened, but it was not handled in 

any meaningful way; it was just ignored— 

silently. The invoker of your code has no 

idea that something went horribly wrong 

and that your code failed, and he or she 

typically thinks that everything was, in 

fact, successful. 

Many times—many more times than 

I can recall or count—“quirky” behavior 

in a PL/SQL program unit is found to be 

caused by the improper use of a WHEN 

OTHERS clause—one that is not followed 

by RAISE. The error was hidden, 

error handling was effectively disabled, 

and the outcome is typically logically 

corrupt data (the application did not do 

its job) or the wrong answer. 

Now, in Oracle Database 11g, I can 

easily find the offending bits of code. 

When I suspect that an exception is 

being raised and hidden in this fashion, 

I’ll be able to verify my hunch rapidly. 

Consider this innocuous procedure: 

SQL> create table t( x varchar2(4000) ); 

Table created. 


2 procedure maintain_t 

3 ( p_str in varchar2 ) 

4 as 

5 begin 

6 insert into t 

7 ( x ) values 

8 ( p_str ); 

9 exception 

10 when others 

11 then 

12 -- call some log_error() routine 

13 null; 

14 end; 

15 / 


It’s as simple as can be. Nothing 

should go wrong, but in case it does, I’ll 

log the error by using a utility routine 

I’ve developed. That’ll write a nice 

error message somewhere (hopefully!), 

but whoever invokes this routine will 

have no idea that an exception that was 

not expected—and that could not be 

fixed—happened. (I see code like this 

time after time after time.) Now when 

someone calls this routine, 

SQL> exec maintain_t( rpad( ‘x’, 4001, 

‘x’ ) ); 


it sure looks successful, but it wasn’t: 

SQL> select * from t; 

no rows selected 

This is where confusion comes in: 

people get on the phone; they write 

e-mails; they say “Oracle Database is 

broken; the transaction succeeds, but 

the data is wrong.” In fact, the problem 

is the hidden error. Now, to find these 

errors in Oracle Database 11g, I will 

simply ask people to perform the following 

operation on their code first: 

SQL> alter procedure maintain_t compile 

2 PLSQL_Warnings = ‘enable:all’ 

3 reuse settings 

4 / 

SP2-0805: Procedure altered with 

compilation warnings 

SQL> show errors procedure maintain_t 

Errors for PROCEDURE MAINTAIN_T: 

LINE/COL ERROR 

-----------––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

9/8 PLW-06009: procedure 

“MAINTAIN_T” OTHERS handler 

does not end in RAISE or 

RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR 

And instantly you’ll have a list of 

applications—and the source code 


lines—to immediately go to and add a 

simple RAISE to see where this hidden 

error is coming from. Job done. 

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS. . . . 

There’s a saying that goes, “It’s the little 

things in life that really make a difference.” 

So I’ll close with a little thing 

that will make your coding life a bit 

easier and the PL/SQL language a bit 

more complete: 

SQL> create sequence this_is_nice; 

Sequence created. 

SQL> declare 

2 n number; 

3 begin 

4 n := this_is_nice.nextval; 

5 dbms_output.put_line( n ); 

6 end; 

7 / 

1 


Compare that to what would have 

happened in Oracle Database 10g and 

prior releases. In Oracle Database 11g, 

there’s no more selecting a sequence 

FROM DUAL. PL/SQL is that much 

more complete. 

Tom Kyte has worked for Oracle since 1993. He is a 

vice president in the Oracle Public Sector group and 

the author of Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 

9i and 10g Programming Techniques and Solutions 

(Apress, 2005) and Effective Oracle by Design (Oracle 

Press, 2003), among others. 

ASK Tom 

Oracle Vice President Tom Kyte answers your most 

difficult technology questions. Highlights from that 

forum appear in this column. 

asktom.oracle.com 



otn.oracle.com/products/database 

READ more Tom 

Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 9i and 10g 

Programming Techniques and Solutions 

amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ 

1590595300/ 

DOWNLOAD 


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Oracle PartnerNetwork Certified Advantage Partner Index 

The partners featured in this index have recently reached or renewed their status of Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork. 

