Oracle TimesTen vs Oracle database in-memory

Question

Oracle has recently announced its latest Oracle database in-memory feature in 12c.

Oracle already had an in-memory database TimesTen and now I was wondering as to what the the differences between these two beasts?

Answer 1

There's a massive difference. TimesTen is an dedicated in-memory database.

Oracle in-memory is just an added optional extra for Oracle 12c that lets you mark data, given certain indexing rules (you drop them), as in-memory. Oracle then caches the data in memory in both a row and columnar fashion, enabling fast retrieval for both OLTP and reporting workloads. It requires no code changes for existing Oracle-based applications - completely transparent & can offer significant performance improvements.