A very popular relational database management system (DBMS) from Oracle, introduced in 1978. Oracle was the first database product to run on a huge variety of hardware from micro to mainframe, giving it a major competitive advantage in the 1980s. By 2011, the number of platforms had been reduced to approximately a dozen versions of Windows, Linux, Unix and Solaris.
Versions i, g and c
Starting in 1999 with Version 8i, the "i" reflected support for the Internet with its built-in Java Virtual Machine (JVM). In 2003, Oracle 10g was introduced with emphasis on grid computing ("g"), which enables clusters of low-cost, industry standard servers to be treated as a single unit. The "c" stands for cloud computing, and Oracle 12c (2013) is geared for multiple customers sharing resources in datacenter servers. See
Oracle 12c.
Java Built In
With a JVM (Java interpreter) built into the DBMS, triggers and stored procedures can be written and executed in Java rather than Oracle's PL/SQL programming language. It enables Internet developers to write applications and database procedures in the same language. In addition, the JVM can also execute Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), turning the DBMS into an application server. See
Oracle Exadata,
Oracle,
PL/SQL,
EJB and
Oracle Content Management SDK.