COMPANY NAME URL COMPANY NAME URL 

Global 

Accenture www.accenture.com 

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. www.amd.com 

Apple www.apple.com 

BearingPoint www.bearingpoint.com 

Capgemini www.capgemini.com 

Cisco www.cisco.com 

Computer Sciences Corporation www.csc.com 

Dell Inc. www.dell.com 

Deloitte www.deloitte.com 

EDS www.eds.com 

EMC www.emc.com 

Fujitsu Group www.fujitsu.com 

HP www.hp.com 

IBM / IBM Global Business Services www.ibm.com 

Infosys www.infosys.com 

Ingram Micro www.ingrammicro.com 

Insight www.insight.com 

Intel www.intel.com 

Microsoft www.microsoft.com 

Network Appliance, Inc. www.netapp.com 

Satyam www.satyam.com 

Sun Microsystems www.sun.com 

Tata Consultancy Services www.tcs.com 

TechData www.techdata.com 

Wipro www.wipro.com 

Africa 

2Cana Solutions (Pty) Ltd. www.2cana.co.za 

Computer Warehouse Nigeria www.cwlgroup.com 

Corporate Software www.corporate.ma 

De Chazal Du Mee Consulting (DCDM) www.dcdm.biz 

EOH Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd. www.eoh.co.za 

Implementation Factory (Pty) Ltd. www.ifactory.co.za 

Integrated Tertiary Software (Pty) Ltd. www.its.co.za 

New Dawn Technologies www.ndt.co.za 

Omnidata www.omnidata.co.ma 

or@dist www.oradist.com.tn 

RPC DATA LIMITED www.rpcdata.com 

State Informatics Ltd. (SIL) sil.intnet.mu 

VESL www.vesltech.com 

Waymark Infotech (Pty) Ltd. www.waymark.co.za 

Asia Pacific 

Acumen Alliance Investments www.acumen.com.au 

Alcatel Australia Limited www.alcatel.com.au 

ASG (Asia Pacific) Pty Ltd. www.asggroup.com.au 

Application Hosting Services Co., Ltd. www.a-host.co.th 

Attain IT Pty Ltd. www.attainit.com.au 

Automated Systems (HK) Ltd. www.asl.com.hk 

Beijing Futong Dong Fang Technology Co. Ltd. www.futong.com.cn 

China National Software & Service Company Limited www.css.com.cn 

DataHeaven Co., Ltd. www.dataheaven.co.kr 

Dataone Asia (Thailand) Co. Ltd. www.diasia.co.th 

Daesang Information Technology Co., Ltd. www.daesangit.com 

Digital China (China) Limited www.digitalchina.com.cn 

DMS Software Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd. www.dmsswt.com 

ECS International Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. www.ecschina.com 

Electronic Data Systems (India) Pvt Ltd. www.eds.com 

FPT Information System www.fis.com.vn 

FPT Software Solutions www.fss.com.vn 

Fujian Fujitsu Communication Software Co., Ltd. www.ffcs.cn 

Fusion5 Limited www.fusion5.co.nz 

GTL Limited www.gtllimited.com 

FPT Corporation www.fpt.com.vn 

HAND Enterprise Solutions Co., Ltd. www.hand-china.com 

HPT Vietnam Corporation www.hptvietnam.com 

Huadi Computer Group Co., Ltd. www.huadi.com.cn 

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. www.huawei.com/cn 

iCE Consulting Co Ltd. www.iceconsulting.co.th 

i-flex Solutions Limited www.iflexsolutions.com 

Jigsaw Services Pty Ltd. www.jigsawservices.com.au 

LG CNS Co., Ltd. www.lgcns.com 

L&S Information Technology Co. Ltd. www.lnsit.co.kr 

IT&C Co., Ltd. www.itnc.co.kr 

KPMG Consulting Co Ltd. www.kpmg.com.tw 

KOLON I’Networks Corp. www.kdc.kolon.co.kr 

NCS Pte. Ltd. www.ncs.com.sg 

Nucleus Software Exports Ltd. www.nucleussoftware.com 

Ora-Tech System Pvt. Ltd. www.ora-tech.com 

OED Technology Sdn Bhd www.patimas.com 

Propia Co., Ltd. www.propia.co.kr 

Pythis www.pythis.com 

Red Hat Asia Pacific www.redhat.com 

Red Rock Consulting www.redrock.net.au 

Sam Yung Holdings IT Business Division www.syhds.com 

Samsung SDS www.sds.samsung.co.kr 

Shanghai New Century High Tecnology Services Ltd. www.shsnc.com 

Shen Yang Neusoft Co., Ltd. www.neusoft.com 

Sierra Atlantic Pte Ltd. www. sierraatlantic.com 

Sonata Information Technology www.sonata-infotech.com 

Sysage Technology Co., Ltd. www.sysage.com.tw 

System Access Pte Limited www.systemaccess.com 

Systex Corporation Taiwan www.systex.com.tw 

Systex Information (H.K.) Ltd. www.systex.com.hk 

Taiji Computer Corporation www.taiji.com.cn 

Tata Infotech Ltd. www.tatainfotech.com 

TechAccess Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd. www.techaccesspak.com 

