[English] Devs on Tape - Gerald Venzl - Oracle 23c Free and more!

00:00:00: (upbeat music)

00:00:02: Welcome to another episode of Devs on Tape.

00:00:18: Today we have a very special guest.

00:00:20: He's a seasoned IT professional and product manager

00:00:23: for the Oracle database.

00:00:25: With a career that spans back to the middle

00:00:27: of the dot com hype, he has seen the tech industry evolve

00:00:30: and transform in countless ways.

00:00:32: Having worked across multiple companies

00:00:34: and traveled the globe in his current role,

00:00:36: our guests had the opportunity to meet and engage

00:00:39: with some of the most innovative minds in the field.

00:00:42: On his blog, he shares his personal opinions

00:00:44: on the latest trends, advancements,

00:00:47: and challenges in the world of IT.

00:00:49: And today we'll have the privilege of hearing his thoughts

00:00:52: on some of the most pressing topics in the industry.

00:00:55: So without further ado, let's welcome Gerald Wenzel to the podcast.

00:00:59: Hello, Gerald.

00:01:00: Hi, Kai. Hi, Carol.

00:01:03: Thank you for having me on the podcast.

00:01:05: Yeah. Thank you for visiting us.

00:01:07: Hi, Carol.

00:01:08: We'll never forget that.

00:01:10: All right. So just a few words in the beginning.

00:01:14: We are recording this podcast in English again,

00:01:18: but we are three German-speaking people.

00:01:21: So I think occasionally we would switch back to German if some words are missing.

00:01:25: but we think we can reach a very broad audience when we record that big topic

00:01:33: we will talk about today in English. So maybe please, Gerry, can you please

00:01:37: introduce yourself to our audience a little bit further? Maybe you can give us

00:01:42: a little bit more insight besides our intro what you do at your daily work at

00:01:48: Oracle. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. So I'm Gerald, I'm a product manager

00:01:53: Oracle, as you already said. Originally from Austria, I've just about managed my 11th year

00:01:59: at Oracle back last weekend, which is kind of fairly young to compare or kind of short

00:02:06: comparatively to some of my colleagues. But yeah, I did join in the presets org first

00:02:11: and since 2015, which is what about eight years now or something just about coming up

00:02:16: to eight years, I'm in product management for Oracle Database. What do I do in my daily

00:02:22: work is always a good question.

00:02:24: I always joke with people, if I would know,

00:02:27: once you know, let me know.

00:02:29: To work as a product manager in Oracle

00:02:31: is actually quite exciting, because it's very faceted.

00:02:36: So you do a lot of things, and you can influence and do

00:02:40: a lot of things in the product.

00:02:41: So we have the typical product management tasks,

00:02:45: such as probably first and foremost,

00:02:47: steering the product into the right direction,

00:02:49: to the business needs of our customers,

00:02:52: to the current market challenges or opportunities.

00:02:55: Basically, what's next in your product?

00:02:58: What should we build next?

00:03:00: That's probably the core question of a product manager.

00:03:04: But also, you get the helping the users

00:03:07: to get the best out of your product,

00:03:09: fixing the old documentation,

00:03:12: either lack of documentation or bug in there,

00:03:14: work with the doc teams.

00:03:16: And of course, you kind of mentioned it already

00:03:17: a bit before as well.

00:03:18: we at least before COVID had the opportunity to fly around a bit also

00:03:23: around the world and meet with these customers and with the community and

00:03:26: various conferences or directly at a customer site and really discuss their

00:03:31: projects, what they are doing and working on and you know, how we can help.

00:03:36: Cool. So, so if you should estimate or give us a number of how many people are

00:03:43: actively influencing the future of the Oracle database.

00:03:47: So you could say 200,000 or each and every employee at Oracle has his influence in the future of the product.

00:03:55: But if I think of your position right now as a product manager,

00:04:00: how many people are influencing actively what's happening in the future of the next version of Oracle database?

00:04:06: Yeah, so, you know, if we stay within Oracle, as you said, there's kind of many different angles and people how they can influence the product.

00:04:16: One nice thing about Oracle and why I actually really like working, especially for the database

00:04:21: at work, is because internally, although we are such a big company, it feels a lot still

00:04:27: like a startup, or what I would classify as a startup.

00:04:29: So it's like there are all these defined roles of a development manager, product manager,

00:04:34: etc., etc.

00:04:35: It's like ideas come from everywhere and there's a very open culture that people can talk directly

00:04:40: with each other.

00:04:41: You have to kind of crawl the corporate ladder or pyramid hierarchy system, right?

00:04:47: So there's really a lot of different influence to it.

00:04:51: 3PM's product managers can, of course, and should recommend new functionality or enhancements

00:04:58: to existing functionalities for current trends or business opportunities that arise.

00:05:03: But actually a lot of the innovations that are in the Oracle database also come straight

00:05:08: out from development.

00:05:09: It's like my development colleagues have some really, really, really smart guys there.

00:05:14: They have worked on Oracle database for 20, 30, some even longer years.

00:05:20: They know exactly what's kind of like, you know, what's in the world of data management

00:05:24: and how to take best advantage of new technologies that arise or perhaps, you know, functionality

00:05:30: that we should have always had or, you know, that seems really intriguing and built.

00:05:34: So sort of a very long answer, but it's like a lot of people have very broad influence

00:05:41: on the direction of the Oracle database.

00:05:43: And I think it resembles itself in why the Oracle database is such a powerful software

00:05:52: out there and kind of number one for such a long time, because there's just a lot of

00:05:57: bright minds working on this product.

00:06:01: So yeah, that's part of the joy of working there as well, I guess.

00:06:05: I mean, I think from the outside view, you could think of Oracle as a, I don't want to

00:06:13: pronounce it so negatively, but it's an old fashioned company, but with so much knowledge

00:06:21: in the area of databases.

00:06:22: So if there's any new trend or anything that is necessary for Oracle databases or for databases

00:06:28: in general, Oracle should know it and influence that.

00:06:32: It's nice to hear that there's an influential,

00:06:36: yeah, part of it that like you call it a startup vibe,

00:06:40: that everyone can bring up new ideas.

00:06:43: And that's one thing I was thinking of the last years,

00:06:46: I think, that all the PostgreSQL database

00:06:50: or MySQL or whatever you wanna use there for comparison,

00:06:55: are bringing new features and the newest new stuff around and open source stuff

00:07:00: and new new products. How is Oracle behaving with those influence from

00:07:04: outside? So are they thinking, oh, this this new no SQL influence databases?

00:07:11: Should we do something like this too? And yeah, it's very, very nice to hear

00:07:15: that there are young or fresher people out there who are influencing actively

00:07:20: into the Oracle database and bringing new features in there that you might

00:07:24: have seen the other way around. So did you see any change since your beginning?

00:07:31: When you started a few years ago, did you see any change since then what the product

00:07:37: management means?

00:07:39: So biting my tongue on the obvious NoSQL, other open source database thing that you've

00:07:44: just pointed out there, right? But just to that respect, I want to say, which is kind

00:07:51: of interesting as well. Me being like not quite the young guy anymore, but also not

00:07:56: yet the old guy, but somewhere in between these days. You know, a lot of the things

00:08:01: that we think is new, it's actually not new at all, has been around before. And often

00:08:07: I get reminded by my colleagues with more experience, shall we say, that certain trends

00:08:13: have been around, right? So for example, this whole, because you have mentioned NoSQL databases,

00:08:17: whole idea about sharding and shared nothing architectures that has been debated in the

00:08:24: 90s, you know, endlessly when we three were probably all still in school and didn't care

00:08:28: about databases.

00:08:29: And, you know, it's like, was one of these discussions where back then it was decided

00:08:34: clustering is better than shared nothing for different reasons, though, mind you, than

00:08:37: what we have these days.

00:08:39: So, you know, there's that aspect to it and, you know, new features and so forth coming.

00:08:43: It's like I take another hit here and then I move on to your actual question.

00:08:48: But you know, Postgres 15, I personally think what the Postgres community is doing, fantastic.

00:08:55: Postgres 15 finally introduced the merge statement.

00:08:58: Congratulations.

00:08:59: It's only in the SQL standard since 2003 or whatever.

00:09:02: Oracle had it in nine eyes.

00:09:04: So it's not so black and white.

00:09:08: And you notice, again, I don't actually mean it negative to the other products out there

00:09:11: either.

00:09:12: We're building these products to make life easier for our customers.

00:09:17: But, you know, it's like a give and take, right?

