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Oracle ships 11g for Linux

However, the database giant has yet to set a date for availability of the Windows version.

By Miya Knights, 15 Aug 2007 at 12:42

Oracle has started shipping the latest version of its database management software, 11g is now available on the Linux platform.

As the successor to 10g, this latest version was announced a month ago, but has not been on actual sale until now.

At the launch, Oracle touted various new features including upgraded testing, compression and security functionality. But the vendor has yet to set a date for its availability on Windows.

"Oracle Database 11g continues the focus on grid computing by enabling grids of low-cost servers and storage," stated Andy Mendelsohn, Oracle senior vice president of database server technologies.

The company said pricing for the upgrade would remain the same as for 10g and has made an evaluation version available. But it has also added four new features it said will cost extra.

The Real Application Testing option allows users to test upgrades and system changes more quickly at a cost of $10,000 (£5,001) per processor and $200 (£100) per named user.

The Advanced Compression option is available at the same price as the testing option and offers the ability to compress data twice or three times over. Oracle said this option can be used with new partitioning capabilities to deploy database Information Lifecycle Management strategies without application changes, reducing overall storage requirements.

The Total Recall option offers a new query tool designed to make it easier to maintain historical data archives and track data changes for business intelligence, auditing and compliance. This and the last new option both cost $5,000 per processor (£2,500) or $100 (£50) per user, with the last optional feature being called Active Data Guard.

Active Data Guard allows customers to offload resource intensive operations like queries and backups to standby databases to facilitate disaster recovery and upgrade work more cost effectively.

Bob Tarzey, service director at analyst Quocirca told IT PRO it was not surprising that Oracle had released 11g for Linux first, given the fact that most of its customers run their databases on Linux as a utility platform. "That's not to say its customers don't run databases on Microsoft; it's just that the applications often access the Linux database using Windows," he said.

He added that it was likely Oracle saw the new 11g options as "particularly innovative enough for customers to feel it's worth paying extra for them".