Oracle Spatial and Graph, formerly Oracle Spatial, is a free option component of the

Oracle Database Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle DBMS, Oracle Autonomous Database, or simply as Oracle) is a multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. It is a database commonly used for running online ...

. The spatial features in Oracle Spatial and Graph aid users in managing geographic and location-data in a native type within an Oracle database, potentially supporting a wide range of applications — from

automated mapping Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an ...

facilities management Facility management or facilities management (FM) is a professional management discipline focused on the efficient and effective delivery of logistics and other support services related to real property and buildings. It encompasses multiple d ...

, and

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a ...

( AM/FM/GIS), to wireless location services and location-enabled e-business. The graph features in Oracle Spatial and Graph include Oracle Network Data Model (NDM) graphs used in traditional network applications in major

transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

, telcos, utilities and energy organizations and RDF semantic graphs used in

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods fo ...

s and social interactions and in linking disparate data sets to address requirements from the research, health sciences, finance, media and intelligence communities.

Components

The geospatial feature of Oracle Spatial and Graph provides a SQL

schema The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms. Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA ...

and functions that facilitate the storage, retrieval, update, and query of collections of spatial features in an Oracle database. (The spatial component of a spatial feature consists of the

geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

representation of its shape in some

coordinate space In mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called '' vectors'', may be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called ''scalars''. Scalars are often real numbers, but can ...

— referred to as its "geometry".)

Geospatial data features

The Oracle Spatial geospatial data features consist of: * a schema - MDSYS (as in "multi-dimensional system") - that prescribes the storage, syntax, and semantics of supported

data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a set of possible values and a set of allowed operations on it. A data type tells the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to use the data. Most progra ...

s * a spatial indexing system * operators, functions, and procedures for performing area-of-interest queries, spatial join queries, and other

spatial analysis Spatial analysis or spatial statistics includes any of the formal techniques which studies entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques, many still in their early deve ...

operations * functions and procedures for utility and tuning operations * vector performance acceleration for substantially faster querying and more efficient use of CPU, memory, and partitioning * support for parametric curves ( NURBS) for mathematically precise representation of free-form curves that can be reproduced exactly for 2D and 3D data * a

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

data model A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be c ...

for working with data about

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a " knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph * Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, line ...

edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed ...

s, and

face The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...

s in a

* a GeoRaster feature to store, index, query, analyze, and deliver GeoRaster data ( raster image and gridded data and its associated

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

) with virtual mosaics, raster-algebra operations, image processing, Java API, and GDAL-Based ETL Wizard * 3-dimensional data-types and operators including Triangulated Irregular Networks (TINs), Point Clouds and

LiDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

data sets with Spatial R-tree indexing, SQL operators and analysis functions, and metadata for visualization *

geocoding Address geocoding, or simply geocoding, is the process of taking a text-based description of a location, such as an address or the name of a place, and returning geographic coordinates, frequently latitude/longitude pair, to identify a locatio ...

that converts location and address data into formal geographic coordinates from point addresses and address ranges, and supports reverse geocoding * a

routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

engine that creates fastest or shortest routes with driving distances, times, directions and turn-specific geometries based on commercial and publicly available street network data, and restrictions and conditions for advanced routing, such as truck-specific routing *

Open Geospatial Consortium The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international voluntary consensus standards organization for geospatial content and location-based services, sensor web and Internet of Things, GIS data processing and data sharing. It originated in 199 ...

-compliant Web Services for geocoding, routing, mapping, business-directory, catalog, and geospatial feature transactions *Spatial Visualization components to render data on maps.

Network Data Model

The

Network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...

Data Model feature is a property graph model used to model and analyze physical and logical networks used in industries such as transportation, logistics, and utilities. Its features include: * Persistent management of the network connectivity in the database * A data model for representing capabilities or objects (modeled as

s and links) in a network with a PL/SQL API for managing network data. * User-determined link and node properties, such as costs and restrictions, including temporal properties. * Association of real world objects with network elements to simplify application development and maintenance. * A Java API for in-memory network path analytics, including shortest path, nearest neighbors, within cost, and reachability, with partitioned loading of large networks into memory.

RDF semantic

The RDF

Semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

Graph feature supports the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) RDF standards. It provides RDF data management, querying and inferencing that are commonly used in a variety of applications ranging from semantic

data integration Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of them. This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial (such as when two similar companies ...

social network analysis Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...

and

linked open data In computing, linked data (often capitalized as Linked Data) is structured data which is interlinked with other data so it becomes more useful through semantic queries. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP, RDF and URIs, but r ...

applications. Its features include: * An RDF

triple store A triplestore or RDF store is a purpose-built database for the storage and retrieval of triples through semantic queries. A triple is a data entity composed of subject–predicate–object, like "Bob is 35" or "Bob knows Fred". Much like a relat ...

and

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophy, philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, Becoming (philosophy), becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into Category ...

management with automatic partitioning and data compression. * Proven scalability to over 54 billion triples (LUBM 200K benchmark) with scalability to the 8 petabyte limit of Oracle Database. * High performance bulk loading with Oracle Database parallel and direct path loading and loading through Jena. * SPARQL and SQL parallel querying and updating of RDF graphs with

SPARQL SPARQL (pronounced " sparkle" , a recursive acronym for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) is an RDF query language—that is, a semantic query language for databases—able to retrieve and manipulate data stored in Resource Description ...