00:09:19: Sometimes some technologies introduce some functionality,

00:09:22: but perhaps we don't have that yet, right?

00:09:24: We're not certainly not always first.

00:09:26: But also I think Oracle Database has shown,

00:09:29: especially in the SQL world, a lot of leapfrogging

00:09:34: or let's at least say actively driving.

00:09:37: And I say this truly because I am also part of the ISO SQL standard.

00:09:41: since, I don't know, two years now, almost or something.

00:09:45: And Oracle is quite proactive in what we also give to the SQL standard

00:09:49: and basically give away to the wider SQL community, if you like,

00:09:53: or to our competitors to implement as a standard functionality.

00:09:57: Yeah, so to come back to the question,

00:10:01: what changed in product management itself, I think, obviously,

00:10:05: my role has changed quite a bit as well in those eight years.

00:10:09: But I think in general, the company obviously in itself has gone through quite a bigger

00:10:15: transition, right?

00:10:16: So it's like I think I'm not recalling the exact dates now, but when I joined product

00:10:22: management, the company was transitioning to being this cloud company, right, doing

00:10:26: Oracle Cloud.

00:10:27: I think it started a couple of years before.

00:10:30: And as such, you know, also, of course, our work changed or our tasks changed quite a

00:10:37: bit as well, right?

00:10:39: from a pure, here's an Oracle database, or here's a database software product to download

00:10:45: and install, to also offering cloud services.

00:10:50: The other thing that, you know, like one thing that makes me very proud is still that also,

00:10:56: I don't want to say there's a culture change as such in Oracle happening.

00:11:00: I mean, there is in Oracle, but actually not so much in the Oracle database development

00:11:05: organization that I'm in.

00:11:07: I think certainly, you know, the world has changed.

00:11:12: People wanna have cloud subscriptions

00:11:14: rather than perpetual licenses, et cetera, et cetera.

00:11:16: And although we have many customers

00:11:18: still running on-prem, of course, as well,

00:11:20: and we do everything for them just as our cloud customers,

00:11:23: that we can to help them with the business.

00:11:26: Different needs have arisen,

00:11:27: or, you know, different sort of work engagements

00:11:32: have arisen, right?

00:11:33: It's like you do things differently than 20 years ago.

00:11:35: in short, where you basically burn something on a CD and said, you know,

00:11:39: buy it off a store somewhere, right?

00:11:41: It's like the world is in a very different place.

00:11:43: And with that Oracle has obviously changed quite a bit as well.

00:11:47: And in general, you know, I, I always got on really, really well with,

00:11:51: with my colleagues inside and outside the Oracle database.

00:11:54: So I can sort of guess a reason why I'm still there after 11 years of having fun.

00:11:58: And that's something that's maybe not always so visible in the outside world.

00:12:01: Sure. Sure. Exactly.

00:12:03: So you saw me grinning for the last couple of minutes, I think, because I was just referring,

00:12:08: I want to refer to the thing you said that you talk to your other colleagues about the

00:12:13: stuff you saw online or whatever.

00:12:15: And they say, oh, it's around for 10 or 100 years, maybe, for the new features we're recording.

00:12:22: And I'm remembering exactly this conversation with my father the last 30 years I'm alive,

00:12:28: right?

00:12:29: when I tell him, "Oh, my phone can do this," or "We have voice recognition right now,"

00:12:34: or "We have AI-trained models that can create texts and images and so on."

00:12:39: My father, I was never able to impress him by telling him what's able today

00:12:46: because he was 25 years in the management of HP, Hewlett Packard.

00:12:52: And he said, "Oh, we did that like 50 years ago."

00:12:55: And I said, "No, you didn't."

00:12:57: - We did, and we were always talking about this stuff

00:12:59: and I was always trying to impress him with that.

00:13:03: And it's always the same.

00:13:04: I think the main thing why those new,

00:13:07: or I call it new databases or companies or products

00:13:12: that are out there,

00:13:15: which makes them so important right now on the market

00:13:17: is that they are sometimes for free.

00:13:22: And this is another point or something we can use

00:13:25: as a transition to the main topic today,

00:13:27: what we want to talk about.

00:13:28: - Oh, smooth.

00:13:28: - Smooth transition.

00:13:29: - Oh yeah, we really want to, we have another topic.

00:13:31: (laughing)

00:13:33: - Yeah, so when we talk about free products, Jared,

00:13:36: maybe you have something in your pocket

00:13:39: we can talk about today.

00:13:40: What is free at Oracle?

00:13:42: - There's actually quite a lot of stuff free at Oracle

00:13:46: that people kind of forget as well.

00:13:48: You know, to give a call out to some of my colleagues

00:13:51: outside the work is like, you know,

00:13:53: We got MySQL, we got Java, we got Oracle Linux,

00:13:56: there's a free tier in Oracle Cloud,

00:13:57: and Oracle's free tier in Oracle Cloud.

00:13:59: We were even the first to offer such an Oracle's free tier.

00:14:01: But I think what you're getting at is essentially--

00:14:04: - Yeah, I was saying, come on,

00:14:05: that was just a ramp for your rocket to launch right now.

00:14:08: - That was the teaser, right?

00:14:10: What else?

00:14:11: I think it's the, you know, we last,

00:14:14: while we were recording this last week,

00:14:18: On April 4th, we launched or released

00:14:23: Oracle Database Free Developer Release, which

00:14:26: is a free Oracle database.

00:14:28: And the really, really exciting thing about this

00:14:30: is, if I jump right into that, is

00:14:32: that it's actually the next version of Oracle Database.

00:14:35: It's 23c, which is also the next long-term support version,

00:14:39: or right now deemed to be the next long-term support version.

00:14:42: We're fairly confident about that already, that it will be.

00:14:46: and we're giving it for free to specifically developers first to give them, as we say in

00:14:53: our blog post, a head start and basically familiarizing themselves with the new functionality.

00:14:58: And that in itself is a quite a big change for Oracle and the Oracle database work

00:15:07: in a couple of ways. So number one, we are releasing first and foremost the next version

00:15:16: of Oracle Database for free. That has been something that has not been the case in the

00:15:23: past. So as far as I could research back into when I'm in Oracle and before years before,

00:15:28: nobody can tell me about the 80s anymore, but that has never really happened, at least in the last,

00:15:35: I'd say 20 years, right? Obviously, we had some free Oracle database offerings that we can drill

00:15:40: down deeper on, but really the big news here is, okay, wow, this is really like 180 degree turn

00:15:46: in how Oracle releases the software. Why are we doing it? It's like, what has changed?

00:15:52: Why did we come to this conclusion? I truly believe myself and many of my colleagues do as well that

00:16:00: that this is the right approach.

00:16:02: It's a win-win situation for everybody,

00:16:04: our customers, developers out there,

00:16:05: and Oracle, of course, in the long run,

00:16:08: to release new functionalities to developers first,

00:16:11: because that allows them to start, as I said before,

00:16:16: using this new functionality first.

00:16:17: Well, so, boo-hoo, what's the big deal, right?

00:16:20: Well, it's like what we have seen in the last couple of years

00:16:23: and, you know, 12c, the 12c, Oracle AWS 12c family

00:16:27: is a good example of that.

00:16:29: It's like what's sort of now the old model,

00:16:33: kind of the traditional model

00:16:34: where we would kind of release

00:16:36: enterprise edition first on-premises, right?

00:16:38: If we kind of ignore cloud for a moment,

00:16:40: we would release it, enterprise customers,

00:16:44: obviously very important to us,

00:16:46: get it first and foremost, they download it,

00:16:48: they can start planning their upgrades

00:16:50: to this new version, et cetera, et cetera.

00:16:52: So all well and good,

00:16:54: but customers take a while to upgrade their databases.

00:16:57: and I've spoken to customers that have told me

00:17:00: they have literally 20,000 Oracle database instances running,

00:17:04: right, like from everything from production

00:17:06: to like your dev environment,

00:17:08: but they're like, we have over 20,000 instances

00:17:11: running across our state,

00:17:13: and obviously we're not gonna just start upgrading five

00:17:15: and call it a day,

00:17:16: we kind of have to roll out a plan to upgrade all of them.

00:17:18: So that takes a while, obviously,

00:17:21: and then so sometimes that can take months,

00:17:24: some customers even longer than that,

00:17:26: And then you end up in a scenario where you kind of have a new version of Oracle database.

00:17:30: Okay, customers take a while to upgrade.

00:17:32: Then they finally have upgraded, you know, then maybe a while has gone by.

