Oracle announces a new automated database that can patch cybersecurity flaws itself

Larry Ellison didn't wait long after coming onto the Oracle OpenWorld conference stage in San Francisco on Sunday before announcing a new set of cybersecurity-oriented products.

In his first keynote of Oracle's annual use conference, the executive chairman announced a new autonomous database that can patch itself from cybersecurity flaws without having to go offline.

The automated database, called Oracle 18c, can instantly patch itself while still running, which Ellison says is a big advantage over the current system, in which humans have to schedule downtime for a database.

"It didn't work at Equifax," Ellison said, in reference to the consumer credit reporting company that announced a major security breach in early September.

"It doesn't work. We have to automate our cyber defenses. And you have to be able to defend yourselves without taking all of your computer systems offline or shutting down your databases," Ellison said.

At the heart of this new database machine learning, which Ellison said will continuously tune itself without human intervention.

"There is no pilot error anymore, because there is no pilot," Ellison said. "Therefore, we can guarantee an availability time of 99.95%. That's less than 30 minutes a year of planned or unplanned downtime."

In addition to automation, Ellison said that Oracle's new database is extremely elastic, which means it can quickly adapt to workloads without wasting resources.

"We can guarentee our bill will be less than half of what Amazon will charge you," Ellison said. "Amazon's database, Redshift, cannot automatically increase the number of processors to run a bigger workload and then free up those processors. It just can't do it," Ellison said.

"It will be less than one half of what Amazon charges you. We will write that in your contract," he said to applause.

Oracle will also announce a new security product on Tuesday.