The Oracle database is, quite simply, that database that all other databases want to be when they grow up. It is the database that all other databases aspire to be. It is at the core of numerous international companies and many educational organisations rely on Oracle for their day to day operations. Unfortunately, for many smaller companies, the cost of buying and then licensing Oracle means that it is not really a viable option.
However, there is a solution and that solution is Oracle. In most cases it is possible to have Oracle up and running in just a few minutes and without it costing a single penny. With a little bit of effort it is even possible to have Oracle working with PHP
Installing and Setting up Oracle.
The current version of Oracle is version 11 (or 11g to be exact where 'g' stands for 'grid computing') and it costs money to obtain that. A lot of money. It is, undoubtedly, an investment but it's not an investment that everyone can afford to make.
However, Oracle have also released version 10g Express (also known as Oracle XE) and that's free. Therefore, any budding Oracle developer just needs to go to the Oracle XE download page and select the version of XE for their operating system. In fact, Linux distros such as Ubuntu enable the user to install the database using aptitude and it's as easy as:
sudo echo “http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/express-edition/overview/index.html” >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo aptitude install oracle-xe oracle-xe-client
And then configuring the installation:
sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure
After which the Oracle database can be accessed via a web browser:
http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex
That's it. The user is now able to carry out any administrative tasks such as: creating tables; creating users; adding stored procedures. Or, if they prefer, the user may access the database from the command line using the sqlplus command.
Limitations of Oracle XE
It should be noted that Oracle 10g XE is (unsurprisingly) rather more limited than the full 11g database. However, these limitations are unlikely to affect anyone wishing to develop applications for Oracle databases or anyone with a very limited user base (such as a small company). For example the number of sessions is limited to a maximum of 45 and data compression is not available and nor is parallel statistics gathering.
Oracle 10g XE is an exiting step forward and completely changes the face of database development. Many people will now be reconsidering how their data is to be implemented and may database vendors (such as MySQL) must be wondering what the future holds for them. However, there is one thing for certain: the world of databases has entered a whole new phase.
Mark Alexander Bain - Mark Alexander Bain is a writer, Mo Bro and consultant for all aspects of software development at dsquared. He has also written regularly ...