00:17:37: And then now that they are on the new version, it triggers the demand for having support

00:17:42: of this new functionality that is in the new version.

00:17:46: So I mentioned 12c before, right?

00:17:47: So it's like, you cannot believe, or maybe you can, but I cannot believe how many discussions

00:17:54: I had when 19c, the current long-term support release came out about what multi-tenant is

00:18:00: and pluggable databases, which literally released in just about three months time, I think,

00:18:07: 10 years ago.

00:18:08: Like 12.1 came out in I think June or July 2013, right, where we introduced this new

00:18:16: architecture.

00:18:17: But of course, you know, customers, you know, went from 11, a lot of customers went from

00:18:20: long-term support release to long-term support release,

00:18:23: so 11G to 19C, no surprise.

00:18:25: Now, they started looking like, "Hey, what is this stuff?"

00:18:28: I literally dug out the old 12C collateral.

00:18:32: It's like, "Yeah, let me tell you what's in 12C."

00:18:35: To closing this loop on this particular one,

00:18:38: the win-win here is really for everybody,

00:18:41: including our customers.

00:18:42: Essentially, what we're trying,

00:18:43: hoping to try to do here is that,

00:18:45: by the time our customers upgrade,

00:18:47: They have applications, frameworks, libraries ready.

00:18:50: It may be ready to go on the best case scenario.

00:18:54: Fantastic works with 23C,

00:18:55: knows of all the new up to functionality and leverages it.

00:18:58: You don't have to come back and say,

00:19:00: "Does your application work on 23C?

00:19:01: Is it certified?" etc.

00:19:03: All already taken care of.

00:19:04: Or at least give them a head start.

00:19:06: That also means internal applications.

00:19:08: A lot of our customers have always big development

00:19:10: shops internally as well,

00:19:11: to start thinking about this stuff now.

00:19:13: So that by the time they do roll out,

00:19:16: the upgrade on their, let's say, 20,000 database estates, they're not starting to only look at

00:19:20: this new functionality from then on. So what's the best way to start using the new version?

00:19:27: Can you use it with Docker or any other platforms? Yeah, so

00:19:34: I have to be a bit careful now what I'm saying. Because some people know also what I do in my

00:19:41: my private life as well with Docker.

00:19:43: But, you know, so we put extra emphasis

00:19:47: on making it that simple to install.

00:19:51: And, you know, like I'm, I'm, you know,

00:19:54: I'm a true believer, I think it's kind of proven

00:19:56: out there these days that if it's not simple to install,

00:20:01: you have, you know, that's your first hurdle

00:20:03: and a big impression hurdle that you leave

00:20:06: on any user out there, right?

00:20:08: It's like, whether it's a developer or somebody else,

00:20:09: It's like I will not waste my time on any technology I've heard the first time of potentially

00:20:15: right or even in the past.

00:20:17: I will not waste like half a day to get it up and running myself.

00:20:20: It's like if it takes too long, Google, there's something else out there.

00:20:25: Fantastic.

00:20:26: Thank you very much.

00:20:27: Right.

00:20:28: And let's just say, you know, Oracle historically has not been known as an easy to use database

00:20:36: or database.

00:20:37: Right.

00:20:38: And to a large extent, I mean, it is a very, very sophisticated product.

00:20:43: There's a reason why we are number one in pretty much every category that analysts look

00:20:48: into ranking databases.

00:20:49: So, there's, of course, a lot of bells and whistles there.

00:20:52: But also, there, again, day and age has changed.

00:20:56: Twenty years ago, or maybe even just 10 years ago, I probably would have spent a lot of

00:21:00: time getting it up and running because perhaps there wasn't that much offering of other technologies,

00:21:06: technologies out there that are easy to get hold of. Perhaps I had an entire

00:21:10: career still of, I actually had an entire career for a brief moment of like you

00:21:15: know being an Oracle database expert tuning or tuning expert I guess or

00:21:19: expert tuning guy. So you know things have changed at least for me and so I

00:21:24: think it's very important that you know it's like the install experience is like

00:21:29: you step into the you know into the restaurant or whatever you want.

00:21:32: It's like, if you cannot get in,

00:21:35: if it's already hassle to get in,

00:21:38: I should say the beer hole really,

00:21:40: given that we have three German-speakings here, right?

00:21:42: It's like, if I cannot get in,

00:21:43: I will get my beer somewhere else, right?

00:21:45: Even if it's not the same type, right?

00:21:47: But it's like, yeah.

00:21:49: So, you know, I think it's really important

00:21:51: that the install experience is really good, right?

00:21:55: And so for Oracle Database 3,

00:21:58: we essentially provide a Docker image,

00:22:00: we provide a virtual box VM,

00:22:02: and also this Linux RPM file.

00:22:03: The Linux RPM file is also nothing new.

00:22:06: The packaging up to Docker and VirtualBox

00:22:09: is also not necessarily something new,

00:22:10: but it's like from what I can tell

00:22:13: personally, a personal experience

00:22:15: and what the download numbers show us,

00:22:17: a lot of people seem very, very comfortable

00:22:19: with Docker images these days to spin up.

00:22:21: There is the odd people that still like

00:22:23: their VirtualBox VM as the odd people

00:22:26: because I'm actually one of them because I really like

00:22:29: the snapshotting capability that I have in VirtualBox.

00:22:32: It's like I try something out, I need to do something else.

00:22:34: Snapshot, thank you very much.

00:22:36: Don't get that with Docker.

00:22:39: But yeah, so we just wanted to make sure

00:22:41: that it's easy to install on these environments.

00:22:44: Now, I mentioned a couple of gotchas.

00:22:46: We are aware of that.

00:22:47: And also in the blog post, we say

00:22:49: that the Windows version is coming soon.

00:22:51: So there always has been a Windows native install

00:22:56: for other Oracle database additions or variations.

00:23:00: So that is in the works.

00:23:01: Why is that happening right now?

00:23:04: It's essentially just that, you know,

00:23:06: we develop on Linux in-house.

00:23:08: And so therefore, like, releasing Linux

00:23:10: is always the fastest for us

00:23:12: because we're building it on the platform, right?

00:23:14: Everywhere else we have to have porting efforts.

00:23:16: And, you know, even there for Oracle users out there,

00:23:19: they know that this has also been nothing new in the past.

00:23:21: And when we release a new version, there's Linux first.

00:23:25: A good old days used to be Solaris,

00:23:26: as long as that was Linux.

00:23:29: And then Windows is usually following a couple of weeks

00:23:31: after, and then all the other platforms.

00:23:33: And so this is what we see here as well.

00:23:36: So yeah, we're trying to make it as simple as possible.

00:23:38: It's like I already know that quite a few people have

00:23:44: downloaded Docker images.

00:23:45: Now they are on container registry, oracle.com.

00:23:47: There's some other location as well

00:23:49: where you can get a Docker image for Oracle.

00:23:50: I'm not going to tell you which one.

00:23:52: [LAUGHTER]

00:23:52: But we're going to basically, as I said,

00:23:56: want to make sure, especially for, you know,

00:23:59: I said before, like for me, it's very, very important

00:24:01: that we make this install experience as slick as possible.

00:24:04: And we're hoping, you know, we definitely,

00:24:08: we definitely continue working on that, right?

00:24:10: I'm hoping to have a really, really slick install

00:24:13: as we move forward to all the platforms.

00:24:15: - Yeah, that's exactly how I'm managing

00:24:17: my private server, right?

00:24:19: So if I'm trying to find something like a link shortener,

00:24:23: some block platform or if it's like a next cloud

00:24:26: or something, I'm just spinning up one Docker container

00:24:30: with a Docker Compose file, right?

00:24:32: So now if I'm searching for a solution

00:24:33: and I have like five or 10 to choose from,

00:24:37: I'm choosing at first, my first filter criteria is,

00:24:41: is it usable by, in a Docker container?

00:24:45: And then maybe they have some examples

00:24:47: for the Docker Compose setup,

00:24:48: which variables and stuff should be set.

00:24:51: And then you put it in my environment

00:24:53: and say, okay, spin it up and see if it works

00:24:55: right out of the box, right?

00:24:57: So, and if it's taking me so much time

00:25:00: to just write my own script,

00:25:01: to install it into the container,

00:25:02: to get it up and running, scalable and so on,

00:25:06: then it takes me too much time

00:25:09: to be comfortable to reach my goal, right?

00:25:11: So that's the reason why I'm spinning up the containers.

00:25:13: And I did that before with some of those solutions

00:25:16: you don't wanna talk about, I think,

00:25:18: like scripts from the community

00:25:21: and where you put the files in and so on.

