Today I presented on what is possibly the hottest story on the Oracle Database 11gR2 release: Edition Based Redefinition (EBR). EBR allows us to add a whole new dimension to the database – the Edition (that complements the existing dimensions of schema and object type). Every database object (well, almost every database object – not tables!) can have different implementations/incarnations/versions in various editions. The object versions are all in the same schema – they only differ in the Edition they are created in.

The Edition Based Redefinition has us create Editions in the database – cross database object spaces where new versions of existing database objects can be created – and others can just be inherited from previous editions. We can construct an Edition in isolation – no one is impacted by us creating new objects and versions of objects; objects can be invalid in that edition and no one will know anything about it. Only once the edition is complete, valid and tested can we make it available to new user sessions to work against. Using a simple alter session set edition statement, sessions can specify which edition they want to run against. That is: after the user has More >