Tietoenator Software Technologies Pvt Ltd. www.tietoenator.in 

Wezoomtek Corporation www.wezoomtek.com 


Canada 

Allstream Inc. www.allstream.com 

Castek www.castek.com 

CGI Group, Inc. www.cgi.com 

TietoEnator Canada Inc. www.tietoenator.com 

Europe 

Actebis Peacock GmbH www.actebispeacock.de 

ACURE A/S www.acure.dk 

Afina Sistemas Informaticos www.afina.es 

Alcatel www.alcatel.com 

Alcatel CIT www.alcatel.fr 

Anelia SAS www.anelia.fr 

Application Lynx www.applicationlynx.co.uk 

Ares www.ares.fr 

Asseco Poland S.A. www.asseco.pl 

Atos Origin IT Services UK www.atosorigin.com 

Atos Origin Nederland BV www.atosorigin.com 

B3iT Management AB www.b3it.se 

Basilica Computing Limited www.basilica.co.uk 

Bell Microproducts Limited www.bellmicro.eu 

Borlas IBC www.borlas.ru 

Capgemini Telecom Media und Networks GmbH www.de.cgey.com 

CBOSS www.cboss.ru 

Cedar Consulting Ltd. www.cedarconsulting.co.uk 

CGI Group INC www.cgi.com 

Ciber UK www.ciber.com 

Cnsys www.cnsys.bg 

ComArch S.A. www.comarch.pl 

CompelSolve Ltd. www.compel.co.uk 

CompIT Technologies www.compit-t.com.by 

Computacenter AG & Co. OHG www.computacenter.de 

ComputerLand S.A. www.computerland.pl 

Comverse www.comverse.com 

Consit A/S www.consit.dk 

Convergys EMEA Ltd. www.convergys.com 

Cozum Bilgisayar www.cozumbil.com.tr 

CSC France www.csc.com 

CROC Incorporated www.croc.ru 

Cronos NV www.cronos.be 

Cronos Ibérica, S.A. www.cronosiberica.es 

CSC www.csc.com 

CSG Systems (Silicon Iberia) www.csgsystems.com 

Deutsche Post ITSolutions GmbH www.dp-itsolutions.de 

Developing World Systems Ltd. www.dwsonline.co.uk 

DIGORA www.digora.com 

DISTRILOGIE (France) www.distrilogie.com 

DBConcepts Daten - und Informationsverarbeitungsges.m.b.H. www.dbconcepts.at 

Diligenta Limited www.Diligenta.co.uk 

DNS Hungary Ltd. www.dns-hungary.hu 

Ecletic Group Ltd. www.eclectic.co.uk 

Edenbrook Limited www.edenbrook.co.uk 

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A. www.eng.it 

Everis Spain S.L. www.everis.com 

Explorer (UK) Limited www.explorer.uk.com 

Experteam Consulting www.experteam.com.tr 

Fadata www.fadata.bg 

FORS Development Center www.fdc.ru 

Fujitsu Services Limited www.uk.fujitsu.com 

Fujitsu Siemens Computers Ltd. www.fujitsu-siemens.com 

Getronics PinkRoccade www.getronicspinkroccade.nl 

Global Services Aarhus & Copenhagen A/S www.maerskdata.dk 

Groupe LGS France www.lgsrecrut.com 

GWI Unternehmensgruppe www.gwi-ag.com 

Horizon Clarity Technology Ltd. www.claritytechnology.co.uk 

Hunkler GmbH & Co. KG www.hunkler.biz 

I-Teco www.i-teco.ru 

i-flex solutions bv www.iflexsolutions.com 

Inatech Solutions Ltd. www.inatech.com 

INDRA Sistemas S.A. www.indra.es 

Industrial and Financial Systems, IFS AB www.ifsworld.com 

Ineum Consulting www.ineum.fr 

Infor Global Solutions GmbH www.infor.de 

Informacines Technologijos www.it.lt 

Informatica El Cortes Ingles www.ieci.es 

Information Technologies Company www.it.ru 

Intec Billing Ireland www.intecbilling.com 

Intec Telecom Systems www.intec-telecom-systems.com 

Intel Solution Services UK www.intel.com 

Inter Access B.V. www.interaccess.nl 

IT Alise www.it-alise.com 

IT-eye www.it-eye.nl 

KNAPP Systemintegration GmbH www.knapp.com 

KPMG Consulting www.kpmg.be 

Kurt Salmon Associates www.kurtsalmon.com 

Leaves www.leaves.ru 

LGS France www.lgs.com 

LogicaCMG www.logicacmg.nl 

LogicaCMG www.Logicacmg.com 

LOGIX www.logix.fr 

Mdtvision www.mdtvision.com 

Memorex Telex/EDS www.memorex.ie 

Micros-Fidelio GmbH www.micros-fidelio.org 

Montora www.montora.com 

Morse Group Ltd. www.morse.com 

Mphasis Ltd. www.mphasis.com 

Msg Systems ag www.msg-systems.com 

Network Centric Solutions Limited www.ncsltd.com 

Noetix www.noetix.com

COMPANY NAME URL COMPANY NAME URL 

Nokia Corporation www.nokia.com 

Ordina www.ordina.nl 

Oficina de Cooperación Universitaria www.ocu.es 

Open Technologies www.ot.ru 

