Benefits of RDBMS

Relational database management systems offer benefits such as:

• Independence of physical data storage and logical database structure
• Variable and easy access to all data
• Complete flexibility in database design
• Reduced data storage and redundancy
• Data independence
• Data integrity
• Data sharing/ Data redundancy
• Data security

Oracle Database

Oracle extends the relational model to an object-relational model, which makes it possible to store complex business models in a relational database.

The object-relational model allows users to define object types, specifying both the structure of the data and the methods of operating on the data, and to use these datatypes within the relational model.

Object types are abstractions of the real-world entities--for example, purchase orders--that application programs deal with. An object type has three kinds of components:

• A name, which serves to identify the object type uniquely.

• Attributes, which are built-in data types or other user-defined types. Attributes model the structure of the real world entity.

• Methods, which are functions or procedures written in PL/SQL and stored in the database, or written in a language like C and stored externally. Methods implement specific operations that an application can perform on the data. Every object type has a constructor method that makes a new object according to the data type’s specification.

An Oracle database is a collection of data treated as a unit. The purpose of a database is to store and retrieve related information. A database server is the key to solving the problems of information management. In general, a server reliably manages a large amount of data in a multi-user environment so that many users can concurrently access the same data. All this is accomplished while delivering high performance. A database server also prevents unauthorized access and provides efficient solutions for failure recovery.

Oracle Database is the first database designed for enterprise grid computing, the most flexible and cost effective way to manage information and applications. Enterprise grid computing creates large pools of industry-standard, modular storage and servers. With this architecture, each new system can be rapidly provisioned from the pool of components. There is no need for peak workloads, because capacity can be easily added or reallocated from the resource pools as needed.

The database has logical structures and physical structures. Because the physical and logical structures are separate, the physical storage of data can be managed without affecting the access to logical storage structures.

The Oracle grid architecture pools large numbers of servers, storage, and networks into a flexible, on-demand computing resource for enterprise computing needs. The grid computing infrastructure continually analyzes demand for resources and adjusts supply accordingly.

For example, you could run different applications on a grid of several linked database servers. When reports are due at the end of the month, the database administrator could automatically provision more servers to that application to handle the increased demand.

Grid computing uses sophisticated workload management that makes it possible for applications to share resources across many servers. Data processing capacity can be added or removed on demand, and resources within a location can be dynamically provisioned. Web services can quickly integrate applications to create new business processes.

Grid computing offers high performance and scalability, because all computing resources can be flexibly allocated to applications as needed.

Oracle Database enables enterprise grid computing in the following ways:

• Performance and scalability with low cost hardware clusters, like Itanium and Linux.
• Reliability: Continuous availability of data and applications
• Security and privacy: security features that lets you share enterprise grid resources with confidence that privacy is maintained
• Self-management: Oracle infrastructure automates many functions so that a single administrator can manage hundreds of servers.
• Distributed computing: Oracle has advanced integration features that allow applications and data to run anywhere in the network.

At the highest level, the idea of grid computing is computing as a utility. In other words, you should not care where your data resides, or what computer processes your request. You should be able to request information or computation and have it delivered - as much as you want, and whenever you want. This is analogous to the way electric utilities work, in that you don't know where the generator is, or how the electric grid is wired, you just ask for electricity, and you get it. The goal is to make computing a utility, a commodity, and ubiquitous. Hence the name, The Grid. This view of utility computing is, of course, a "client side" view.

Oracle provides substantial grid computing technology, available today that can help you capitalize on the grid. Oracle is the best on commodity clusters; a hardware platform that many believe would come to dominate the grid. Oracle possesses the key technology differentiators -- Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Streams, and Oracle Transportable Tablespaces -- for building the grid. Only Oracle delivers the operational characteristics -- portability, RAS, security, and scalability -- necessary for the grid.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is a difference between RDBMS and Object RDBMS?
2. What is the advantage of Object RDBMS?
3. What are the different models (old and new) for DBMS?
4. What is the difference between logical and Physical structures of Database?
5. Is schema a logical structure or physical structure in oracle database?

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