00:25:24: And that's the easiest way,

00:25:25: when I saw this new release from your site,

00:25:28: that I'm just able to pull a container,

00:25:30: put it into my Docker Compose and spin it up

00:25:32: and then install Apex in it.

00:25:33: And it takes me not longer than 30 minutes, I think,

00:25:37: to get everything up and running for my development

00:25:39: and private environment where I just try something out.

00:25:43: And this is some major improvement, I think.

00:25:46: So you were able to install Oracle databases

00:25:50: in Docker containers before,

00:25:52: but I think it's way easier right now

00:25:53: with this new release.

00:25:54: So there's another plus point for me

00:25:57: just to switch everything I have

00:25:59: onto the new developer preview,

00:26:02: or developer release,

00:26:03: unless I want to try out the new features also.

00:26:07: But I think it's time to switch all my stuff I have

00:26:10: into this official container,

00:26:14: which will not break when the new version occurs.

00:26:16: So, yeah.

00:26:18: Maybe we can talk about the journey.

00:26:21: So it's back from the hard facts of the new release,

00:26:25: back to the point where we should talk about

00:26:29: how this journey was to get something at Oracle,

00:26:32: the newest version, the next version of the Oracle database

00:26:36: published for free.

00:26:37: So I don't think that's a single man operation.

00:26:40: So you didn't go further and say,

00:26:43: "I want to have the next version for free

00:26:45: before everyone else have it."

00:26:46: And then, yeah, let's talk about that.

00:26:49: What can you tell me for this journey?

00:26:52: - It was a long journey.

00:26:54: Actually, you mentioned one thing though

00:26:56: that I should have pointed out before as well, Kai.

00:26:58: So if you don't mind me telling you, saying it,

00:27:01: one important aspect of Oracle Database Free

00:27:04: and also other free offerings

00:27:05: is that you can just download it straight from the web,

00:27:07: which I think is what you kind of just meant

00:27:09: with like, I can just pull it from container registry

00:27:11: or to com and off you go.

00:27:13: And in the past, you always had to kind of go

00:27:15: to work, you'll come sign in and click this license acceptance, download it,

00:27:18: right? And then put it into the console. And it sort of is part of, right, that's part of the

00:27:23: journey question, but you know, just so people are aware, this is another thing how we make

00:27:28: this easier to install, to be able to download it straight from the web. Yeah, how did it start?

00:27:33: You know, it's like, let's see how far you want me to wind back. You know, so I guess,

00:27:43: Part of my day job today in product management, I did actually not kind of go into that too much

00:27:48: either before. I sort of have, with of course many of my colleagues, the area of what we call

00:27:55: application development over. So how can we make Oracle database for application development? I was

00:28:03: asked by Andy Mendelsohn, who you obviously know is my boss's boss. He was like, "Gerald,

00:28:09: you are a developer in your actual previous life to Oracle as to many of us being DBAs

00:28:16: and in PM land, you should really tell us what we need to do to make it better for developers.

00:28:21: For everything that we've already said before, not to bore the listeners, it's like

00:28:28: getting going easy quick is obviously really, really important. Knowing that you will not be

00:28:35: be sued by somebody because you use the technology is also important.

00:28:38: And you know it's like Oracle definitely doesn't have the best reputation there,

00:28:42: right? And I think that is also what stopped a lot of developers from using

00:28:47: Oracle technologies because they just didn't know, you know, can I use this for

00:28:51: free or not? So it was actually in 2017, six years ago now, that you know I was

00:28:57: two years in in product management and I was like, hey, why don't we have

00:29:04: Oracle Express Edition, Oracle Database Express Edition out there for 12c yet.

00:29:09: You know, it's like we want to get people into multi-tenant architecture,

00:29:13: using pluggable databases, understanding all this good stuff, you know, and yet all I

00:29:17: can download is 11gr2. And I closely followed with, and you know, some of my

00:29:22: colleagues can maybe attest to that when you find them and talk to them over beers,

00:29:26: like sometimes I can be very persuasive. I don't usually take no for an answer.

00:29:31: So I followed on with kind of very quickly of like and why is it that like

00:29:36: this thing is kind of as only you know 10% of the functionality of the great

00:29:41: functionality that we have now it wasn't 10% per se but for people who know 11g

00:29:45: XE it was kind of a slimmed down version of the Oracle database and yeah so back

00:29:51: then we can go more into history afterwards if you like but back then was

00:29:55: kind of when this journey already started right so we did back then and

00:29:58: and an 18cxe, it changed quite drastically compared from,

00:30:03: I mean, drastically or not, but from the concept

00:30:05: from an 11g or 10gxe, it changed quite a bit

00:30:08: as that we tried to include

00:30:10: all the enterprise edition functionality.

00:30:12: We didn't quite get there fully because we had to go in

00:30:16: and change the code to basically deactivated it

00:30:18: or the code was even missing in the build and so forth.

00:30:21: And so, but we basically went already on to this 18cxe

00:30:26: being a more full featured version of Oracle,

00:30:29: or edition of Oracle Database.

00:30:31: Then we had 21 XE, right?

00:30:34: We oddly missed the 19 CXE.

00:30:36: That was because like the 10 G and the 11 GXEs

00:30:39: were custom or manual builds,

00:30:42: like they were literally one-offs.

00:30:44: And when we decided that this is important,

00:30:46: which was obviously not me,

00:30:49: more like the people like Andy Mendelsohn, et cetera,

00:30:52: we started making it part of our base build process,

00:30:57: sort of our regular build process.

00:30:59: So that every night we would kind of have

00:31:01: these different editions come out.

00:31:02: Now that took some time as well,

00:31:04: and we sort of like ran into time pressure

00:31:06: to get Oracle Database 19c out,

00:31:10: which was obviously next long-term support release.

00:31:12: And we still had to do this for the free version, et cetera.

00:31:14: And anyway, it did just not work out, unfortunately.

00:31:17: Now why Oracle Database 3, right?

00:31:21: and the many questions I've already gotten from XE fans

00:31:25: of like what's happening next.

00:31:27: So it's like, there's a couple of things

00:31:29: that are not obvious right now, what are going to happen.

00:31:32: Some things are quite obvious what happened

00:31:34: if you know the history to XE and others.

00:31:37: So number one, right, why Oracle Database Free?

00:31:40: Because, you know, it's like, believe it or not,

00:31:44: way too many people out there, including customers

00:31:46: and developers out there that don't know Oracle that well

00:31:49: or Oracle Database that well,

00:31:51: had no clue that Express Edition existed

00:31:53: or that Express Edition was a free Oracle database.

00:31:57: Name also doesn't quite give it away, does it?

00:31:59: And Express Edition was more geared for, you know,

00:32:01: to the history of like of a fast install

00:32:03: and I did my digging there

00:32:05: and can maybe elaborate more later on if you like.

00:32:08: So that's number one, right?

00:32:09: But then like why Oracle Database free developer release?

00:32:14: Well, because actually the new product

00:32:16: that you will be seeing alongside the Press Edition

00:32:19: and other Oracle Database editions

00:32:20: will be Oracle database free.

00:32:23: But what you're getting now is sort of like,

00:32:25: you mentioned it before, it's not like a preview.

00:32:28: It's sort of like an early access, if you like.

00:32:31: So it's like, we're calling it specifically

00:32:33: developer release.

00:32:34: So why are we doing this?

00:32:35: What are we doing here?

00:32:36: Well, essentially a lot of the, in 23c in general,

00:32:39: we have this internal tagline, app simple was our tagline

00:32:42: for our motto for this release.

00:32:44: So we have put a lot of application development

00:32:46: functionality in 23c, as you've probably seen.

00:32:50: And a lot of this functionality was ready to go, right?

00:32:53: It's like completed, test complete, et cetera, already months ago.

00:32:58: And in the good old way, everything has to be ready so that we have a general available

00:33:03: release, a GA release, right?

00:33:04: And so we were like, well, if the idea is to get developers a head start on this up

00:33:08: there functionality, they probably don't care about the clustering technology, that much

00:33:13: high availability, disaster recovery, et cetera, all this stuff.

00:33:16: We're doing a lot of good stuff as well, a lot of features coming into these areas as

00:33:20: as well.

00:33:21: All of these features are sitting there.

00:33:22: They're checked in.

00:33:23: They're ready to go.

00:33:24: So why don't we just take what we have right now

00:33:26: with this update feature specifically

00:33:28: and have this developer release, right?

