Oracle 9i Database

원본 : http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/rstories/0,3040,e7110910,00.html

The Oracle 9i Database has impressive features, faster and more robust clustering capabilities and improved data analysis functions. But the quality of the software is patchy, finds Timothy Dyck

In IT Week Labs' tests of Oracle 9i Database, we found it to be an extremely versatile database. However, it is also a big, complex product that requires highly trained administrators, high-end hardware and a big budget, and we found mixed levels of maturity and quality from component to component.Oracle 9i's pricing has dropped from Oracle 8i's per-CPU-megahertz model, but remains more expensive than its rivals. This is particularly true at the lower end because Oracle Standard Edition is a gutted version of its big brother, lacking major features available to Enterprise Edition users. Rivals provide these features at a similar price. Notably absent are most multi-CPU features, including parallel query, materialised views and fine-grained security, as well as the option to add Olap, data mining and additional management tools. As a result, although Enterprise Edition is an excellent database, Standard Edition trails its competitors.

Oracle 9i is an object-relational database but also includes file and document management, email, Web server, message queuing, and Java 2 Enterprise Edition application server features.

The new release also gains important performance and fault-tolerance improvements for firms using Oracle database clusters, and gains features that ease administration and provide greater data safety.

Oracle's database clustering is unique in that it supports complex packaged applications such as SAP's enterprise resource planning suite. Oracle 9i also includes strong data analysis capabilities through the addition of relational and multi-dimensional online analytical processing (Olap), as well as data mining. Unfortunately, the new relational Olap and data-mining features use a new Java-based API, so they will only be useful in new applications designed for Oracle 9i. Overall, Oracle 9i provides a very rich feature set, has a fairly consistent management strategy, and is oriented toward thin-client HTML application deployment through its XML, XSL and Java-oriented design. We found quality and maturity varied substantially for example, the email server performed poorly while the XML query features were impressive.

Particularly impressive were Oracle 9i's fine-grain access control features, flexible resource governor for mixed transactional and reporting workloads, auditing and data recovery features, object-oriented design features, and overall programmability. Using Oracle's access control features, we could set security access policies down to row and column granularity without having to add custom views for this purpose.

The Enterprise Edition also has a number of chargeable options for database clustering, data partitioning, Olap, data mining, geo-spatial data support, additional security support, and extra management and performance tuning tools.

Oracle 9i first shipped in mid-June for Solaris, then in the following eight weeks shipped on Compaq's Tru64 Unix, Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX, IBM's AIX and OS/390, and Linux. We tested the Linux edition. The Olap features are not available on the Linux version yet, though they will arrive in a future update. Windows support is due soon.

Oracle 9i adds a number of new or enhanced features to increase data safety and database uptime. One particularly striking feature is Oracle's Log Miner, which let us go back through already committed SQL statements to undo past work, something normally not possible without doing a database restore. Oracle 9i also includes a new graphical tool that makes viewing the log much easier than in Oracle 8i.

Oracle's administration tools, fronted by its Enterprise Manager administration console, have steadily improved over the years and are now quite stable and usable.

Timothy Dyck