Oracle Database 10G Express Edition

Instead of me writing paragraph after paragraph of text to describe the product (which you know I usually love to do), let's perform our review using a bulleted list. That way we can we can quickly grasp what 10G Express Edition is all about.

• 10G Express Edition is built using the same code base as Oracle Database 10G Release 2. Hmmm, that means that applications built using 10G Express Edition can be upgraded to use Standard Edition 1, Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition without changing either the application code or the database definition statements.
• As previously stated, the product is free to download, develop and deploy on. It is also free to embed in third-party ISV software and hardware products.
• The database can be installed on any size machine but there are restrictions. The database will use a maximum of 1GB of memory, run on a single CPU and support up to 4 GB of user data.
• The database's footprint on disk is only 150 MB.
• Supports SQL, PL/SQL, Java, C, PHP, .NET, HTML DB, C++, ODBC, OLE DB.
• 10G Express Edition is currently available on 32-bit Linux and Windows platforms.
• Product support is provided free by an online community forum hosted by Oracle experts.
• A beta version of the product is currently available for download. The production version is scheduled for release later this year.

If you go to Oracle's Technology Network Website, you'll see a paragraph of information on 10G Express Edition prominently displayed at the top of the page. If you click on the link, you are taken to the new 10G Express Edition Information home page. As stated previously, an online community forum provides product support. To access the forum, you are required to first download the product.

Oracle brought out one of its heavy hitters, Tom Kyte, to announce the product at various users groups. In addition, Tom discusses 10G Express Edition in a podcast which can be found at the bottom of the 10G Express Edition Information home page. Tom has also been given the responsibility of hosting the 10G Express Edition discussion forum. Tom was the perfect choice to host a discussion forum on a new product. His Ask Tom website is well known throughout the Oracle community as the "Go To Forum" for finding answers to tough questions. As I stated in my review of Tom's latest book, Tom's primary method of simplifying complex technical concepts is to use a snippet of code as an example. Tom has the reputation of being a no-nonsense, straight shooter that wants people to become better at administering and using the Oracle product sets.

If you read Oracle's sales pitch for 10G Express Edition, you'll quickly identify the intended customer base. The Oracle announcement states:

Oracle Database XE is a great starter database for:

• Developers working on PHP, Java, .NET, 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

The strategy makes perfect sense. The more technicians you have testing and using your products, the more popular your products become. Students that learn the product today become the administrators, developers and purchase decision-makers of tomorrow. I personally like the idea of being able to use the product for free on my desktop. In the past, each time I switched departments or jobs I had to cost-justify having a copy of the database on my PC.

This timing of this new release really benefits my unit and my organization. We just completed evaluations of two other low-end database products MYSQL and Microsoft's MSDB. Maybe I am a big database, big feature bigot because I wasn't impressed by either of them.

Oracle also recently purchased Innobase OY, the company that makes the MYSQL InnoDB engine. The InnoDB product is what makes MYSQL a database by providing an ACID compliant storage engine that provides referential integrity and row-level locking. Call me old fashioned, but I want my database to provide transactional support. I want to know whether a transaction's data is in there or not. Halfway doesn't count. But I don't think that Oracle's purchase of the InnoDB engine will be the death of MYSQL. They're an intelligent and aggressive company. I'm betting that we'll see some interesting strategic partnering decisions coming from MYSQL in the future.

I have spent a few hours wandering around Oracle's technical website. I took a few of the tutorials and, as I do with all new database products, read the manuals. I thought that the tutorial was well done. What I thought was very beneficial was that the tutorial was interactive. You are prompted to interact with the product as you would if you were performing administrative functions in a real-world environment. Look at the database administration home page that the tutorial provides. It is obvious that the entire product is built upon a user friendly, graphically oriented display environment.

The documentation for the product is also available from a link on the 10G Express Edition Information home page. This first screenshot is from the section on creating tables while the second screenshot shows users how to use the graphical user interface to add a column to an existing table. One quick note, most of the object creation information is contained in the Developer's Guide and not the Administrator's Guide like it is in other Oracle database product documentation sets.

Could this product eventually become a Microsoft Access competitor? I sure hope so. Although I just described myself as a "big database, big feature bigot", I firmly believe that Microsoft Access has a home in many corporate environments. Oracle needs to have a product that is able to go head-to-head against Microsoft's intuitively obvious, easy to use product. Could Express Edition be that product?

Closing
Strategically, this was a VERY smart move by the Oracle Corporation. Making a free product available will increase its user base in both breadth and depth. Having one of their ACEs, Tom Kyte, lead the charge was also an excellent idea. I will admit that I am a little wary of not having Oracle support to lean on. I will be spending some dedicated time on the 10G Express Edition discussion forum trying to determine how Oracle's free support via discussion forum is working out.