1.1, SPARQL endpoint web services, SPARQL/Update, Java APIs with open source Apache Jena & Sesame, SQL queries with embedded SPARQL graph patterns, SQL insert/update. * Ontology-assisted querying of table data using SQL operators to expand SQL relational queries with related terms for more comprehensive results. * Native inferencing with parallel, incremental and secure operation for scalable reasoning with RDFS,

Web Ontology Language The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies. Ontologies are a formal way to describe taxonomies and classification networks, essentially defining the structure of knowledge for vario ...

(OWL 2 RL/EL), Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), user-defined rules, user-defined inference extensions, and an extensibility framework to plug-in special purpose reasoners, such as PelletDB, TrOWL. * GeoSPARQL support for storing / querying spatial data in RDF per Open GeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) specification. * RDF views on relational data to apply semantic analysis with support for automatic (Direct Mapping) and custom (W3C R2RML language) mapping of relational data to

RDF triple A semantic triple, or RDF triple or simply triple, is the atomic data entity in the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model. As its name indicates, a triple is a tuple, set of three entities that codifies a statement (programming), statement ...

s. * Triple-level security that meets the most stringent security requirements with Oracle Label Security. * Integration with open source Apache Jena and Sesame application development environments. * Integration with XML-based tools, such as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) for reporting and dashboards. * Integration with Network Data Model graph analytics for shortest path, nearest neighbors, within cost, and reachability. * Integration with Oracle Advanced Analytics features: Oracle Data Mining for exploiting

predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events. In busine ...

and pattern discovery and Oracle R Enterprise for statistical computing and charting visualization of graph data. * Semantic indexing for

text mining Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extract ...

and entity analytics integrated with popular natural language processors. * Integration with leading commercial and open source tools for querying, visualization, and ontology management.

Availability

Oracle Spatial and Graph is an option for Oracle Enterprise Edition, and must be licensed separately. Free since December 5, 2019. It is also included in Oracle Database Cloud Service (High Performance Edition and Extreme Performance Edition). It is not included in Oracle Standard Edition or Oracle Standard Edition One. However, the latter two editions allow the use of a subset of spatial features (called ''Oracle Locator'' ) at no extra cost. An appendix of the ''Oracle Spatial and Graph Developer's Guide'' specifies the functions allowed in Locator.

History

The Oracle RDBMS first incorporated spatial-data capability with a modification to Oracle 4 made by scientists working with the

Canadian Hydrographic Service ''Retired Canadian Hydrographic Service logo or crest'' The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) is part of the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is Canada's authoritative hydrographic office. The CHS represents Canada in ...

(CHS). A joint development team of CHS and Oracle personnel subsequently redesigned the Oracle kernel, resulting in the "Spatial Data Option" or "SDO" for Oracle 7. (The SDO_ prefix continues in use within Oracle Spatial implementations.) The spatial indexing system for SDO involved an adaptation of Riemannian

hypercube In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square () and a cube (). It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1-skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, p ...

data-structures, invoking a helical spiral through 3-dimensional space, which allows n-size of features. This also permitted a highly efficient compression of the resulting data, suitable for the petabyte-size data repositories that CHS and other major corporate users required, and also improving search and retrieval times. The "helical hyperspatial code", or HHCode, as developed by CHS and implemented by Oracle Spatial, comprises a form of

space-filling curve In mathematical analysis, a space-filling curve is a curve whose range contains the entire 2-dimensional unit square (or more generally an ''n''-dimensional unit hypercube). Because Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) was the first to discover one, ...

. With Oracle 8,

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

marketing dubbed the spatial extension simply "Oracle Spatial". The primary spatial indexing system no longer uses the HHCode, but a standard

r-tree R-trees are tree data structures used for spatial access methods, i.e., for indexing multi-dimensional information such as geographical coordinates, rectangles or polygons. The R-tree was proposed by Antonin Guttman in 1984 and has found sig ...

index. Since July, 2012, the option has been named Oracle Spatial and Graph to highlight the graph database capabilities in the product - Network Data Model graph introduced with Oracle Database 10g Release 1 and RDF Semantic Graph introduced with Oracle Database 10g Release 2.

References

Oracle Documentation Library https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/oraclecertificationenvironment-docs-library.html See: * Spatial and Graph Developer's Guide * Spatial and Graph GeoRaster Developer's Guide * Spatial and Graph Topology Data Model and Network Data Model Graph Developer's Guide * Spatial and Graph Java API Reference (Javadoc) * Spatial and Graph RDF Semantic Graph Developer's Guide

Notes

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External links

*http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database-options/spatialandgraph/overview/index.html – Oracle Corporation's official website * http://fdo.osgeo.org/fdooracle/index.html – Open Source FDO interface to Oracle Spatial data Oracle software GIS software Graph databases Spatial database management systems