Oracle Database 10g Express Edition – Free(Can’t Believe? Read on….)

 

By Sandip Davda

This is really a very good news for all Oracle fans who want to learn/use oracle but cant aford it….

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition is Free to develop, deploy, and distribute. Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 code base that’s free to develop, deploy, and distribute; fast to download; and simple to administer.

Oracle Database XE is a great starter database for:

• Developers working on PHP, Java, .NET, XML, and Open Source applications.
• DBAs who need a free, starter database for training and deployment.
• Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and hardware vendors who want a starter database to distribute free of charge.
• Educational institutions and students who need a free database for their curriculum With

Oracle Database XE, you can now develop and deploy applications with a powerful, proven, industry-leading infrastructure, and then upgrade when necessary without costly and complex migrations.

Oracle Database XE can be installed on any size host machine with any number of CPUs (one database per machine), but XE will store up to 4GB of user data, use up to 1GB of memory, and use one CPU on the host machine. Download Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Oracle Database XE includes Oracle HTML DB 2.1, a declarative, graphical development environment for creating database-centric Web applications. In addition to HTML DB 2.1, you can use popular Oracle and third-party languages and tools to develop your Oracle Database XE applications. Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 code base. Adrian Bridgwater samples a cup of this fresh new brew.

Is it really free?
Oracle Database XE really is for free development. There are no database license costs associated with developing applications for the product and it is offered using the complete integrated set of Oracle Database programming interfaces. This includes SQL, PL/SQL, Java, C and PHP, Windows .Net, Oracle Application Express, C++, ODBC and OLE DB. Developers can then freely distribute Oracle Database XE as a standalone database or as part of a third-party application or product, provided the defined criteria are adhered to.

“Oracle Database XE allows developers, DBAs, ISVs and students the opportunity to learn, develop and deploy on the world’s leading database software, at no cost,” said Thomas Kyte, vice president, Oracle. “No one has to make do anymore; everyone can now start with the best.” “Developers, DBAs, students and ISVs often look to no cost DBMSs to get started in developing and learning to develop database applications,” said Carl Olofson, research director for information management and data integration software research at analyst firm IDC. “When such a DBMS is supported by a wealth of literature, online technical material and professional experts, it allows developers to easily grow and support their applications and data needs over time without needing to convert their database later on, the result is a low risk path that offers a high potential return not only immediately, but in the long run.”

When such a DBMS is so well supported… it allows developers to easily grow and support their applications and data needs over time without needing to convert their database later on.

How do I manage Oracle Database XE?
Oracle Database XE comes complete with its own management browser interface to monitor database activity and manage database users, storage and memory. The Oracle Database 10g product family offers many different options and features across different editions.For a complete comparison, see oracle.com/technology/products/database/oracle10g/pdf/twp_general_10gdb_product_family.pdf
Registered users of Oracle Database XE get access to a free online community forum hosted and monitored by Oracle experts at oracle.com/technology/xe and the company urges all users to register and take advantage of this free resource. Users are encouraged to discuss challenges and successes in the online community forum so that the Oracle Database XE development team can respond.

So how will ISVs benefit from Oracle Database XE? With Oracle Database XE, ISVs have one of the industry’s leading database technology to power their applications. Distributing it in their applications or products without additional cost offers even greater value to their customers, this is what Oracle says – but it’s hard to argue with the fact that even ISVs who are unfamiliar with Oracle Database have an opportunity to experience the technology, validate it with their applications and freely distribute it-with zero risk and investment.

Migration situation
If your usage exceeds Oracle Database XE criteria then the company offers a choice of database editions to upgrade to. Depending on scale of application requirements, you can easily upgrade to Standard Edition One, Standard Edition, or Enterprise Edition.

Migration is pretty straightforward. Any application developed for Oracle Database XE will run completely unchanged with Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One, Standard Edition, or Enterprise Edition; application development investment is guaranteed.

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Features

• Available on 32-bit Linux and Windows
• Installs using native installers
• English (single byte character set) and International (Unicode) versions available with support for 10 major languages
• Supports up to 4GB of user data
• Executes on one processor in any size server
• Uses up to 1GB RAM of available memory in any size server
• Fully upgradeable to other Oracle Database 10g editions
• Oracle Text for efficient text-based searches
• Oracle Data Provider for .NET

Oracle Database XE Development Environments

• Oracle Call Interface for C and C++
• Oracle Application Express
• ODBC
• OLE DB
• JDBC
• PHP

The Limitations of Oracle 10gXE

• Supports upto 4GB of user data (in addition to Oracle system data)
• Single instance only of Oracle DatabaseXE on any server
• May be installed on a multiple CPU server, but only executes on one processor in any server
• May be installed on a server with any amount of memory, but will only use upto 1GB RAM of available memory