GENEVA, Switzerland, June 22, 2004 – Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) today revealed that the work of two Oracle-funded research fellows at the CERN openlab has already delivered benefits both to CERN’s grid computing capabilities and potentially to Oracle® Database Administrators (DBAs) everywhere. Two projects have demonstrated these benefits, which involve the use of Oracle Data Guard and Oracle Streams in new and innovative ways. This announcement comes just five months after the start of Oracle’s sponsorship of CERN openlab.
The first project greatly increases the availability of CERN’s grid computing environment by significantly reducing downtime of its catalogue, whose job is to ensure correct mapping of filenames and file ids. This catalogue runs on Oracle Database and Oracle Application Server, and can be regarded as a kingpin of the grid; if it is unavailable for any reason, the grid itself becomes unavailable. Previously, applying security patches necessitated taking the catalogue out of service, hence impacting the whole grid environment. An Oracle research fellow, Katarzyna Pokorska, pioneered the use of Oracle DataGuard* to reduce this unavailability from hours to minutes. As the Database is accessed through the Application Server, even this short down-time can be hidden from end-users. Oracle DataGuard maintains a hot backup of the catalogue which can be used to keep the grid environment available whilst patches are applied to the main instance; DataGuard then synchronises the changes with the backup when the main database is brought back into service. This use of Oracle DataGuard will also, of course, provide greater protection against any other catastrophic failures which might otherwise affect the catalogue.
“I am delighted that Oracle’s involvement in openlab has delivered measurable benefit both to CERN and to the commercial world,” said Sergio Giacoletto, executive vice president, Oracle EMEA. “Oracle is committed to making grid computing a commercial reality. Our involvement in the CERN openlab research is performing a vital role in helping everyone to understand the technological challenges involved, which will bring benefits to our customers. It is heartening to see that these benefits can come in the short, as well as the long, term.”
The CERN openlab for DataGrid applications sees collaboration between CERN researchers and companies such as Oracle to create cutting-edge solutions for the data grids of the future. Oracle’s contribution is to sponsor 1.5 million Euros over three years towards equipment and the funding of research fellows, who will test Oracle® Database 10g within CERN’s demanding environment.
A second openlab project has identified a way to upgrade an Oracle database from one release to another whilst keeping the database operational, using Oracle Streams, a function originally developed to help create powerful information sharing solutions**. The second Oracle research fellow, Eva Dafonte Perez, demonstrated the use of Oracle Streams to upgrade from Oracle9i Database release 9.2.0.4 to release 9.2.0.5, or from 9.2.0.5 to Oracle Database 10g, in a matter of minutes. The method can also be used to change hardware platform, not only without interruption to database availability but also giving confirmation that the upgraded machine is properly operational. This procedure should be of great interest to Oracle DBAs around the world as a way of increasing the database’s level of service to their company.
“Today’s announcement emphasises the value of the CERN openlab and shows how commercial operations like Oracle can work with research organisations to mutual benefit,” said Jamie Shiers, Database Group Leader, CERN. “That openlab is already finding new ways to use existing technology to answer the needs of the DBA shows how we are helping to address the challenges of grid-based computing. The database will perform an essential function in the grid of tomorrow and Oracle’s involvement in the CERN openlab ensures that its customers will benefit in the future.”
* Oracle Data Guard is the management, monitoring, and automation software infrastructure that creates, maintains, and monitors one or more standby databases to protect enterprise data from failures, disasters, errors, and corruptions. Oracle Data Guard’s configuration can combine the primary database with a number of remote disaster recovery site standby databases, which are updated as the primary database is modified, thus creating a single, easily managed disaster recovery solution.
** In standard usage Oracle Streams captures and distributes database updates, events and application messages. It can automatically apply updates to destination databases, or pass events and messages to custom procedures and applications. The combination of these capabilities provides a DBA with an extremely flexible method for replication, message queuing and event notification.
About CERN
CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics centre near Geneva, Switzerland. Technological development at CERN has given the world advances as varied as medical imaging and the World Wide Web. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe's first joint ventures and has become a shining example of international collaboration. From the original 12 signatories of the CERN convention, membership has grown to the present 20 member states.
About Oracle Corp.
Oracle is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our website at www.oracle.com.
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