TUSC - Oracle Advanced Features

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Advanced Features

Oracle Advanced Queuing
Oracle Advanced Queuing, available starting with Oracle Server version 8.0, can be used to decouple applications. Loosely coupled applications may improve application response times and increase availability. Advanced queuing is at the heart of Oracle's Integration Server (Oracle's EAI hub).

Using an advanced queuing approach can make applications and their interactions with outside business processes independent. Oracle Advanced Queuing allows for the publishing, subscribing and automatic propagation of application messages. It can be implemented as a stand-alone or integrated with products like BEA Tuxedo, IBM MQ Series and Microsoft Message Queue.

Some questions to address

What are the requirements to use advanced queuing?
Can I integrate non-Oracle data sources?
How do I configure rule-based subscription?
How do I create a message warehouse?
What are the storage considerations of advanced queuing?
How do you tune an advanced queuing implementation?
Does advanced queuing replace the need for replication?

Oracle Advanced Replication
Oracle Advanced Replication, available to Oracle Server Enterprise Edition, can move data between several sites transparently to the user. It offers site independence.

When a downed communications line can't stop the business, replication may be the answer. It's an option for users who are on the run and need access to applications and their data.

Oracle Advanced Replication improves application performance by not requiring users to access information over slow data lines. It improves uptime by making applications resistant to WAN outages. Advanced replication helps power a mobile sales force with laptops or PDAs.

Some questions to address

How do I configure Oracle Replication?
Do I need a multimaster configuration?
What is conflict resolution?
What is parallel propagation?
How do I prevent replicated data from being propagated forever?
How do I design my application to leverage the capabilities of Oracle Replication?
How can I use replication with a packaged application?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Oracle Advanced Security
Oracle Advanced Security is designed to improve data privacy, data protection and security authentication across the enterprise.

Some questions to address

Should I use RSA or DES encryption for Net8?
Should I use SHA or MD5 to ensure data integrity?
How do I integrate Oracle authentication with an external source, such as NT Domain Security, Kerberos or SecurID?
How do I incorporate SSL into the advanced security environment?
What is two-stage authentication?
Should I use biometric authentication?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Oracle Objects
Oracle Objects, available starting with Oracle Server version 8.0, offers great benefits to implementations using XML, Java or C++. It allows for a design that better approximates real-world business entities.

Using an object-oriented approach can make applications and their interactions with business processes easier to understand. Oracle Objects also allows for better code reuse and a single point of storage for business rules. All of this means more rapid development, reduced maintenance cost and reduced cost to integrate with other systems.

Some questions to address

How do you get from here to objects?
What are the storage considerations when using objects?
Which type of object implementation is right for your situation -- native objects or object views?
How do you tune an object-relational implementation?
How do you change object definitions?

Oracle Parallel Server
Oracle Parallel Server, available as an option to Oracle Server Enterprise Edition, can improve performance and availability. It's a must if your application can't afford downtime. Any other solution can leave transactions in limbo or noticeably fail over time.

Using parallel server can maximize uptime for the most critical of applications. It allows for entire servers to fail without users noticing downtime. Oracle Parallel Server can improve the performance of batch queries with the use of multinode parallel query.

Some questions to address

Should I configure a fastfail over instance?
How do I set up a parallel server?
Do I need statement-level failover?
Is Oracle Parallel Server the right solution for my situation?
What are DML locks and pings?
How do I design my application to leverage the capabilities of Oracle Parallel Server?
How do you tune a parallel server implementation?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Oracle Spatial
Oracle Spatial, available as an option to Oracle Server Enterprise Edition starting with version 8.0, can be used to leverage the power of geographic data. As needs require increasingly personalized data, being able to deliver a customized experience or targeting the right customers is critical to lowering cost, improving marketing effectiveness and improving customer satisfaction.

Using Oracle Spatial can make it a snap when linking customers to their sales representative and nearest point of service or optimizing delivery routes. Reducing the cost of servicing customers by leveraging the power of information is critical to success in tomorrow's marketplace.

Some questions to address

How do I configure Oracle Spatial?
How can data be loaded into Oracle Spatial?
What is the right tessellation size for optimum indexing?
Why is 1 degree of latitude in North Dakota not the same as 1 degree of latitude in Texas?
How do I design my application to leverage the capabilities of Oracle Spatial?
How do you tune an Oracle Spatial implementation?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Oracle XML
Oracle provides several ways to integrate XML into your Oracle8i database. Oracle's XDK, XSU and JMS can make integrating XML with your Oracle database seamless. Oracle's utilities generate XML from the database and parse XML to be loaded into the database.

Oracle has many APIs to leverage the power of XML. Knowing which ones can be critical to a project's success.

Some questions to address

Should I use DOM or SAX to parse XML?
Is a DTD required?
How do I generate DTDs for my schema?
Should I use Java, PL/SQL or C++ to manipulate XML?
What Oracle products support XML?
How do I use transceiver beans?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Very Large Databases
Oracle continues to add support for larger databases with higher transaction rates. Very large databases, whether transactional or decision-support, have unique issues to address -- something as basic as backup and recovery can become a challenge in a multiterabyte database.

While many of the same concepts apply to all Oracle databases, a number of tuning and hardware design issues are unique to large volumes of data.

Some questions to address

How do I architect a hardware environment to support a very large database?
How do I back up a very large database?
What is a very large database?
How do I size and manage objects in a very large database?
How do I tune a very large database?
What features can help to manage a very large database?
What's new in Oracle8i and Oracle9i?

Partitioning
Partitioning of tables and indexes was introduced in Oracle8. It allows very large tables and/or indexes to be broken into smaller pieces. Each partition can be managed independently of the other partitions as if they were individual tables and indexes. Each partition may be defined with a different storage clause and be placed in a different tablespace. Each contains rows based on the value of a column known as a partition key. Benefits of partitioning include improved performance of maintenance operations, backups, recoveries, transactions and queries.

Some questions to address

Should you always create partitioned indexes for partitioned tables?
Should you create the index on a partitioned table with matching partitions?
What's the difference between local or global indexes?
When are NULL values allowed in the partition key? When allowed, what partition are they placed in?
Are object or LOB types allowed?
Can the column(s) in a partition key be updated?
Can a partition be referenced directly via a database link, synonym or PL/SQL block?
Can a bitmap index be created on a partitioned table?

Java
One of the most exciting features of Oracle8i is the ability to store and use Java in the database. It can be used in place of PL/SQL for stored procedures, functions and database triggers and offers many benefits. Because Java is portable, it can improve the portability of your database applications across hardware platforms. Many Java methods have already been developed and are available at no cost. These methods can enhance the functionality of your applications without significant programming effort. Additionally, storing Java inside the Oracle database improves performance by reducing network traffic.

Some questions to address

When does it make sense to replace PL/SQL with Java?
What impact does heavy use of the Java Virtual Machine have on the size of your SGA?
How do you manage and protect Java objects within the database?
How do you create a call spec that will make your Java methods available to PL/SQL?
How do various Java datatypes map to SQL datatypes?