Opitz Consulting GmbH www.opitz-consulting.de 

Patech Solutions Limited www.patech-solutions.com 

PC-Ware Information Technologies AG www.pc-ware.de 

Peak Systems Support Ltd. www.peaksystems.co.uk 

PDV-Systeme Erfurt Gesellschaft für Systemtechnik mbH www.pdv.de 

Peak Systems Support Ltd. www.peaksystems.uk.com 

Peter-Service www.billing.ru 

Prodatis Consulting AG www.prodatis.com 

QAS Ltd. www.qas.com 

Quantix Ltd. www.quantix-uk.com 

RDTEX www.rdtex.ru 

Rila Solutions www.rila.com 

RTC Real-Time Center AG www.rtc.ch 

S.C. RomSoft S.R.L. www.romsoft.info 

SCC PLC www.scc.com 

Sddc www.sddc.fr 

SIV AG www.siv.de 

SIVECO Romania S.A. www.siveco.ro 

Service & Systems Solutions www.northgate-is.com 

Softek Storage Solutions www.softek.com 

Softman S.A. www.softman.pl 

Software Design & Management AG www.sdm.de 

Sogeti Espana www.sogeti.biz 

Sopra Group www.sopragroup.com 

Symatrix Limited www.symatrix.co.uk 

TEAM GmbH www.team-pb.de 

Teamsolve www.teamsolve.co.uk 

Tech Data Midrange GmbH www.tdmidrange.de 

Technologica www.tlogica.com 

Technology Reply Srl www.reply.it 

Temenos www.temenos.com 

Teta S.A www.teta.com.pl 

TietoEnator Corporation www.tetioenator.com 

TimeStamp - Sistema de Informação www.timestamp.pt 

T-Systems International GmbH www.t-systems.com 

Unisys France www.unisys.com 

Up to Data, Professional Services GMBH www.uptodata.de 

Vector Software SRL www.vectorsoftware.ro 

Version 1 Software www.version1.com 

Whitehouse Consultants Ltd. www.whitehouse-consult.com 

WM-data Danmark A/S www.wmdata.com 

Latin America 

Abaco Tecnologia de Informacao Ltda. www.abaco.com.br 

Acao Informatica Brasil Ltda. www.acao.com.br 

Advanced Database & IT Sistemas de Informação S.A. www.advancedit.com.br 

Aporte Gestao Empresarial e Tecnologia da Informacao Ltda. www.aporte.com 

Apply Solutions www.applysolutions.com.br 

Asistir Ltda. www.asistir.com 

Atel S.A. (Quanam Uruguay) www.quanam.com 

B2BR Business to Business Informatica do Brasil www.b2br.com.br 

Bertini Comércio e Serviços de Informática Ltda. www.bertini.com.br 

BGH, S.A. www.bgh.com.ar 

BusinessMind S.A. www.businessmind.com.ec 

Casa de Software S.A. www.casasoft.com.br 

Compusoluciones y Asociados, S.A. de C.V. www.compusoluciones.com 

CFP3 Consultoria e Tecnologia www.commitconsultores.com.br 

CONSULT SOFT S.A. www.consult-soft.com 

CTIS Tecnologia S.A. www.ctis.com.br 

Datastar Argentina S.A. www.datastar.com.ar 

Datavision Digital, S.A. De C.V. www.datavision.com.mx 

Datum www.datum.com 

Discover Technology Informatica Ltda. www.discover.com.br 

e-Builders & Consulting Group S. A. C. www.ebuilders.com.pe 

Elucid Solutions S.A. www.elucid.com.br 

Enorey International www.quanam.com 

EN-SOF Consultoria e Informática Ltda. www.en-sof.com.br 

E-Partner Comercial e Serviços de Informática Ltda. www.epartnerbr.com.br 

ERP Soluciones S.A. de C.V. www.erpsol.com.mx 

Eserv Expert Services Del Ecuador S.A. www.eserv-andina.com 

Excelsis S.A.C.I.G www.excelsis.com.py 

FYC Soluciones Integrales, C.A. www.fyccorp.com 

Grupo Quanam www.quanam.com 

Illuminat Ltd. www.illuminatnm.com 

In Motion Servicios S.A. www.inmotion.cl 

Ingenieria Condor S.A. DE C.V. www.i-condor.com 

Innovat S.A. www.itexperts.com.ec 

Intec Telecom Systems do Brasil Ltda. www.intec-telecom-system.com 

JFM Informática Ltda. www.jfm.com.br 

Kruger Corporation S.A. www.kruger.com.ec 

MATERA Systems Informatica Ltda. www.matera.com 

MPL Corporate Software S.A. www.mpl.com.br 

Netix Distribuidores de Tecnologia, C.A. www.netixcorp.com 

Nexsys www.nexsysla.com 

Officer Distribuidora www.officer.com.br 

Politec Ltda. www.politec.com.br 

Preteco www.preteco.com 

Procwork CRM www.procwork.com.br 

Recours Informatica Consultoria e Assessoria Ltda. www.recours.com.br 

Senior Serviços em Tecnologia de Informática Ltda. www.senior.com.br 

