Oracle OODMBS

Object Oriented DBMS ([OODBMS]

Object orientation is the capability of storing and retrieving objects in addition to mere data. Database Management Systems were designed to look after data - numbers, words etc. Objects are complex and not well handled by standard Relational DBMS.
Object Oriented DBMS products including Oracle8 have object capability. Most systems can handle images, video and other objects but do so in a non-standard way in many cases.

Oracle Systems

Oracle provide database management systems (DBMS), tools for database development, middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning software (ERP), customer relationship management software (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) software.

In 2004 Oracle expanded its enterprise applications using a series of acquisitions such as PeopleSoft and Siebel and most currently, Hyperion.

Oracle and SAP also compete in the third-party enterprise software maintenance and support market.

The main slogan for Oracle - "Can't break it, can't break in", or "Unbreakable" signifies the increasing demands on information safety. Oracle Corporation also stresses the reliability of networked databases and network access to databases as major selling points.

Oracle Databases

2004 Oracle Application Server 10g using Java EE to deploy web technology applications. The application server is the first middle-tier software designed for grid computing. The strong interrelationship between Oracle 10g and Java enables stored procedures to be written in the Java language, as well as those written in the traditional Oracle database programming language, PL/SQL.

• Oracle Rdb - is a relational database system running on OpenVMS platforms.
• Oracle Database - the flagship relational database management system (RDBMS) is commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply Oracle.

Oracle Database Systems

An Oracle database system comprises at least one instance of the application, along with data storage. An instance is a set of operating-system processes and memory-structures that interact with the storage. Typical processes include PMON (the process monitor) and SMON (the system monitor).

Server-side memory-structure, SGA [System Global Area] typically holds cache information such as data-buffers, SQL commands and user information.

Oracle RDBMS

The Oracle RDBMS stores data logically in the form of tablespaces and physically in the form of data files.

• Tablespaces can contain various types of memory segments; for example, Data Segments, Index Segments etc.
• Segments in turn comprise one or more extents.
• Extents comprise groups of contiguous data blocks.
• Data blocks form the basic units of data storage.

At the physical level, data-files comprise one or more data blocks, where the block size can vary between data-files.

Oracle database management keeps track of its data storage with the help of information stored in the SYSTEM tablespace. The SYSTEM tablespace contains the data dictionary — and often (by default) indexes and clusters.

Data Dictionary

A data dictionary consists of a special collection of tables that contains information about all user-objects in the database.

Since version 8i, the Oracle RDBMS also supports "locally managed" tablespaces which can store space management information in bitmaps in their own headers rather than in the SYSTEM tablespace (as happens with the default "dictionary-managed" tablespaces).

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