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» VIEW ALL POSTS Jan 23 2007   7:49AM GMT

Database 11g: Ho-hum or hurray?



Posted by: Clinek
Managing an Oracle shop, Oracle database administration

The newest version of Oracle’s flagship DBMS will be released sometime in 2007. At last autumn’s OpenWorld, Oracle said that Database 11g (still its tentative name) will contain at least 482 new features, including improvements in scalability, data compression, security, parallel upgrades, Flashback and much more. Here is some more detail about the new release:

Around the blogosphere, there’s of course been much discussion about the various new features of 11g. Some of the thought leaders in the community have begun to weigh in, for example:

However, I’ve heard from several people that are underwhelmed by what they’ve seen of 11g so far.  The popular blogger and BI consultant Mark Rittman said:

I couldn’t help feeling underwhelmed by the news of Oracle Database 11g. the “Change Assurance” release …. hmmm. I know when 10g was first announced, it seemed more like 9i Release 3, and there do seem to be some nice new features around caching, partitioning and so on, but 11g doesn’t exactly seem groundbreaking so far, nothing in there particularly to get you all excited.

I know many of you that just upgraded from 9i to 10g, so the last thing on your mind is another nightmare. But which features are you most excited about, if any? Which features would you have liked to see in 11g but aren’t included yet? Or are you waiting until 11g Release 2 before even paying attention? Let me know by responding to this post!

Cheers, Tim

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Paul Collins  |   Jan 25, 2007  1:51 PM (GMT)

As with 9i and 10g I will wait for Release 2. It is always much more stable. I really wish oracle would put out a 10gR3. We are still struggling with with the aftermath of the 10g upgrade. How about this; release the Enterprise Manager 11g first then the Database. Wouldn’t that be special.


 

Arthur Kettelhut  |   Jan 25, 2007  2:02 PM (GMT)

I believe the upgrade process while necessary to remain supported, is implemented by most shops with little or no new features actually used. If a canned app such as 11i can make use of them fine, otherwise it’s rare to find developers actually use the newer features. I have not seen even 8i or above features used in many deployments.


 

Cliff Cowperthwait  |   Jan 29, 2007  1:01 PM (GMT)

I have to agree with #2 Arthur. New revisions are coming out so fast and frequently, developers are not bothering to use the upgrades. While completing my DBA certification for 8i, version 9i was released. Aside from rollback segments, was this a major upgrade? Within weeks of completing my tests, I had to take more. Version 10g, while a major update, yes, seamed to come even quicker. Are we sure this isnt just 10.x wrapped up for sales?


 

Simon Ellis  |   Feb 6, 2007  6:29 AM (GMT)

The commercial reality is that most organisations did not want to move to 10g – they were driven by Oracle’s apparent support policy – and apparent default response to any issue – of patch to fix. We can forsee an immediate response by Oracle to any problems identified with 10g – move to 11g.

That all said, we have to remember that the Oracle technology platform for database is still leader in many technology areas and there will be feature reasons why companies will move to it – however I feel most will be driven by the need to be supported and will only use, as many do, the features available to them in 9i. Only time will tell.