Oracle Essentials, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Network Deployment Models

The previous chapters of this book focused on the features and architecture of the Oracle database. This chapter steps beyond the confines of specific features to look at the different deployment architectures that have been a focus of the last three Oracle releases.

This book is now in its third edition. We wrote the first edition about Oracle8 and Oracle8i, and added Oracle9i coverage to the second edition. In that second edition, we entitled this chapter “Oracle and the Web,” recognizing that the capabilities of the Oracle database were being expanded beyond its traditional role—indeed, the database was becoming one of the pillars of an overall Internet platform solution.

With the release of Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Corporation is promoting another deployment architecture, the emerging concept known as grid computing. This chapter looks at how the Internet and its associated architecture—with its expanded scope and adherence to standards—have impacted the Oracle database over the past few years. It also provides a brief overview of an important complementary part of the “Oracle platform,” Oracle Application Server. Finally, the chapter describes how grid computing fits into this evolution.

This new version of this final chapter reflects the state of the Oracle platform with the release of Oracle Database 10g, with less emphasis on some of the functionality that went exclusively toward supporting previous versions of the Oracle platform. ...