Releases
The latest version is Oracle Database 21c, released in December 2020.
This version is almost entirely cloud-based, pointing to a sector innovation towards that end-goal,
where physical servers for every company will no longer be necessary.
Version
You can check the version of Oracle Database server by running the command
SELECT BANNER FROM V$VERSION;
in SQL*Plus.
This will display the version of Oracle Database server you are using.
About Oracle DB
Oracle Database database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation.
Oracle DB is a widely used server for the very popular and mainstream SQL language.
Oracle DB is owned and maintained by the company mentioned in the name of the technology, with its first release in
1979,
the database software and server platform has since competed with the likes of Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and
MariaDB.
Oracle DB is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS). Essentially, the OracleDB technology allows an
individual,
corporation, or any other data-generating user to upload their information to a server, to then access it via SQL
and retrieve whatever is required to facilitate data analysis tasks.
OracleDB is used to safely store, call, and analyze data that is generated by a company, individual, collective,
or any given group of people that have a dedicated Oracle server, and Oracle instance for these tasks.
One can use OracleDB to draw regressions to extract actionable information from collected data points,
visualizations
to help present the information to managers, and directors of a company, and of course, warehouse the data from
queries,
purchases, and visiting time from eCommerce websites that can go from amateur 2 person teams to even professional
websites like Netflix, LinkedIn or eBay, who have all been reported to use OracleDB for their well-known features
and capabilities.
This database software technical information is quite vast, but a couple of details are worth mentioning.
First, OracleDB is programmed in its majority in C and C++, which are languages that run well in multiple platforms,
including Unix-like operating systems. Therefore, OracleDB runs across Windows, Unix, and GNU/Linux distributions.
The most famous edition, and the most expensive one, is the enterprise edition, where the size and speed of the
database
is unlimited and can be scaled on-demand to meet the needs of technological giants like the ones we mentioned above.
OracleDB also has an entirely free, but admittedly limited array of features that can be experimented with by any
beginner developer or programmer.
Releases
Oracle DB was released in 1979 with the 2.3 version, which was the first commercially available SQL relational
database.
Then, even as many new companies begin to appear and offer competing services, Oracle DB continues to offer their
product and support and develop it.