00:33:30: Make it very explicit for whom this is, right?

00:33:32: Although, you know, when you look at the license,

00:33:34: you know, anybody can use it, right?

00:33:36: But it's like, it's very specifically,

00:33:37: here's like, you know, your first access

00:33:39: to the update functionality in Oracle Database.

00:33:41: And then as we go GA, you know,

00:33:43: you will have an Oracle Database Enterprise Edition

00:33:45: and Oracle Database 3 and so forth, right?

00:33:49: So, you know, the one question that I do get right now,

00:33:54: not that often, but it's a legitimate question, right?

00:33:56: It's like, so A, is it just a name change

00:33:59: from XE to free developer release?

00:34:01: Or B, is this the successor to XE to Express?

00:34:04: - Exactly my question, yeah.

00:34:05: (laughing)

00:34:06: The next one.

00:34:07: I was preparing, yeah.

00:34:08: - So A is no.

00:34:10: A is a yes and no.

00:34:13: Is it just the renaming, right?

00:34:14: It's like yes and no, right?

00:34:16: It's like for people like yourself, Kai, who have seen what happened with 18cxe and 21xe,

00:34:24: where we then also finally enabled multi-tenant, right, like the PDBs and so forth, it's the

00:34:28: end of a longer journey.

00:34:31: So yeah, you could see it's just a renaming, but it's like 23c3 is not the same as 18cxe.

00:34:38: And if you would have had a 23cxe, it would have not been the same as 18cxe.

00:34:44: So in that regard, you can say, yes and no.

00:34:46: Is it just a name change?

00:34:47: Yes, but I would say it's much more than just a name change

00:34:50: because of the whole methodology behind of putting it out there

00:34:54: for free first, giving people early access

00:34:57: to these functionalities, and, and, and, all this good stuff.

00:35:01: Is it the successor to XE?

00:35:03: Yes, it is the successor to XE.

00:35:05: That's something that right now we

00:35:07: haven't made very explicit.

00:35:10: I mean, basically, Oracle Database 3

00:35:12: is the accessor to Oracle Database Express Edition,

00:35:15: not yet this developer release.

00:35:16: There is nothing else but this developer release right now.

00:35:20: But yeah, eventually,

00:35:21: so it will be its accessor to Express Edition, right?

00:35:23: It's like you can kind of say like,

00:35:25: Express Edition has grown up or whatever you wanna say.

00:35:27: I was always a big fan of Express Edition.

00:35:30: So why did name change?

00:35:31: And I mentioned already before.

00:35:32: Well, people, a lot of people were actually not aware

00:35:36: that we had a free Oracle Database,

00:35:39: or even when they downloaded Express Edition

00:35:41: these conversations myself, right, it was like, but is it really free?

00:35:44: Why is it called Express Edition, etc.?

00:35:48: That name change we actually discussed in 2017 as well when we did Oracle 18c XE.

00:35:54: And we specifically back then said, let's not do it because Express Edition is a very

00:35:59: good brand recognition, right?

00:36:00: So when we looked at the Google rankings, it's actually very, very high and still are.

00:36:07: And people are eagerly waiting for an XE.

00:36:11: So it's like, let's not confuse the community with something

00:36:15: new.

00:36:15: Let's first, yes, here's the new XE.

00:36:18: Get them going and put them on this journey

00:36:20: as set that we have arrived now.

00:36:22: So back then, we made a conscious decision

00:36:24: not to rename it already back then to Oracle Database Free.

00:36:27: That was already on the table back then.

00:36:28: And now we're basically finishing that journey

00:36:30: and have this new product, Oracle Database Free.

00:36:34: It even says in the version ban, it's free.

00:36:36: So everybody should hopefully get, yes, it's free.

00:36:39: And it's sort of like I always say,

00:36:40: it's like the little brother to the always free tier,

00:36:42: the Oracle Autonomous Database, always free.

00:36:45: I think always free autonomous database, right?

00:36:47: That you get in cloud as well.

00:36:49: - I mean, if we talk about the cloud products and so on,

00:36:51: we just need another hour just to call out

00:36:54: the different names for the products.

00:36:55: I think there might be some critic, but yeah.

00:36:58: So, I mean, before we run into this wall

00:37:01: of safe harbor statement,

00:37:02: you might have to read out loudly.

00:37:04: Let me just try one question and you decide if you answer that.

00:37:08: So if I'm,

00:37:09: I'm starting right now with the 23 C to build up my environment,

00:37:13: maybe at a customer side or for internally in the company and try out new

00:37:18: things and build up stuff and check if our scripts and tools and products are

00:37:23: working on it.

00:37:23: Will there be a way to upgrade from this environment to a production enterprise

00:37:29: or maybe the next XE or whatever?

00:37:33: will we be able to upgrade from this instance

00:37:36: to a production instance,

00:37:37: or is it somewhere in the small print of the disclaimer

00:37:41: which says it's not a stable version,

00:37:46: but maybe not a long-term support version

00:37:50: where you can upgrade from everything can change.

00:37:52: And it's just the early adopter thing

00:37:56: that everything could change

00:37:59: in the next production version of this 23C?

00:38:03: - 23C.

00:38:04: Yeah, no, there is no disclaimer.

00:38:07: It's like what I said basically before

00:38:09: is that this functionality that you get today

00:38:11: is basically what you would have also gotten

00:38:14: if you would have had a 23C GA back then.

00:38:16: Now people may find some deficiencies in the functionality,

00:38:20: bugs, et cetera,

00:38:21: or maybe even we've got a couple of people that are already

00:38:23: like, "Hey guys, did you ever think about this?"

00:38:25: this gives us a chance to still impact and influence the feature itself.

00:38:31: But that's nothing new.

00:38:33: I mean, even, you know, it's like you can get a bug fix anytime,

00:38:36: you know, as an Oracle Database Enterprise Edition customer, right?

00:38:39: That may change a certain functionality.

00:38:42: But I think the, and I've also experienced this already in social media

00:38:47: the last couple of weeks.

00:38:49: So I think the gist of the question is, no, this will not completely change.

00:38:52: I don't know where people even got this idea from.

00:38:54: I also have a friend in the UK that has a very popular blog that may or may not have

00:38:58: led to that as well, to this belief.

00:39:01: But it's like, no, it's like, you know, so this is a, this is a, number one, it's a GA

00:39:06: version, right?

00:39:07: So it's released.

00:39:09: This is not like a preview or whatever for all the things I've just said before.

00:39:12: And we don't expect the most of this functionality to change drastically, that it will not work

00:39:17: at all.

00:39:18: Now it's sad, it's like people in forums may tell us, hey, this may not work as expected,

00:39:23: or have you guys thought about that

00:39:24: and we will put this feedback back into,

00:39:28: maybe not the product, but thinking about it

00:39:30: and we think, yeah, this makes sense

00:39:32: or this is indeed a deficiency, we will fix it, right?

00:39:34: But again, this is like nothing new

00:39:36: than a customer filing a support request

00:39:38: and saying, hey, this doesn't work and we fix it.

00:39:41: Now to your point about upgrade,

00:39:43: I think there it is important to understand

00:39:46: the terminology, I guess, of upgrade, right?

00:39:48: It is a fully compatible Oracle database

00:39:53: with Enterprise Edition or Autonomous Database,

00:39:57: even for that matter.

00:39:58: So whatever you find in the Oracle Database 3,

00:40:00: you will have an Enterprise Edition or Autonomous.

00:40:02: And in those two, you will have much more,

00:40:05: like clustering technologies, et cetera, et cetera.

00:40:08: So it is fully compatible with those.

00:40:10: Now, we don't support any kind of a customer--

00:40:13: people sometimes ask me, like, direct upgrade from that.

00:40:15: You cannot just like take Oracle Database free

00:40:19: and put Oracle Database Enterprise Edition binaries

00:40:22: over it and kind of magically upgrade this

00:40:24: to Enterprise Edition.

00:40:24: - Put some activation key in

00:40:26: and all the limitations are gone, right?

00:40:28: - Yeah, exactly.

00:40:30: And this is partly because also the binaries

00:40:35: being slightly different.

00:40:37: So it's like, it's not an as easy process

00:40:41: and we don't think there should be that need

00:40:43: for the developer community or the user community altogether.

00:40:46: Because if you develop something on it,

00:40:48: you have your code checked in into a GitHub repository

00:40:51: or a Git repository, source code version control repository

00:40:54: somewhere, hopefully, right?

00:40:56: And you roll this out into production.

