The debate about Single Purpose Database VS Converged/Consolidated Databases: Which approach/architecture is better?

The debate about Single Purpose Database VS Converged/Consolidated Databases: Which approach/architecture is better?

Here is an excellent blog post by Maria Colgan Master Product Manager at Oracle Product Management summarizing the pros and cons of each approach. Here is a quick recap on this topic.

• Single-Purpose Databases / Purpose Built Databases
• Single-Purpose Databases or Purpose Built Databases are architected for a singular or small number of problems/workloads: they are rather simplistic in nature with lesser functionality.
• It is relatively easier to start development against Single-Purpose Databases because of their simplicity.
• Single-Purpose Databases mostly scale well because they do not offer strong consistency guarantees.
• Single-Purpose Databases end up costing significantly more in the medium to long run due to data fragmentation and higher maintenance costs.
• Single-Purpose Best-of-Breed Databases typically creates Vendor Lock-In.
• Single-Purpose Databases are generally used in boutique cases which, typically require higher performance requirements e.g. transaction processing systems.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases 
• Converged/Consolidated Databases cater to all types of data, workloads and development protocols.
• Eliminating data fragmentation also eliminates data contagion in Converged/Consolidated Databases enabling application logic/modules to use and reuse a shared data copy across the organization.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases enable more synergy for data and workloads making development faster.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases make it much simpler for developers to run stuff like Cloud, Autonomous/ML, extended SQL, spatial, blockchain, IoT etc. in one singular consolidated database rather than running them across distributed Single-Purpose databases.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases helps the overall ecosystem to be relatively lesser complex which results in lesser maintenance and development costs in the medium to long run.
• Summary
• The of Single-Purpose Databases or Purpose Built Databases should be well thought out for a very limited/focused set of problems/tasks as, they come at extra maintenance/cost in the medium to long run.

This video by Juan Loaiza & Andrew Sutherland gives a good summary on this debate.

I hope you got a quick overview of the pros and cons of this ongoing debate: Single Purpose Database VS Converged/Consolidated Databases: Which approach/architecture is better?

Cheers.

Oracle Database 19c is now certified on Linux 8

Oracle Database 19c is now certified on Linux 8 - there is a very good blog post by Mike Dietrich Master Product Manager for Oracle Database Upgrade and Migrations.

Here is a quick recap on this topic.

• Minimum Release Update is 19.7 (Or 19.6 with patches or higher.
• Goto My Oracle Support > Certifications tab and then enter  “Oracle Database“, “19.0.0.0.0” and either “Linux x86-64 Oracle Linux 8.x” or “Linux x86-64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8“.
• Reference Document: MOS Note: 1369107.1
• Minimum Kernel Versions: 
• Oracle Linux 8.1 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 6: 5.4.17-2011.0.7.el8uek.x86_64 or later
• Oracle Linux 8.0 with the Red Hat Compatible kernel: 4.18.0-80.el8.x86_64 or later

Enjoy Oracle 19c on Linux 8.

Cheers.

Oracle Standard Edition High Availability Released - A Quick Summary of New Features

Oracle released a High Availability version of Oracle Standard Edition (SE2) recently.

There is a very good blog post by Markus Michalewicz Senior Director Oracle Product Management summarizing the following new features. Here is a quick recap of what's new with SE2.

• With SE2 Cluster-based failover using Oracle Clusterware is now available for single-instance Standard Edition Oracle Databases. 
• With this latest release of Oracle Standard Edition, you can now use standard Oracle Clustering features such as Automatic Storage Management (ASM), ASM Cluster File System (ACFS) & Oracle Clusterware on Oracle Standard Edition.
• Oracle Standard Edition is completed integrated with 19c RU 19.7.
• However, Oracle Standard Edition High Availability DBs are NOT RAC enabled - to RAC enable your Oracle databases, you still do need Real Application Clusters (RAC) option enabled.
• There is no direct upgrade path for a single instance or a pre-19c RAC Standard Edition 2 Database
• The Standard Edition High Availability option can be failed over to an unlicensed machine for up to 10 days.
• SE2 is available on Windows, Linux & Solaris family of Operating Systems.

Enjoy the SE2 version of Oracle.

Cheers.

