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In this chapter, we will be covering topics and features available in Oracle Database 10g with which you will need to be familiar when working with large databases. These features are among the more advanced that you will encounter, but they're necessary, as databases are growing larger and larger. When you start working with Oracle, you will find yourself facing the trials and tribulations associated with large databases sooner rather than later. The quicker you understand the features and know where and when to use them, the more effective you will be.
Let's start by describing what we mean by a large database. ''Large" is a relative term that changes over time. What was large five or ten years ago is small by today's standards, and what is large today will be peanuts a few years from now. Each release of Oracle has included new features and enhancements to address the need to store more and more data. For example, Oracle8i was released in 1999 and could handle databases with terabytes (1024 gigabytes) of data. In 2001, Oracle9i was released and could deal with up to 500 petabytes (1024 terabytes). Oracle Database 10g now offers support for exabyte (1024 petabytes) databases. You won't come across too many databases with exabytes of data right now, but in the future at least we know Oracle will support them.
The most obvious examples of large database implementations are data warehouses and decision support systems. These environments usually have tables with millions or billions of rows, or wide tables with large numbers of columns and many rows. There are also many OLTP systems that are very large and can benefit from the features we are about to cover. Since we've got many topics to get through, let's jump right in and start with data partitioning.
NOTE
Many of the topics discussed in this chapter could, each on their own, take an entire book to cover completely. Since this is an introductory book, specifics for some topics have been omitted. Real-world experiences and additional reading will build on this material.
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