Oracle 10g vs 11g
Oracle databases are object-relational database management systems developed and distributed by Oracle Corporation. The latest version of Oracle databases is Oracle 11g, first released in September 2008; it succeeded Oracle 10g. These versions are a part of the continued evolution of the Oracle databases since the 1980s. Each new version has newer patch sets release regularly, the most significant of which are known as a release. A major objective of each upgraded version is to increase performance and scalability over the older version. Therefore there are many new features in 11g built on top of those already available in 10g. These provide better capabilities to the database administrators (DBAs) to manage their multi-tiered database environments that are getting more complex and larger over the years.
Oracle 10g
Oracle 10g was the upgraded version from Oracle 9i. It was a very stable version from the out set with many of the bugs in 9i fixed and with host of new features. Primarily it provided grid computing by provision of CPUs and data. To this end, Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) gave a powerful grid control mechanism. This version also provided enhancements for advanced extensions such as Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters), Oracle Data Guard and Oracle Streams. 10g brought about automation of most administration tasks by introducing many self-managing features like automated database diagnostic monitor, automated shared memory tuning, automated storage management, and automated disk based backup and recovery.
Oracle 11g
Oracle 11g pushed the envelop further, enhancing many of the features found in 10g. It provided new components such as Oracle Application Express, Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle Real Application Testing, Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM), Oracle Warehouse Builder, Oracle Database Vault and Oracle Shadow Copy Service. Therefore 11g provides better performance and its release 2 has been geared for newer operating systems such as Windows 7, Server 2008 and latest versions of Linux, Unix, Solaris, etc.
What is the difference between 10g and 11g?
Compared with 10g, 11g provides more simplified, improved and automated memory management and better ability to diagnose faults through inbuilt infrastructure to prevent, detect, diagnose, and help resolve critical database errors, as well as, low database performance issues. It provides invisible indexes, virtual columns, table partitioning and the ability to redefine tables which have materialized view logs whilst online. A major difference in the two are the new security features found in 11g such as better password-based authentication with mixed case passwords, encryption on tablespace-level and enhancements for data pump encryption and compression.
11g continued the use of different editions used in 10g which are Enterprise Edition (EE), Standard Edition (SE), Standard Edition One (SE1), Express Edition (EX) and Oracle Database Lite for mobile devices.
Conclusion
All in all, 11g is a good upgrade from 10g with many positive enhancements on an evolving technology. The technical documentation which was good in 10g has become even better in 11g, a significant benefit for the DBAs, who depend on it daily. It is common for organizations not to utilize the full features of an Oracle database. Therefore, the benefits of an upgraded version must be properly utilized for the organization to reduce their cost of ownership, downtime and increase performance, which 11g can deliver.