Resilient Oracle PL/SQL

Chapter 2. Installation of a Containerized Oracle Database Instance and SQL Developer

In Chapter 1, we looked at some examples of PL/SQL. While this is a useful exercise, it lacks a practical dimension. This chapter aims to get you set up with a working installation of Oracle Database and SQL Developer. This will permit a much deeper look at actually running the PL/SQL examples and subsequently building on them.

A Virtualized Oracle Database Installation

Rather than just doing a native installation of Oracle Database onto your machine, I instead opt to use a virtualized approach. This has many merits, not the least of which is the educational benefit. It’s a good thing to come to grips with containers and images because they represent what might be called a heavyweight, global technology.

Containers differ from virtual machines (VMs) in that they have a lighter footprint, so you can typically install many containers on the same platform. VMs have many merits but they do require a hypervisor layer and hardware emulation, and this tends to make them hog a lot of resources. Containers, on the other hand, communicate directly with the host platform and don’t require the hypervisor layer. Also, containers can share common files and are quick to start and stop.

Let’s install an Oracle Database instance and Oracle SQL Developer. There are a number of ways of going about this. You may already have existing installations ready for use, or access to an installation. If not, we’ll set up ...