When it comes to shelling out of the database and processing a digital object, it becomes apparent that the digital object needs to be unloaded and saved into the filesystem for processing. This is an additional process and can take time if the digital object is quite large. By using Oracle Securefiles, this step is much faster to perform, but it still is an additional step. Though there are many disadvantages to storing a digital object outside the database, the one advantage in doing it can be seen when it comes to external processing. By storing, it externally needs to unload and reload the processed digital object that is removed. This simplifies the process.
As has been covered in previous chapters, one of the exciting features in the latest 11gR2 release is the Oracle Database File System. This removes the need to unload the digital object when it's stored in the database. This is because the filesystem is integrated with the database. In this case, all...