Servicios, Tecnologia y Organizacion S.A. de C.V. (STO) www.stoconsulting.com 

Sinergy Solutions, S.A. de C.V. www.sinergysolutions.com.mx 

Snoop Consulting S.R.L. www.snoopconsulting.com 

Soft Bolivar S.A. www.softbolivar.com 

Softcomex Informática Ltda. www.softcomex.com.br 

Solusoft www.solusoft.com 

Sonda del Peru S.A. www.sonda.com 

SQL Technology S.A. www.sqltech.cl 

Sunrising Desenvolvimento de Sistemas www.sunrising.com.br 

Sysdesign Consultoria Em Informatica Limitada www.sysdesign.com.br 

Tilsor S.A. www.tilsor.com.uy 

TSnet S.A. www.tsnetglobal.com 

Unimix Tecnologia Ltda. www.unimix.com.br 

Unisys www.unisys.com 

YKP Consultoria e Sistemas Ltda. www.ykp.com.br 

Middle East 

Bahwan Cybertek LLC www.bahwancybertek.com 

Computer and Communications Systems www. ccs.com.jo 

Computer Information Systems www.cis.com.lb 

Computer and Engineering Bureau CEB www.ceb.com.jo 

Districom www.cis.com.lb 

Emirates Computers Est www.emiratescomputers.co.ae 

Giza Systems www.gizasystems.com 

Global Technology Services LLC www.gtsuae.com 

Hyperlink www.hyperlink-me.com 

Integrated Data Solutions www.idscomp.com 

International Turnkey Systems (ITS) www.its.ws 

Intracom Jordan www.intracom.jo 

Mannai Trading Company Limited www.mannaicorp.com 

Mercator www.mercator.co.ae 

Macro Software Systems LLC www.macro-soft.com 

Mindscape www.mindscapeit.com 

Raya Gulf LLC www.rayaholding.com 

Royah www.royah.com 

United States 

170 Systems, Inc. www.170systems.com 

Abaris, Inc. www.abaris-inc.com 

Actuate Corporation www.actuate.com 

Apex IT, Inc. www.Apexit.com 

Applications Software Technology Corp. www.astcorporation.com 

Applied Biosystems www.sqllims.com 

Applimation, Inc. www.applimation.com 

Avnet www.avnet.com 

BMC Software, Inc. www.bmc.com 

Business & Decision www.businessdecision.com 

Business & Technology Resource Group Inc. www.btrgroup.com 

CedarCrestone www.cedarcrestone.com 

CherryRoad Technologies www.cherryroad.com 

CIBER www.ciber.com/ces/oracle 

Cognizant Technology Solutions www.cognizant.com 

COLLEGIS INC www.collegis.com 

CSS International www.cssus.com 

DAZ Systems www.dazsi.com 

Eastern Software Corporation www.easternsoftware.com 

Fidelity Information Services www.fidelityinfoservices.com/FNFIS 

GNC Consulting, Inc. www.gnc-consulting.com 

GNUCO, LLC dba Emerging Solutions www.emergenow.com 

Hyperion Solutions www.hyperion.com 

IAE Solutions, LLC www.iaesolutions.com 

IMPAC Services www.impacservices.com 

INRANGE Consulting Corporation www.inrangeconsulting.com 

INTELLIGROUP INC www.intelligroup.com 

KBACE Technologies, Inc. www.kbace.com 

Kronos Inc. www.kronos.com 

Lucidity Consulting Group LP www.luciditycg.com 

MAXIMUS Inc. www.maximus.com 

MSS Technologies, Inc. www.msstech.com 

Mythics www.mythics.com 

NaviSite, Inc. www.navisite.com 

Noetix Corporation www.noetix.com 

Novell, Inc. www.novell.com 

Optimum Solutions Group, LLC www.optimumsolutions.com 

OSI Consulting, Inc. www.osius.com 

Perot Systems Corporation www.perotsystems.com 

Princeton Softech www.princetonsoftech.com 

Protege Software Services, Inc. www.protege.com 

Red Hat, Inc. www.redhat.com 

Solbourne Computer Inc. www.solbourne.com 

Solution Beacon, LLC www.solutionbeacon.com 

SYSTIME www.systime.net 

TietoEnator Majiq, Inc. www.tietoenator.com 

TITAN Technology Partners www.ttpartners.com 

TUSC www.tusc.com 

Unisys Corporation www.unisys.com 

USinternetworking, Inc. www.usi.net 

Waters Corporation www.waters.com 

Wave Consulting Group www.wavecg.com 

Whitbread Technology Partners, Inc. www.whitbreadtech.com 

Xcelicor, Inc. www.xcelicor.com 

Zanett Commercial Solutions, Inc. www.whitbreadtech.com 

Partners able to demonstrate superior product knowledge, competence, and a commitment to doing business with Oracle qualify for the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Certified Advantage Partner level. These partners receive the 

