Oracle in a Nutshell

Editions

There are four basic editions of the Oracle database:

Standard Edition

The lowest cost server edition of Oracle, which does not include all the capabilities of the Oracle database. The extra options described in the next section cannot be used with Standard Edition.

Enterprise Edition

The complete Oracle database, which is required for the use of the extra options described in the next section.

Personal Edition

A single-user version of the Oracle database, available only for Windows. This edition includes all the functionality of all the options for Enterprise Edition, where appropriate.

Lite

A trimmed-down version of the Oracle database designed for mobile use.

Although Oracle sometimes decides to fold formerly extra-cost options into one or more editions of the standard product, the company has never yet decided to take functionality out of a lesser edition in order to force upgrades.

Most of the functionality described in this book is included in all versions of the database. The following functionality is available in Enterprise Edition, but not Standard Edition, as of the time of this writing:

Data Guard

Provides a set of routines and a management tool that make it easier to implement standby databases.

Fast-start recovery

Implements a method of recovery that allows the database to be opened as soon as the rollback is applied from the log files.

Online index build and coalesce

Allows index build and coalesce operations to be performed without requiring the index to be taken offline. ...