IDC recently wrote a report saying that Oracle is first in Embedded Databases. What exactly is an embedded database? Technically, an embedded database is one that requires no DBA for administration and can be silently installed and configured along with the application, so that the customer need not even know it's there. From a business standpoint, an embedded database is used by product developers at software ISVs and hardware OEMs, as opposed to enterprises who operate databases in their data centers.
From an ISV's or OEM's standpoint, using an embedded database can have several advantages:
* Makes the ISV/OEM product technically more competitive - gives it better performance, scalability, availability, etc.
* Lowers the product's TCO for customers since the end-user customer does not need to buy separate database licenses, spend time/money installing/integrating it, and have a DBA on the payroll,
* Allows the ISV/OEM to direct their engineering resources on building value-added pieces, rather than on the database infrastructure.
Lots of products embed databases, ranging from enterprise or Internet applications, small consumer devices or large-scale industrial equipment, each of which will put different requirements on the database. The IDC report calls this out: "in some cases a small footprint is required, in other cases speed, in others scalability, and in still others broad support of many data types."
Readers of this blog may think that the only Oracle embedded product is Berkeley DB, but Oracle Database, TimesTen In-Memory Database, and Oracle Database Lite are also on that list.
References:
Press release: http://www.oracle.com/features/hp/embedded-number-one.html
Technical White Paper describing how to embed Oracle Database: http://www.oracle.com/technologies/embedded/docs/11g-embedded-whitepaper.pdf
IDC Report: http://oracleimg.com/corporate/analyst/reports/infrastructure/dbms/idc-215446.pdf
