General
What is Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database?
Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database is a memory-optimized relational database that empowers applications with the instant responsiveness and very high throughput required by today's real-time enterprises and industries such as telecom, capital markets and defense. Deployed in the application tier as an embedded or standalone database, Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database operates on data stores that fit entirely in physical memory using standard SQL interfaces. The included replication technology enables real-time transactional replication between TimesTen databases for high availability and load sharing.
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What is Oracle In-Memory Database Cache?
Oracle In-Memory Database Cache is a database option that provides real-time, updatable caching for the Oracle database. Oracle In-Memory Database Cache improves application transaction response time by caching a performance-critical subset of tables and table fragments
from an Oracle database to the application tier. Cache tables are managed like regular relational database tables within the TimesTen In-Memory Database. Thus, Oracle In-Memory Database Cache offers applications the full generality and functionality of a relational database, the transparent maintenance of cache consistency with the Oracle Database, and the real-time performance of an in-memory database. This Database option is ideal for caching performance-critical
subsets of an Oracle database for improved response time in the application tier. To achieve high availability, Oracle In-Memory Database Cache can be deployed using an active-standby configuration, where cache tables are replicated in real-time between the Oracle TimesTen databases.
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Does Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database have any special hardware and software requirements?
The Oracle TimesTen database was built with the assumption that all the data being managed resides in physical memory (RAM). As a result, the most important thing to consider regarding hardware is to have sufficient RAM available in the application tier. Aside from that, TimesTen has very few hardware considerations. As with any application, having an appropriate number of CPUs (running at appropriate clock speeds) is important for your application to run as fast as possible. Similarly, to take advantage of multiple CPUs, you need to either run multiple applications, or you should write your applications to use multiple threads. Additionally, the transaction logs and checkpoint files are persisted on disk, faster disks yield better overall performance.
Oracle In-Memory Database Cache resides in the application tier, it uses SQL*Net to communicate to the Oracle database. Oracle database client software must be installed on the same server as the in-memory database cache, in order for it to connect to the Oracle database.
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Is Oracle TimesTen In-Memory database part of the Oracle 11g database?
Oracle In-Memory Database Cache is a database option for the Oracle 10gR2 and 11g database, it includes the TimesTen In-Memory Database, Cache Connect To Oracle and Replication - TimesTen to TimesTen technologies.
Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database is a separately licensed product, it includes the TimesTen in-memory database and the replication components.
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What platforms are the Oracle TimesTen technologies supported on?
The following platforms are supported: AIX 32/64-bit (Power), HP-UX 32/64-bit (PA-Risc and Itanium2), HP TRU64 64-bit (AlphaChip EV68), Linux RedHat and SUSE 32/64-bit (x86, x86-64 and Itanium2), Linux Oracle, MontaVista CGE and Asianux 32/64 bit (x86 and x86-64), Sun Solaris 32/64-bit (Sparc and x86), Windows 32/64-bit (x86 and x64).
The Oracle In-Memory Database Cache option supports Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and Oracle Database 11g Release 1.
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In-Memory Database
Can Oracle TimesTen In-Memory database be used as a standalone database?
Yes, the Oracle TimesTen in-memory database (IMDB) is used by many customers today as a standalone database at the application tier. TimesTen IMDB provides full transactional support for SQL operations and the transaction logs are persisted to disk for recovery (the database is always in memory).
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Can Oracle TimesTen In-Memory database be used as an in-memory cache to the Oracle database?
Yes, this is the Oracle database option 'Oracle In-Memory Database Cache". This database option includes the TimesTen In-Memory Database, Cache Connect to Oracle and Replication - TimesTen to TimesTen components.
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What are the data access APIs to the TimesTen In-Memory database?
The TimesTen In-Memory database supports standard ODBC and JDBC interfaces for applications to connect to the database, using SQL-92 standards.
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Are the interfaces provided by TimesTen different for 32-bit and 64-bit applications?
No, the application interfaces are the same for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. In order to take advantage of the 64-bit mode, the application will need to be recompiled and linked to the TimesTen 64-bit library.
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What languages can be used to develop Oracle TimesTen applications?
Applications can be developed using C, C++, and Java.
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What do you mean by embedded mode?
The Oracle TimesTen in-memory database was designed and optimized to run in the application tier. The data store can be directly linked (embedded) with the application for best performance. With the database embedded with the application, SQL access does not incur any network or IPC overhead.
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Does the Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database support indexes like the Oracle RDBMS?
Yes, the Oracle TimesTen In-Memory database supports indexes. Indexes improve the performance of queries to the database, just as they do in Oracle. TimesTen supports two types of indexes: T-Tree indexes, which are used for lookups involving equality and inequality ranges; and Hash indexes, which offer faster primary key access than T-tree indexes for exact match lookups and equijoins
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How are data structures designed and created in the TimesTen IMDB?
TimesTen In-Memory Database supports the SQL standard. To create data structures, use SQL DDL statements eg CREATE TABLE, CREATE INDEX, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE VIEW, CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW, ALTER TABLE etc. The same database design techniques that are used for RDBMS can also be used for TimesTen. Designing and managing databases in TimesTen is simpler than in a disk-optimized RDBMS, as there is no need to size table extents or to de-fragment disks.
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How does TimesTen recover from node/power failure, since it is an in-memory database?
While the entire database resides in memory, the transaction logs and checkpoint files are saved on disk. In the event of a system restart or failure, the IMDB is recovered from the checkpoint files and transaction log files. In addition, customers can configure TimesTen Replication to provide transactional replication to another TimesTen node.
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In-Memory Database Cache
What is Cache Connect to Oracle?
Cache Connect to Oracle is a component of the Oracle database option 'Oracle In-Memory Database Cache'. It enables the TimesTen in-memory database to provide real-time, updatable caching for the Oracle database.
Cache Connect is responsible for loading data, propagating updates between the in-memory cache and the Oracle database, and maintaining the cache consistency between the two databases.
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What are the Oracle database releases supported by Oracle In-Memory Database Cache?
In-Memory Database Cache supports Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and Oracle Database 11g.
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What are the platforms supported by Oracle In-Memory Database Cache?
In-Memory Database Cache runs as a client application to Oracle database server. The supported platforms include AIX, HP Tru64, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows.
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Can I run Oracle In-Memory Database Cache on a different platform from the Oracle database server?
Yes, since Cache Connect runs as an Oracle client, it can be running on a different platform from that of the Oracle database server.
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Replication
What is TimesTen Replication?
TimesTen Replication is a component of the TimesTen in-memory database. The TimesTen Replication technology enables real-time data replication between TimesTen server nodes. Replication supports active/standby or active/active configuration, using asynchronous or synchronous data transmission. Refer to the TimesTen In-Memory Database data sheet for more information.
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How does TimesTen Replication ensure continuous availability in the event of system failures?
TimesTen Replication can be configured to replicate the entire TimesTen database to one or more TimesTen nodes. After a failover, where the standby node becomes the active node, the failed node can be recovered from the standby (now active) database.
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Can I replicate selected tables in the database?
Yes, table-level replication and database level replication are both supported.
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What network protocol is supported by TimesTen Replication?
TimesTen Replication uses persistent, streaming, TCP/IP sockets between the replicated nodes over a LAN or WAN.
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Is TimesTen Replication bi-directional?
Yes, unidirectional and bi-directional replication are supported. For bi-directional replication, it's recommended that the workload be partitioned to avoid high-number of conflicts. In the event of conflicts where updates are made to the same database rows, TimesTen Replication supports timestamp-based conflict detection and resolution.
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