00:40:57: So somebody coming in and saying,

00:41:00: well, I want to upgrade this now from Oracle Database Free

00:41:04: to an Enterprise Edition,

00:41:05: you should not have that many issues.

00:41:09: However, you still can, just not in place,

00:41:12: by copying the binaries over, you can always export/import

00:41:15: essentially, right?

00:41:17: And take your data model and import it

00:41:20: into an enterprise edition.

00:41:21: Or you can even, for that matter,

00:41:23: go ahead and import from an enterprise edition

00:41:25: to your Oracle Database Free to continue local development.

00:41:28: Yeah, I mean, if you just move your code,

00:41:29: it should be a great way, the right way to do it.

00:41:32: But I think there are different points

00:41:36: where these developers or database developers

00:41:40: are working on.

00:41:41: So if they decide to start with Orica and they choose the XE version or the free version,

00:41:47: they try out some stuff.

00:41:49: And then at some point, they decide that they want to go into a real licensed product because

00:41:55: of the patches.

00:41:56: This was one of the reasons why I was and I was starting not that long ago, right?

00:42:03: So I was having this 11G R2 XE release on my machine.

00:42:09: When I decided, can I make it working on my machine,

00:42:12: on my server, like a distributed machine?

00:42:15: And I was thinking of, okay, this binary wasn't touched

00:42:19: for the last couple of years.

00:42:21: And there were no security patches.

00:42:24: And you see security patches around you

00:42:26: in the enterprise segment,

00:42:27: where they come on the regular base.

00:42:29: And my instance wasn't patched for a couple of years now,

00:42:32: for example, or a month maybe.

00:42:35: And if I try to put my stuff onto this new free version

00:42:40: or the latest XE or the next XE or whatever,

00:42:43: I was always thinking about the part

00:42:46: that I will not get security fixes right in place

00:42:49: because I need a production version.

00:42:51: And that might be the transition point

00:42:53: when I want to switch from this XE or free version

00:42:56: or whatever to a productive environment

00:42:59: where it's safe to put customer data on and so on.

00:43:03: I mean, we will talk about the part

00:43:05: where you have the limitations and if you are able to use this database as like

00:43:11: making money out of it, right? So it's not a free, you can use it in production,

00:43:15: but but the patch part is still a thing, right? So you will not get the newest

00:43:19: patches for the next 6e version or for this free version of 23c, right? Unless

00:43:26: you have this paid license, right after that release.

00:43:31: Yeah, so yes and no. Yes, you're right, but factually it's like you made it sound like as

00:43:39: if you can buy support for it and then you get the patches. No. So what are the limitations of Oracle

00:43:43: Database 3 and they are the same to what 21cxe was like, right? So it's like it's a source constraint

00:43:49: built in. You don't have to worry about it in that sense, like unlike what we had in the previous

00:43:54: 11g releases where we kind of said in the license you must ensure that you don't go with two CPUs

00:44:00: or whatever. This is all baked in. It's resource constrained, so eventually you may hit those

00:44:06: limits. And you have no, there is no commercial support available. So what does no commercial

00:44:11: support mean? It means you don't get an Oracle database support contract. You cannot file any

00:44:17: SRs and subsequently you cannot get any patches for free or you know, XE in that matter. But let's

00:44:22: stick to free so that we don't confuse people too much. I know because that's the road forward.

00:44:27: So yes, you do not get any security patches that you can download via Oracle support for free.

00:44:34: Even if you were to get a security patch for Enterprise Edition, let's say,

00:44:37: you cannot install it on free either. You've taken out all the patching facilities from it.

00:44:42: So that kind of leads to a couple of questions, right? Or a couple of scenarios like this.

00:44:46: The one guys that go like, "Oh my God, I don't get any security patches. I can never use this

00:44:50: in production." That's a fair statement. Congratulations, buy yourself an Oracle

00:44:56: Enterprise Edition license, Standard Edition 2, use an Aorus free autonomous database,

00:45:00: use any other Oracle Cloud Service.

00:45:03: If you have that limitation, fair enough, granted.

00:45:06: Oracle Database Free is not for you.

00:45:08: As simple as that.

00:45:11: To some extent, this is very similar to what people seem to accept in the open source world

00:45:15: with Community Editions and Enterprise Editions.

00:45:17: They go like, "Download this Community Edition thing."

00:45:21: Maybe it gets a release every three months, maybe it gets it once a year, whatever.

00:45:25: I built my stuff out and then there's a lot of funny stories on the web as well when they

00:45:29: come back and say, "How dare you?

00:45:30: You have to fix my bug in the community edition because I ran my production environment there."

00:45:34: Those companies will also tell you, "This is why we have enterprise edition.

00:45:37: This is why we have support subscriptions."

00:45:41: And I think this is important for people to understand and not get too hung up about that

00:45:46: fact.

00:45:47: Now, to your point, it's like, "Okay, what if I'm going to start building and I want

00:45:55: or run this and make money out of it,

00:45:56: I want to have a product that runs, et cetera.

00:45:59: And I want these support fixes, sorry, not support fixes,

00:46:03: security fixes or patches, et cetera.

00:46:06: There's at least two things,

00:46:11: maybe a couple of things to consider, right?

00:46:12: A, it's fully compatible.

00:46:14: So it's like, if you are such a company in today's world,

00:46:17: we have seen most of these companies

00:46:19: probably want to just run this in a cloud environment.

00:46:22: So you can take whatever you have on free

00:46:25: and subscribe to, you know, again, an autonomous database

00:46:28: or an Oracle database, cloud service, whatever, right?

00:46:30: And run it in the cloud has the big benefit.

00:46:32: Not only do you get your security patches, et cetera,

00:46:34: you don't even have to install them.

00:46:36: We do it for you, right?

00:46:37: Or the cloud provider does it for you

00:46:39: and gives you even guarantees

00:46:40: that this stuff is up for that long, et cetera, et cetera.

00:46:42: And you don't have to buy a server and, and, and, and, right?

00:46:45: It's like all the good stuff for cloud.

00:46:47: But of course also, you know, on the other hand,

00:46:50: It's like, yeah, you can just take it and put it on enterprise edition, et cetera.

00:46:56: The other thing that people kind of get into their minds, and I can see why because we

00:47:01: don't really explicitly say this or whatever.

00:47:05: It's like when you get the really critical security vulnerabilities.

00:47:07: It's like, yeah, okay, I mean, there may be a tiny bug here or whatever, et cetera.

00:47:11: There may be a kind of a tiny issue there.

00:47:13: It's like, what do you do when you get like a lock for trade kind of situation, right?

00:47:17: And what does that mean for free?

00:47:20: It's like we have the capability in Oracle

00:47:23: to always release a new version of free, all right.

00:47:26: And current plans, perhaps, I mean,

00:47:29: you already will see that there will be one more

00:47:31: or there will be a version of Oracle Database Free with GA.

00:47:34: You know, that's no longer has this dash

00:47:36: hyphen developer release to it, right?

00:47:39: So like whenever these situations occur

00:47:41: and our security guys alert us to what they call the CVEs,

00:47:44: this critical vulnerability exposures,

00:47:47: we look at it and say, how critical is it?

00:47:49: what do we have to do?

00:47:50: And if we ever deem to say, okay, you know, we have to,

00:47:54: you know, there's such as a severe security issue

00:47:57: and free, we have to fix it.

00:47:59: Then you will get a new version that has to fix in place.

00:48:01: I have a lock for J, we actually didn't have to do anything

00:48:03: because it's a Java library

00:48:05: and Oracle database is written in C.

00:48:07: So there was no, although there was one lock for J library

00:48:10: in one of the UI tools that happened to ship

00:48:13: with the Oracle home, but it wasn't used

00:48:15: by the Oracle database.

00:48:16: There was no security vulnerability for that.

00:48:18: And so like even for 18c and 21c XE, we never had the situation arise that we say, okay,

00:48:24: this is so critical.

00:48:26: We have to kind of re-release it, right?

00:48:29: There were no such critical security vulnerabilities present.

00:48:32: Then we know a couple of people that quite happily also, and this is not to underestimate,

00:48:38: run the current XE and production without any issues and with no like, oh my God, doomsday

00:48:43: is coming.

00:48:44: I think apex.world is still a website that runs on an XE, you know, quite happily.

00:48:51: And it's all good.

00:48:52: So it was like, hopefully, this kind of helps the listeners also a little bit more to understand

00:48:57: where we are here.

00:48:58: But yes, you don't have any support.

00:49:00: Sure, sure.