highest level of service, training, benefits, and resources from Oracle to support them in delivering quality to customers. For more information on partners, please visit the OPN Solutions Catalog at solutions.oracle.com. 

ORACLE MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 91 

CERTIFIEDadvantage partner index

commentIN THE FIELD 

What’s New in Oracle Database 11g 

The latest version of the database has great new features for everyone. 

racle Database 11g, the biggest 

release of Oracle’s flagship 

database in several years, was 

launched recently. I’m impressed 

that Oracle invests so much effort in 

each new version of the database, and 

the effort shows. The database has consistently 

been the technology market 

leader, often by many years, and this 

new version continues that tradition. 

Full disclosure: The Independent 

Oracle Users Group (IOUG) has been a 

significant part of the beta program for 

Oracle Database 11g. IOUG members 

have been working with Oracle on features 

and testing, and many members 

have installed beta versions of the 

release and run real applications against 

it—and there’s a lot to like in Oracle 

Database 11g. You’ve probably heard 

about some of the major features, and I 

want to tell you about some of my favorite 

features of this new release. 

ORACLE AUDIT VAULT 

One feature I love in Oracle Database 

11g is called Oracle Audit Vault, and 

if you’re not using it now in Oracle9i 

Database or Oracle Database 10g, maybe 

you should be. What’s so special about 

Oracle Audit Vault? It makes Oracle the 

only database to enable you to be truly 

security-process compliant. 

From my experience as a DBA, I 

know—and you probably do, too—that 

DBAs who are skilled enough can view 

and change data if they really want to. 

They can then alter the audit trail—wipe 

away their footprints—to make sure no 

one can find out what they’ve done. It’s 

always been a problem, and now it’s also 

a major compliance issue. 

Oracle Audit Vault changes that scenario 

considerably. The audit trail goes 

into a one-way “lockbox.” No one, not 

even a highly skilled DBA, can alter 

that audit trail once it’s in the lockbox. 

People can view it, but no one can 

change it or delete it. 

This functionality prevents problems, 

whether deliberate or accidental, 

caused by insiders. Oracle Audit 

Vault is implemented using encryption 

techniques, and those who try to 

tamper with it leave telltale signs of 

their attempts. Enterprises that need 

to comply with regulatory audit procedures—and 

which don’t?—will love 

Oracle Audit Vault. I can’t wait. 

HOT PATCHING 

Another feature that DBAs will really 

appreciate is hot patching, which allows 

you to apply updates and bug fixes 

to the database without bringing the 

system down. Previously, you would 

have to stop production by halting work 

entirely—or do an intricate and expensive 

dance of transferring to another 

system and back—to do any patching. 

It’s no surprise that administrators were 

reluctant to do this, and praiseworthy 

dedication to uptime sometimes meant 

not applying critical patch updates. Hot 

patching resolves such dilemmas: you 

can run your patches, including security 

fixes, without affecting production. 

Gotta love that. 

Another new feature I like in Oracle 

Database 11g is the ability to store 

data in compressed format—called 

advanced table compression. Suppose 

you’re storing a lot of long documents. 

Keeping them in compressed format 

can save up to two-thirds of the usual 

space necessary. Naturally the amount 

of space you can save depends on the 

kind of information you’re storing: this 

compression won’t help much with data 

that’s already compressed, for example. 

But if you have large uncompressed 

data elements, this feature will save you 


BY ARI KAPLAN 

a lot of space and expense. 

Even managing large amounts of 

ordinary data can be a chore. The new 

partition advisor can suggest how best 

to manage large amounts of data, such 

as census data by state. It can also 

physically create partitions. You still have 

control over what it does—specifying 

how long to keep data, for example. 

QUERY RESULT CACHE 

Another neat feature is query result 

cache, which is what it sounds like: 

Oracle Database 11g will cache the results 

of queries in memory, where they act like 

tables. Multiple users can see these results 

without repeating the same query. For 

common and frequently used queries, 

this can save system effort and improve 

performance. You can configure how 

much space to allocate to query result 

cache and how long to retain results. 

These are just a few of the new features 

I looked at in Oracle Database 11g. 

