Oracle 11g Ships, But New Features Cost Extra

The recently launched Oracle 11g database server is now shipping but today's release announcement came with a twist: Some of the new features come at an additional cost.

Oracle took the wraps off its next-generation database at an event in New York last month, saying that the first iteration would ship this quarter for Linux. Company officials at the time indicated that the Windows version should follow a quarter later, or by year's end.

The company today declined to comment on the status of the Windows version, which is in beta. Oracle 11g for Windows will boast integration with Microsoft's Visual Studio tool suite.

Also, in a recent white paper, the company said the Windows version will employ a native, thread-based Windows service model and will more tightly integrate with the operating system.

For those running Oracle on Windows, 11g will offer support for large-memory and grid computing. It will support both 32- and 64-bit Windows including Vista, X64-based hardware (client and server) and Intel's Windows-based Itanium server platform.

But the big news today, as mentioned, centers on pricing. Oracle 11g Standard Edition, which allows up to 300 named users, starts at $3,300, while Enterprise Edition is priced at $8,800 for 800 named users. A complete price list is available here.

Some of the key new features of the database are as follows:

* Real Application Testing, which consists of two components. The first is Database Replay, which lets DBAs test, capture and run actual production workloads when executing such tasks as patches and changes to schemas, configuration, storage, network and operating systems. The second component is SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA), which lets developers test the impact of environmental changes. A white paper on RAT is available from Oracle here (PDF). RAT costs $10,000 per processor or $200 per named user.

* Advanced Compression, designed to reduce database storage requirements by two or three times, is priced at $10,000 per processor or $200 per named user.

* Oracle Total Recall, which lets DBAs maintain archives of changed data for those with compliance requirements, is $5,000 per processor or $100 per named user.

* Active Data Guard, a module that provides monitoring, management and automation for data protection and disaster recovery, is priced at $5,000 per processor.

Author: Jeffrey Schwartz