00:49:01: I mean, it's a different feeling if you have a couple of years between the different XE

00:49:07: releases.

00:49:08: Or if you have it like once a year or once every two years, I think then the feeling

00:49:12: is not that heavily inside myself, for example.

00:49:17: But I know from people from the community,

00:49:20: they are using or they're deciding to use,

00:49:23: for example, Apex to have their private stuff on

00:49:27: for maybe for a soccer club in the local community.

00:49:31: And if they decide which technology they use,

00:49:34: the last decision would be a very expensive Oracle license.

00:49:38: So they look into the XE stuff.

00:49:41: And then if you decide to use a database,

00:49:44: which is like I already said, like a couple of years old,

00:49:48: and then you decide to put even maybe some master data in it

00:49:53: which contains maybe like credit card information

00:49:56: or E-Bahn numbers or telephone contact stuff,

00:50:00: then you think twice if this is the right thing to do,

00:50:05: or if you just use like a MySQL database or Postgres

00:50:09: and put some React or Angular stuff on top of it.

00:50:12: So the way to decide for Apex, for example, right now,

00:50:17: is impacted by this thing.

00:50:20: And I think it is very clear that when you say that

00:50:24: if there's a very massive security breach,

00:50:26: or CVE, you called it that,

00:50:29: then you have a look inside that severe,

00:50:33: severity, I think that's the word,

00:50:36: how severe it is.

00:50:37: Yeah.

00:50:38: So in general, when we get these critical vulnerability exposures,

00:50:44: I think they're called CVEs,

00:50:46: we get tons of them all the time.

00:50:48: It's from whatever something is found out there

00:50:51: on whatever open source library or whatever library,

00:50:54: whatever else you have.

00:50:55: So these are well-known comments,

00:50:59: but well-known concepts out there.

00:51:02: And we have a whole security team that is constantly evaluating these,

00:51:05: not only for free, but also for enterprise customers,

00:51:09: for cloud, et cetera.

00:51:09: So this is like an ongoing process.

00:51:12: And they always gave us ratings, right?

00:51:13: Of like, okay, how severe is this?

00:51:16: Right, and second, there's like some of those where you say,

00:51:18: we have to produce a patch now and it has to be available,

00:51:21: you know, within the next hour or whatever.

00:51:23: There's something where you go like,

00:51:25: yeah, this is a, you know,

00:51:26: could be potentially cause this if like

00:51:28: five different things fall together, et cetera, et cetera.

00:51:31: But, you know, I think one thing that you,

00:51:33: you have mentioned before, which kind of now you kind of open my eyes, maybe this is where people

00:51:38: are coming from. And I didn't mention this specifically before. It's like, yes, of course,

00:51:42: you know, there was nothing from 11 GXE till 18 CXE. And that was seven years, I believe,

00:51:49: it was 2011 to 2018. There was a long, long gap. But you know, going forward,

00:51:55: our plan is to release an Oracle free with any GA version of Oracle database, so that you will have,

00:52:01: you know, indeed, just like, you know, what do you see now happening with 21c and,

00:52:06: you know, 23c. Now, we didn't quite manage for 8, 19c for reasons I've mentioned before,

00:52:11: but, you know, that's certainly our plan. So, you have always a constant new version of this as well.

00:52:17: And, you know, like C was really something geared for something completely different. I don't know

00:52:21: whether we have time or want to go into that, but let's park it as a thought for later on.

00:52:26: Maybe for a second episode, I think.

00:52:29: So yeah, exactly.

00:52:31: [LAUGHTER]

00:52:33: Yeah, I have one last question, because we haven't

00:52:37: dived into the specific new features of a new version yet.

00:52:44: But the one thing I would like to know

00:52:46: is, what is the most important reason why developers should

00:52:49: check out the new version?

00:52:51: Yeah, that's a great question.

00:52:55: It's always hard to pick a specific one,

00:52:57: but we have seen that the JSON relational duality

00:53:01: that we have put into Oracle Database,

00:53:03: these JSON relational duality views

00:53:05: have certainly gotten huge positive traction out there.

00:53:09: And it's one of those things where,

00:53:11: remembering the comment before,

00:53:12: where kind of any kind of NoSQL database

00:53:14: or open source competitor,

00:53:15: that they are years behind us, what we have done there.

00:53:18: It will take them a while to catch up,

00:53:20: if they even manage to.

00:53:23: But there's also many other things in there.

00:53:25: And it's like, it's funny how you,

00:53:26: when you talk to different people,

00:53:27: different people get excited. It's like Boolean data type is here. Yay!

00:53:32: That's awesome. My future.

00:53:34: Many people get probably more excited about that than

00:53:36: JSON relational duality stuff. But also we got domains now. We kind of refer to

00:53:43: SQL domains because we have domains already in service names and so

00:53:46: forth. So not to confuse that. But it's like a construct in SQL and you can

00:53:51: define a domain type sort of. It's not quite a type the way we've implemented it.

00:53:54: but a typical example would be like here,

00:53:57: store credit card number in a number field,

00:54:00: database just sees this as number.

00:54:02: It doesn't know that they can only have 15 or 16 digits, etc.

00:54:05: You can create a credit card domain on top of that number and

00:54:08: giving the database and all the other applications this know-how that

00:54:11: what they're actually dealing with is a credit card number and not

00:54:13: just some random 16-digit number that comes along.

00:54:17: So that's like for the SQL guys like myself,

00:54:20: a very nice feature, a very exciting feature.

00:54:23: JavaScript store procedures for your Apex guys,

00:54:26: probably not so exciting because you already got it in 21c,

00:54:29: but JavaScript store procedures full on support

00:54:32: is now there with our multilingual engine,

00:54:35: which is essentially the functionality

00:54:37: that embeds GraalVM.

00:54:39: So you can now create JavaScript functions,

00:54:42: procedures, input NPM packages and so forth.

00:54:44: And you know, that's going really, really well.

00:54:47: There's also a broader journey there.

00:54:50: there's new property graph queries

00:54:54: that are coming as part of the SQL standard.

00:54:56: I mentioned before that we're pushing the standard.

00:54:58: This one was actually a joint effort.

00:55:00: And now of course, there's many, many people in the standard

00:55:02: and many vendors and they have all worked on that.

00:55:04: So it would be unfair to not call them out,

00:55:06: but it was heavily pushed by Neo4j and Oracle Corporation

00:55:11: to put this property graph SQL support into the standard.

00:55:15: And you have it since last week in Oracle database,

00:55:18: although the new SQL standard isn't out yet.

00:55:20: That's about to come in.

00:55:22: You know, it's a couple of--

00:55:24: not too long anymore.

00:55:25: Should be out soon.

00:55:26: But it's like, cool, right?

00:55:27: Oracle database has functionality

00:55:29: that will be in the SQL standard.

00:55:30: How did we do that?

00:55:31: Well, we actively work on it and drive it.

00:55:35: So yeah, so there's like--

00:55:37: on my blog post, I mentioned a couple of these highlights.

00:55:39: But there's also other things that I

00:55:42: think people-- smaller things that people are excited as

00:55:44: well, like group by position and probably

00:55:48: important column alias is finally there. These kind of little helpers, the

00:55:52: multi-value table constructor. I think it's called the

00:55:59: fact that you can insert multiple rows with one go. Now you can thank me

00:56:06: for that one. Now it's public. Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of

00:56:13: fun things in there. One of the funniest part about

00:56:17: 23c. So what should you look out for? If you're a developer, there's a lot of little helpers,

00:56:23: all the way to amazing new functionality in there. Just really check it out. We have this up simple

00:56:29: tagline. We put a lot of things in there for the developers. But of course, there's a lot more to

00:56:33: come as well. It's one thing we have to kind of be fighting right now. There's all this hype about

00:56:40: the developer release, but we'll see a lot of advances in RAC and security and all these other

00:56:45: great functionalities as well when we have GA, so definitely worthwhile to

00:56:49: check that out once again when it goes GA. And we're also not done with the

00:56:53: updef area either yet, so there's other functionality that I cannot tell you

00:56:56: about yet, because we are still working on that, so you'll get more there as well.

00:57:00: That sort of rounds it up, so yeah, so have a look. There's a lot in there.

00:57:07: You had me at JSON duality feature, that's the way I was.

00:57:11: You smile at Boolean.

00:57:13: I mean, we have different points where we're working on.

00:57:17: So, Caro is using the Boolean data type heavily from today on.

00:57:21: And create table if not exists.

00:57:23: Oh, that's one word.