Oracle consistently comes out with new, 

useful, and—for some business issues— 

mandatory technology. The company’s 

commitment to its database product is 

impressive. This one will be fun. � 

Ari Kaplan (ari_kaplan@ioug.org) is president of the 

Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and a senior 

consultant at Datalink. He founded Expand Beyond 

Corporation, a leader in mobile IT software. He has 

been involved in Oracle technology since 1992. 




Oracle Database 11g in Ask Tom 


o57asktom.html 



commentALL SECURE 

Automating Security 

Papa’s got a brand-new bag (of tools). 

racle is celebrating its 30th 

anniversary this year. Some 

of us old-timers have been 

busy wallowing in nostalgia 

by cataloging remembrances of how 

Oracle has changed over these 30 years. 

There’s sometimes a tendency to think 

that old times were better, but even 

those with Luddite inclinations can 

agree with my mother when she says, 

“Without change, there is no growth.” 

(I used to joke that working at Oracle 

was like the weather in San Francisco: 

if you aren’t 100 percent thrilled at 

any given moment, wait half an hour, 

because it will change.) 

There are a great many things that 

are actually better now than in the 

“good old days.” One of these has been 

the growth in tools that help people 

do security-related things more easily. 

Security automation can help everyone 

from developers trying to get their products 

out the door securely (by finding 

defects in software that could lead to 

security vulnerabilities) to customers 

trying to ensure that their security 

posture remains strong from day to day 

despite frequent configuration changes. 

Figure that most systems are larger and 

more complex than they used to be, and 

you realize why security automation 

is the wave of the future even if it was 

needed yesterday. 

AUTOMATING SECURITY NOW 

Oracle has some homegrown tools we 

use to help find and root out common 

secure-coding errors. Some of these 

have been developed by Oracle’s ethical 

hacking team, whose technical acumen 

is exceeded only by its sense of humor 

in naming the tools. (SQL*Splat is a 

tool for finding SQL injections, and 

Bit*Rotter is a protocol fuzzer.) The 

ethical hacking team uses these tools to 

automate its security assessments, and 

the quality assurance teams use them to 

keep ahead of the ethical hackers. 

We’ve also licensed tools from thirdparty 

vendors. You can’t test security 

into a product, but even a really good 

developer can benefit from tools that 

automate finding security-related 

defects. Some of these tools do static 

analysis: tracing through source code to 

find how an input at X (that is not correctly 

handled, for example) could lead 

to an actual exploit at point Y later in 

the code. We also use automated tools to 

test Web interfaces—in both our development 

and production environments— 

for common security vulnerabilities. No 

one tool does it all. Just as for building 

a house, you need hammers, saws, and 

screwdrivers as well as a good design 

and excellent workers. 

It took us a long time to find good 

tools, train people to use them, and roll 

them out. We have helped our vendors 

make their tools more robust (nobody 

could scan 50 million lines of code daily 

when we started looking at tools), which 

helps not only Oracle but also others in 

the industry. We all need the equivalent 

of spell-checkers for code to find where 

we have misspelled security, so to speak. 

I am pleased that Oracle is helping push 

the envelope for security automation 

higher and broader for everyone. 

Security automation is also important 

in secure configuration. Most people 

don’t have the time or expertise to set, 

say, 82 configuration parameters by 

hand (on 37 instances), much less do 

it every day to ensure that they didn’t 

leave a cyberdoor wide open. Being able 

to automate those “Am I secure?” checks 

is like having a night watchman (who 

never needs to sleep) checking every 

door and window every quarter hour in 

perpetuity. Ideally, every software vendor 

BY MARY ANN DAVIDSON 

ought to document best security practice, 

make it easy to install its products 

that way by default, and provide a tool 

to automate the security checks. 

SECURING GOOD TIMES 

One thing that hasn’t changed in 30 

years is that people who work in IT are 

always doing at least four things at once, 

and being able to automate three of them 

will not only make us all more secure 

but will also make better use of a scarce 

resource (time!). So I look forward to 

the “good new days” when there are lots 

of automated security tools in the marketplace 

that meet the needs of vendors 

large and small as well as those of Jane 

or Joe Developer building a custom 

application for Mom-and-Pop.com. 

Another thing hasn’t changed in 30 

years: we can all use more time. � 

Mary Ann Davidson is the chief security officer at 

Oracle, responsible for secure development practice, 

security evaluations, and assessments. She represents 

Oracle on the board of directors of the Information 

Technology Information Security Analysis Center (IT- 

ISAC) and the Defense Science Board and is on the 

editorial review board of SC Magazine. 

