Oracle HTML DB

I had the opportunity to attend the MAOP tech talk last Friday where Scott Spendolini (Oracle's former Product Manager for Oracle HTML DB) presented a great presentation about the HTML DB product. Scott was able to walk a bunch of us techie type folks (MAOP seems to be mostly comprised of Oracle DBA type folks) through the high level architecture of HTML DB. After the high level architecture, he focused showed us how easy it is to make business applications. A good portion of his presentation was also commited to defining when Oracle's HTML DB is the right tool for building a business application.

My takeaway on this was:

Oracle HTML DB is good to use when:
  • There are very few developers
  • Microsoft Access was used in the past
  • Limited lifecycle applications (his example of this was an application he helped build for hurricane Katrina relief)
Oracle HTML DB doesn't seem to be a good fit when:
  • There need to be many developers developing the system
Overall it seems that HTML DB is ready for primetime (after all, it powers asktom.oracle.com). I have posted some questions to Scott about the social aspects of this which can be read here. I'll be writing more about this subject as I venture down the path of building a small application in HTML DB.

Comments