On october 19th 2018 the wait had an end. Finally a new version of the free Oracle Database “Oracle Database 18c Express Edition short Oracle 18 XE has been released.
Compared to the former versions the limits have been raised slightly. Now 2 CPUs, 2 GB RAM and 12 GB disk space for user data is allowed. But Oracle made a huge step forward: in addition to most Enterprise Edition features several database options are included as well. Some of them are:
- Multitenant Database with three Pluggable Databases
- Advanced Security
- Advanced Compression
- Partitioning
- In-Memory
- Advanced Analytics
- Database Vault
- Spatial
- and more
Some functions have been cut but there shouldn’t be a complaint as this is best ever XE.
Due to the documentation only one XE database is allowed per environment. But the licensing information is not very precise about what an “environment” means. Asking back to Oracle I was told that an environment could be a physical server or also a virtual machine. But more important: it is allowed to use XE in production. If you have an application with less than 12 GB of user data you are free to use XE.
Unfortunately there is no version for Microsoft windows yet but the release should be available within the next few weeks. And Oracle announced that from now on a new version of XE will be released once a year – but there will be no patches.
Over the next weeks I will go through the installation and usage of XE. I’m of course highly interested in the PDB features. But also In-Memory sounds nice. And now it becomes more clear what Oracle wants to achieve with XE: the user should develop a taste for all the great Enterprise Edition options. From my view In-Memory or Partitioning is otherwise useless if you have only 12 GB of user data.
If you want to become familiar with XE you should find your way to the DOAG conference and exhibition from november 20th until 23rd. On 22nd I will present XE and on 23rd there is a training around XE as well.
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