LEARN more about 

Oracle security solutions 

oracle.com/security/security-solutions.html 

Oracle Software Security Assurance 

oracle.com/security/software-security-assurance.html 

Critical Patch Updates and 

Security Alerts 

otn.oracle.com/deploy/security/alerts.htm 

READ more Davidson 

blogs.oracle.com/maryanndavidson 

DISCUSS 

Oracle Identity Management 


Security 



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commentANALYST’S CORNER 


BY DAVID BAUM 

Secure Data for Every Business Need 

New needs for compliance mean tighter access control. 

racle Magazine spoke with Trent 

Henry of Burton Group about 

data protection, compliance, 

encryption, and access control. 

Oracle Magazine: What changes in today’s 

business climate are motivating organizations 

to adopt stronger database security? 

Henry: One of the guiding factors is a 

realization that they need to control what 

insiders, such as system administrators, 

can and can’t do. Until recently, these 

folks had system-level privileges to see 

any data, mainly for the sake of convenience. 

Today, federal regulators require 

public companies to constrain what privileged 

users can see, such as the financial 

data within a general ledger. Companies 

can do this explicitly, using fine-grained 

authorizations, access control, or encryption, 

as well as after the fact, with database 

audits and monitoring tools. 

Oracle Magazine: What are the guiding 

principles behind access control? 

Henry: The important thing is to ensure 

that trusted employees obey policies 

governing their respective roles, because 

regulators and auditors are asking hard 

questions about how carefully companies 

control the activities of these personnel— 

whether you trust them or not. DBAs 

may dislike the controls that are put in 

place, but many times these controls are 

in response to an external requirement. 

Oracle Magazine: How difficult is it to 

establish these controls? 

Henry: In smaller organizations, segregation 

of duties can be difficult to 

achieve, because you might have only 

one administrator. That’s when auditing 

and monitoring make a lot of sense. At 

Burton Group, we advocate a layered 

approach to protection. It begins with 

access control in the database. For 

example, Oracle Database 11g enables 

you to isolate certain parts of the database 

or to implement perimeter control 

around the database. On top of that, 

Oracle Audit Vault can be used to ensure 

that your layered protections are operating 

as you expect them to operate. 

Oracle Magazine: What else can organizations 

do to protect data from those who 

shouldn’t have access to it? 

Henry: Label security lets you describe 

information as having a particular property 

or label. It can be used in a wide 

range of situations—everything from classifying 

an employee record to protecting 

national security information. Companies 

categorize data in a certain way and apply 

the appropriate label to identify it. After 

that, the information is always treated 

the same way, in terms of who can see 

that data or when people can see it. The 

database explicitly enforces controls over 

that information based on that label. 

Oracle Magazine: How does encryption fit 

into this access-control picture? 

Henry: Encryption is used to prevent 

people from seeing certain data. It can 

be applied to a subset of the database, 

the whole database, or even the disk 

hosting the database (sometimes called 

media-level encryption). The encryption 

can take place outside of the database, 

within the application layer. Different 

levels of encryption protect against different 

types of threats. Media encryption 

prevents unauthorized users from 

accessing a lost or stolen disk but won’t 

prevent inside users from viewing data. 

Protecting against insiders requires a different 

level of encryption. For example, 

you might encrypt social security 

numbers in a customer database yet 

still allow support reps to view phone 

numbers and addresses. You could 

do this with Oracle Transparent Data 

Encryption, which provides columnar 

encryption within the database. This 

utility doesn’t require a third-party tool, 

so from a configuration and management 

standpoint, it’s easy to put in place. 

Oracle Magazine: Do these strategies 

work for external users as well? 

Henry: Encryption works well within 

an enterprise setting. However, by the 

time the information is viewed through 

a Web portal, it may be decrypted. So 

at that level you may need some type of 

application-level encryption, in association 

with Web access control. 

Oracle Magazine: How does encryption 

work with identity management? 

Henry: It’s tied to identity management, 

but one challenge with Web access 

control is that you might be talking 

about a broader audience than just 

internal employees. For example, with 

an extranet portal or e-commerce portal, 

instead of thousands of employees, there 

might be millions of users. So there’s an 

issue of scale to consider. There’s also an 

issue of the types of authenticators that 

may be convenient to deploy. Within 

the enterprise, you might use one-time 

password tokens or smart cards to 

authenticate users, but this can be costprohibitive 

when it comes to strengthening 

authentication for consumers. � 

David Baum (david@dbaumcomm.com) is a freelance 

business writer based in Santa Barbara, California. 

Burton Group (www.burtongroup.com) provides 

vendor-independent research and advisory services 

focused on enterprise IT infrastructure technologies. 


Oracle Security 


Oracle Audit Vault 

oracle.com/goto/auditvault 

Oracle Label Security 

oracle.com/database/label-security.html 

Oracle Transparent Data Encryption 

otn.oracle.com/deploy/security/database-security/ 

transparent-data-encryption

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Oracle Magazine - September/October 2007 - Marcelo Machado

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