Oracle Autonomous Database Newsletters: A great resource to keep up with

Oracle Autonomous Database Newsletters are a great resource to keep up with. Started in Feb 2020 by Keith Laker, Senior Principal Product Manager for Analytic SQL at Oracle.

Here is a recap of all the Oracle Autonomous Database Newsletters posted so far:

• Don't miss out on Oracle Autonomous Database Newsletters.
• Autonomous Database Newsletter - February 18-2020.
• Autonomous Database Newsletter - February 26-2020.
• Autonomous Database Newsletter - April 08-2020.
• Autonomous Database Newsletter - April 30-2020.

You can subscribe to these Newsletters here.

Cheers.

Faster Oracle Database Upgrades but with lesser memory

Here is a shout out to very good blog post by Mike Dietrich Master Product Manager for Oracle Database Upgrade and Migrations: Faster Oracle Database Upgrades but with lesser memory.

Quick Recap on this topic.

• Reducing SGA and PGA sizes for Database Upgrades makes the whole process faster by leveraging lesser memory.
• Leverage Large Pages for Database Operations and Upgrades.
• Database is started in Upgrade Mode during restarts.
• Upgrades don't touch User Data.

Cheers.

Converged/Consolidated Databases: A Quick Overview

What are Converged/Consolidated Databases?

Here is an excellent blog post on this topic by Maria Colgan Master Product Manager at Oracle Product Management. Here is a quick summary of the characteristics/properties of Converged/Consolidated Databases.

• Converged/Consolidated Databases 
• Converged/Consolidated Databases cater to all types of data, workloads and development protocols.
• Eliminating data fragmentation also eliminates data contagion in Converged/Consolidated Databases enabling application logic/modules to use and reuse a shared data copy across the organization.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases enable more synergy for data and workloads making development faster.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases make it much simpler for developers to run stuff like Cloud, Autonomous/ML, extended SQL, spatial, blockchain, IoT etc. in one singular consolidated database rather than running them across distributed Single-Purpose databases.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases provide native support for all modern data types and most of the latest/prevalent development protocols.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases helps the overall ecosystem to be relatively lesser complex which results in lesser maintenance and development costs in the medium to long run.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases provide more/better integration for data and workloads.
• Oracle Database is a very successful example/manifestation of a Converged/Consolidated Databases model.

This video by Juan Loaiza & Andrew Sutherland gives a good summary on this topic.

I hope you got a quick overview of Converged/Consolidated Databases in this blog post.

Cheers.

Oracle Database 20c - A Sneak Peak into whats coming

Oracle Database 20c - A Sneak Peak into whats coming.

Here is an excellent blog post by Dominic Giles Master Product Manager at Oracle summarizing a Preview of Oracle Database 20c which was refreshed to v20.3 on the Oracle Cloud DBCS Platform. Here is a quick recap on this topic.

• Oracle Database 20c is the latest upcoming version in the multi-model family of Oracle Databases.
• Oracle Database 20c focus and push is on the Converged/Consolidated Database model. Here is a quick summary about Converged/Consolidated Databases:
• Converged/Consolidated Databases cater to all types of data, workloads and development protocols.
• Eliminating data fragmentation also eliminates data contagion in Converged/Consolidated Databases enabling application logic/modules to use and reuse a shared data copy across the organization.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases enable more synergy for data and workloads making development faster.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases make it much simpler for developers to run stuff like Cloud, Autonomous/ML, extended SQL, spatial, blockchain, IoT etc. in one singular consolidated database rather than running them across distributed Single-Purpose databases.
• Converged/Consolidated Databases helps the overall ecosystem to be relatively lesser complex which results in lesser maintenance and development costs in the medium to long run.
• Some of the New Features in Oracle Database 20c
• Blockchain Tables.
• SQL Macros.
• In-Memory Enhancements:
• Self-Managing In-Memory Column Store.
• In-Memory Hybrid Columnar Scans.
• Database In-Memory Vector Joins.
• Native JSON datatype Support.
• Machine Learning for Python and AutoML.
• Optimized Graph Models.
• Sharding Enhancements/Improvements.
• Persistent Memory Support.
• Expression based init.ora parameters.
• Automatic Zone Maps.
• A whole lot more is coming with Oracle 20c: Stay Tuned...

I hope you got a quick overview of whats coming in Oracle Database 20c which was refreshed to v20.3 on the Oracle Cloud DBCS Platform.

Cheers.