 "Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Is Now Generally Available")
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is available and downloadable today from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN).
This latest generation of the database builds on the innovations introduced in Oracle Database 11g to help organisations deliver better information throughout the enterprise, at a higher quality of service, and at a lower cost.
In this release, Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) delivers grid plug-and-play and new server pooling capabilities that enable organisations to reduce their server costs by streamlining the provisioning and management of consolidated database grids.
Oracle RAC One Node, a new Database option, is also available now. Oracle RAC One Node is a solution that allows customers to more easily consolidate their less mission-critical database environments on the grid with most of the redundancy and availability provided by Oracle Real Application Clusters.
Reduce Storage Costs
The combination of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Advanced Compression and Partitioning supports the reduction of storage costs by compressing data as much as 2-4x and simplifying use of lower-cost storage tiers. In this release, Oracle Automatic Storage Management is extended to support a general-purpose cluster file system to help customers reduce their storage management costs.
Eliminate Unused Redundancy
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Automatic Storage Management, Oracle Real Application Clusters, and Active Data Guard allow storage and server resources to be used for both fault tolerance and running production workloads, keeping servers and storage from sitting idle waiting for failures. In this release, Edition-based Redefinition is introduced to allow customer database applications to be upgraded online; this removes the need for separate upgrade environments.
Improve Performance for Data Warehouses
Oracle Database 11g Release 2, in combination with the Oracle Database Machine, can deliver up to 10x faster query performance as per company claims. This release also delivers enhanced query performance with the ability to transparently execute a query against data stored in memory across all the servers in a grid.
Raise DBA Productivity Up to 2x
Automated self-management capabilities can help to double database administrator productivity over older versions of Oracle Database, and reduce the time required to upgrade from prior releases.