00:57:25: Oh, yeah.

00:57:27: Oh, great. Thank you.

00:57:29: Well, not appear in the work next time.

00:57:31: Yeah, maybe at Episconnect.

00:57:33: That one is kind of funny.

00:57:35: That confuses people, oddly enough.

00:57:37: It's like people are like,

00:57:39: said create table if not exist and it says table created. And it's called if not exist, right?

00:57:44: That's the point. You don't get an error. But it doesn't tell me if the table was already there.

00:57:49: Don't use it. Then it will tell you. People get it more when they enter the testing

00:57:55: kind of area and then they kind of see, ah, now it makes sense. And also,

00:57:59: everybody uses create if not exist. I thought the drop if not if exist is much more popular.

00:58:04: It's like clean up my tables, my users, whatever, and then just create. But a lot of people seem to

00:58:09: like create if not exist. But yeah, they will be happy when

00:58:13: they're trying that out. So so also happy our listeners, I

00:58:16: think, when they can have a little bit more inside of this

00:58:21: product, you why listening to this podcast, and maybe they

00:58:25: want to start out or start testing the new release they can

00:58:30: get for free. So as in every podcast, episode, we want to ask

00:58:35: you some questions from our categories box. So maybe you can just do it like

00:58:44: you never saw them. Maybe you are not prepared for them. So we have them

00:58:49: translated from the usual German language. So maybe maybe Karo you can

00:58:55: ask the first question from the hypothetical. I didn't read them anyway.

00:59:00: Yeah, right.

00:59:01: Maybe, Karl, from the hypothetical,

00:59:03: oh, I spelled it right,

00:59:05: so maybe you can start with the first question.

00:59:08: - Yeah, of course.

00:59:09: If you could undo one technological trend

00:59:16: in the recent years, what would it be?

00:59:18: - Microservices.

00:59:20: (laughing)

00:59:21: - Ah, okay.

00:59:21: - Because there's probably,

00:59:24: there's a lot in the whole new architecture patterns

00:59:27: that I think like, yeah, okay.

00:59:31: But for microservices specifically,

00:59:34: I think it's maybe not too much about microservices per se,

00:59:37: but we seem to be very eager in IT

00:59:40: to build the most complex convoluted whatever without,

00:59:45: you know, it's like customer, what's your requirement?

00:59:46: I actually don't care.

00:59:47: Let me just build stuff.

00:59:49: - Let me install Kubernetes, right?

00:59:50: - Yeah, and it kind of, you know, it's like,

00:59:54: the architecture is really,

00:59:56: I mean, the microservices architecture makes a lot of sense.

00:59:58: But what I always found funny, it's like when you even listen or read through what James

01:00:03: Lewis or Martin Fowler said, and I think it's kind of starts coming back now, is, you know,

01:00:08: they were always very clear of when to use and when not to use it.

01:00:11: And everybody kind of picked it up.

01:00:12: It's like, we have to do microservices now.

01:00:14: Monolith's are the devil's invention.

01:00:18: And yeah, surprise, surprise.

01:00:19: You know, it's like, then you see something, "Yeah, we have 1500 microservices and whatever,

01:00:23: and we don't know anymore what's running where."

01:00:24: And it's a lot of fun for the building this stuff, way less fun to running it.

01:00:31: And I guess, you know, it's like IT in general, I find something you kind of picked up maybe

01:00:37: a bit from my blog bio.

01:00:41: We are just odd.

01:00:42: We kind of like thrive on complexity rather than actually solving issues.

01:00:47: And I always say to people, you know, it's like, what's the best engineered software

01:00:51: out there?

01:00:52: Or like, where did we do it right?

01:00:53: know best engineered software right the world still runs on TCP or TCP IP right

01:00:58: on top of on top of that being HTTP right as that goes back to the 90s and

01:01:03: before we still have FTP it's all stuff - you know coming back to your dad's

01:01:09: point Kai yeah put just literally 50 years ago yeah it's like literally

01:01:15: otherworldly and then on top of that I mean obviously it's not all negative but

01:01:20: So yeah, I think I, you know, more like what I want,

01:01:22: if I have one wish, what could I wish for,

01:01:24: it would be like for us just to kind of think more about,

01:01:28: again, solving the actual problem

01:01:29: rather than getting very excited about the different tools

01:01:32: on the toolbox that we now have to play with.

01:01:36: - Great, so this was so hypothetically,

01:01:38: so we don't have to ask you another question

01:01:40: from this category, I think,

01:01:42: but let's switch into the in private section.

01:01:46: So you told us how much you are doing

01:01:49: and how much influence and how much features you already implemented yourself almost.

01:01:54: But this leads me to the question, are you satisfied with your work-life balance doing all that stuff?

01:02:02: I never implemented a feature. I told my guys to.

01:02:08: I brought it to the attention of my dev engineers, so they came to me and we buddied up.

01:02:13: But they did the hard lifting just to be accurate there.

01:02:17: I think am I happy? Yes, no. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It sort of depends. I mean,

01:02:24: I'm kind of happy when this COVID thing, technically being over, we're still kind of

01:02:29: not quite over the hump. So I feel happy when the world goes back to normal. Silicon Valley and

01:02:37: working for such a company, there's a lot of excitement and a lot of, everything's very,

01:02:41: very tech-oriented of course. So if you are a geek or enthusiastic about technology, it's going out

01:02:51: even to meetups after work or having beers and talking about some random algorithm. It's actually

01:02:56: fun and not necessarily considered being at work anymore. But I guess in general, there's also of

01:03:04: course also the times where we could all take a little bit more time for ourselves. So I think

01:03:10: I think I'm happy with my work life balance.

01:03:12: I think I understand, or my wife anyway does.

01:03:16: I work too long.

01:03:17: (laughing)

01:03:20: Or too much, and I will be corrected.

01:03:22: - I mean, again, you already answered

01:03:26: almost a second question from the in private thing.

01:03:29: If you're surrounded by geeks,

01:03:31: or like if your friends are completely

01:03:35: out of this tech section,

01:03:37: So you can just shut off your mind from the day and just talk about different stuff.

01:03:43: Very different, very different, I would say.

01:03:46: Some friends are in the tech sector, other people are like mechanics.

01:03:52: It's very, very faceted.

01:03:54: Okay, I will ask a question of the consumption category now.

01:04:02: So how do you deal with the growing flood of information via various channels like Twitter

01:04:11: or TV or Internet?

01:04:13: Everything.

01:04:14: Yeah, that's a really good question.

01:04:20: I think personally Elon Musk did me a big favor with buying Twitter.

01:04:25: It has gotten a lot more quiet there.

01:04:28: And I also have a quite really just recently when all of this kind of social media stuff

01:04:33: started bubbling up with scandal and Facebook and now this whole Twitter thing.

01:04:38: It's like I pay way less attention and give way less importance to these channels.

01:04:45: It's like I don't have to be the first one to know about a new trend.

01:04:49: If it truly is a trend, you will eventually pick up on it.

01:04:53: like so but you know it's like one thing that's really difficult this and you

01:04:59: know maybe even outside of IT but it's like when to pay attention to what

01:05:04: right it's like those people out there like our kids only on the phones these

01:05:08: days they cannot even talk to each other's anymore etc and I sort of

01:05:11: personally wonder as well yeah I mean maybe there is something to it there's

01:05:14: just too much always on maybe it's too much I don't know maybe it's not but

01:05:20: personally for me and I have my section a sector of interests and I yeah maybe

01:05:28: because of getting older I'm like yeah I don't have to be the first on everything

01:05:31: you know especially when I feel for those four folks that spent their life

01:05:35: on Twitter you know have like 20,000 followers and now the whole thing is

01:05:39: about to blow up and they're like I wasted my last I don't know right it was

01:05:43: like certainly gave me perspective it could end as quickly as that so maybe

01:05:47: don't spend your whole time on Twitter and all these social media platforms etc.

01:05:51: So what a great word to end this podcast episode again. So we had so many guests

01:06:00: during the last year and so many of those are finding such great words to end this podcast.

01:06:08: So I would let that sink in right now and thank you Gerrit for your attention to this podcast and

01:06:17: We are very glad that you asked us to come on this podcast.

01:06:21: No, just kidding from an inside thing from the last conference we met.

01:06:25: Thank you very much for coming into this episode and talk about this great, great release of the

01:06:32: 23C free developer version of the Oracle database. Thank you very much.

01:06:40: Thank you.

01:06:41: Thank you, Karo. I don't forget you.

01:06:46: See you next time. Thank you.