What is Oracle Database?

Oracle Database

Oracle Database  is one product among others forming the Oracle  suite (Oracle Database, Oracle Application Server, Oracle Developer Suite, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control…).

Oracle Database  is the Oracle database management system that allows multiple users to access data simultaneously while ensuring availability and disaster recovery mechanisms.

Be aware that Oracle Database refers to the entire Oracle software, while database has a specific meaning in the Oracle architecture.

To guarantee a high level of performance, Oracle maintains the database thanks to memory structures (in random access memory: RAM) and physical structures (on hard disk) and uses processes for the storage of data in memory or on disk .

Writing to disk is only performed when necessary and under conditions while Memory is used as much as possible since memory access is faster than disk access (performance gain).


In the event of a power outage, for example, Oracle will be able to recover well if data in memory, at the time of the incident, is not written to disk. This is the recovery of the instance managed by the SMON process discussed later in the oracle architecture.

An instance failure requires recovery, while a physical failure (such as a disk crash) requires a restore followed by a recovery.

Restoration and recovery are two different terms that should be clearly distinguished. The restoration is made from backup files and the recovery allows to reapply to the restored data files, the modifications already made on the base to find the consistent state of the database before the incident.


In the example in the figure, recovery at time t2 requires restoring the last available S1 backup and reimplementing any changes that occurred in the interval t1-t2.

To learn more about the components and basic concepts of the Oracle architecture, take look at our Expert DBA Team Club blog and more advance topics are available at this source.

What is Oracle Database?

Oracle Database – What is it?

Oracle Database, known more colloquially as simply Oracle, is database management system with a model which relational as well as object-oriented.  This article attempts to clarify in lay-man terms what the Oracle Database system does.

What does the Oracle Database do? - The primary purpose of the Oracle Database is to store collected data and retrieve the same when required. Since, in large companies and organisations, the amount of data is huge and almost unmanageable, the Oracle Database is used very frequently. It also provides multi-user access which allows many users from the same organisation to access the data at the same time without crashes or bugs. Another advantage of having an Oracle Database manage your information is that the data is secure and even if the system crashes, retrieving the data becomes very easy.

How does an Oracle Database Work? : - An oracle database usually contains datafiles which contain and classify the various data in various tables and indices. It stores these datafiles and executes pre-stored functions and procedures. The data is stored typically as tablespaces which are contained in memory segments, extents and data blocks.

To identify and control these various datafiles, the Oracle Database has a control file which essentially records the name and locations of the various files and the time of creation and change. This control file also aids in system data recovery in case of a crash.

The use of a database system makes the management and handling of data extremely simple. It also records the various changes made by multiple users and keeps a record of which changes were made by whom. However, it must be noted that there is a lock on changing and modifying data by other users if one user is already doing so. 

Thus the Oracle Database system is a boon for information and data storage and management in most companies worldwide. Nowadays, Oracle database is most popular RDBMS in global market and Oracle company is also becoming giant. Oracle is having now Sun products like Java, MySQL, Solaris operating system and Sun hardware, Sun storage. Before taken over of Sun Microsys, Oracle didn't have it's own operating system and hardware like IBM DB2 and Microsoft. But now Oracle has everything and it becomes most powerful database, software, hardware company in market. Due to these all reasons, database administrator of Oracle is earning more and DBA services is highly demand-able in market.