4.3 The History of the Oracle Database

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Now let's take a more detailed look at the history of the Oracle Database. Examine the diagram in Figure 4.7. Many of the items listed are relevant to tuning Oracle installations. Many items are specifically relevant to SQL code tuning, some physical and configuration tuning, some both.

Figure 4.7: The History of Oracle Database

• Most of the hardware distribution elements such as clustering, client/server, thin client, and multiple-tier environments, using application servers, helped performance with respect to distribution of processing.

• 4GL and PL/SQL programming tools and languages helped with creation of better, more efficient, and more maintainable source code. It could be said that the easier that code is to write then the more time will be available for tuning. However, in relation to coding of fast-performing C code this theory is probably complete hogwash! Then again planning and coding efficiency may very well be relative to how much time is spent building code. C code development is notoriously slow and complex.

• Cost-based optimization and statistics helped with SQL code tuning in relation to actual data space utilization. Statistics allows for two aspects of physical tuning. Firstly, better use of space. Statistics help to assess space usage and storage structure from datafiles down to the block-level. Secondly, better analytical information for using in capacity planning. Capacity planning is the process of estimating physical space usage and growth rates.

• There are a multitude of aspects introduced in both the Oracle8i Database and Oracle9i Database, Internet versions of Oracle Database software. These releases helped the performance of modern-day Internet and Intranet database environments.

  Note 

   Oracle Database 10 Grid   Oracle Database 10g has better performance, scalability, is more highly available, is easier to manage, is better automated, has tighter security, amongst other aspects.

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