Oracle Essentials [Electronic resources] : Oracle Database 10g, 3rd Edition نسخه متنی

14.1 The Impact of the Internet

The late 1990s saw an
explosion in the world of information technology brought on by the
Internet. Although many of the financial highfliers who sought to
capitalize on this sea change have fallen by the wayside, the impact
of the Internet on the overall landscape and topology of computing
has had a lasting effect.

In brief, the Internet tore down corporate IT walls and replaced them
with firewalls. Prior to the Internet, real-time information was
shared only within the confines of a particular
organizationsharing was accomplished essentially through
exporting information. The Internet supplied a way for organizations
to use their information resources to directly interact with their
customers and suppliers.

This massive expansion of scope brought about a number of significant
changes, including:

A new set of standards, including HTTP transport, HTML display, URLs
for location, SSL for security, and LDAP for external directories.

A set of new programming languages, including several different types
of server scripting languages, such as JSPs and ASPs, as well as the
corresponding growth of the Java environment.

An even greater emphasis on sharing and integrating information,
which was required as individual users needed to access all types of
information. Portals and advanced integration standards and
technologies seek to address this area of change.

Oracle's entire product line changed to meet the
challenge of the Internet. The Oracle database got a new letter in
its name, a new product stack sprang up to complete the
"Oracle platform" (Oracle
Application Server), and Oracle's existing
management product, Enterprise Manager, dramatically expanded its
focus.

The next few sections of this chapter look at the impact of these new
deployment architectures on the Oracle database, on the Oracle
Application Server, and on Enterprise Manager.