Using R within Oracle

Update: Nice Retweet bij Oracle:

RT @oracletechnet: Using R within Oracle bit.ly/vcdarb > first glimpse #bigdata #11gr2

— Oracle Database (@OracleDatabase) November 30, 2011

Today I followed a session on “Using R within Oracle”. This session was organised by the BIWA SIG (thanks Shyam)
The presentation was given by Mark Hornick, Senior Manager, Oracle Advanced Analytics Development.

Mark started with explaining what “R” is all about. “R” is an open source environment for advanced analysis.

Limitations of R
R is a client and server bundled as one. Therefore all data has to be loaded into memory and this provides a bottleneck when analyzing large data sets.

Strategy
Oracle strategy for R is to deliver enterprise-level advanced analytics based on the R environment.
By support R enterprises have support for open-source R (a reason why enterprises wouldn’t use this tool because support was limited)

Oracle R Enterprise
Oracle R is a part of the database. Therefore the analysis are brought to the data, not the data to the analyze software which improves performance.
Furthermore Oracle R can use all benefits a Oracle database brings (parallelism/Exadata/Big Data Appliance)

What is Oracle “R” Enterprise?
R packages, database library and SQL extensions that bring Oracle Database closer to advanced Analytics users in a Enterprise:

Transparency library
Enables users of R to work with large data sets as data is stored in the database with R expressions executed on database

Statistics Engine
Commonly-used statistical library (executed in Database)

SQL Extensions
Embed R in Operational systems and eliminate client data loading and result write-back in Oracle Database

Hadoop connector
Connect to data stored in HDFS

Data Sources for Oracle R Enterprise

Summary

• Oracle R is a comprehensive advanced analytics solution for big data
• Offers a compelling alternative advanced analytics technology stack for enterprises to leverage emerging trends
• Expands support for emerging data sources and IT infrastructures

Interesting links

• http://www.rexeranalytics.com/Data-Miner-Survey-Results-2010.html
• http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/
• http://www.r-project.org/