Oracle Database Discussions

I am implementing an oracle based application which will run under Linux/Oracle 10gr2 standard edition and which will soon be upgraded to Oracle 11g standard edition.

One of the requirements of the application is that a hot standby must be provided. To provide the hot standby, I must implement some sort of replication mechanism, but the nice replication features (data guard, streams, advanced replication, basic replication) are only available with Oracle enterprise edition.

Two questions:

1. It appears that I will be building a home-made replication mechanisms. I am planning on using insert/update/delete triggers and dblinks to trap database updates and propogate them to the standby server. (alternatively, may write them to files as SQL statements and have the second server load the files). Is their a better way to implement replication in Oracle SE. (esp. a feature of Oracle SE that I could be using to do this?).

2. Oracle Advanced and Basic Replication are not shown in the Oracle 11 Editions Description web page which lists the availability of features across the various oracle versions. I assume it is still supported in Oracle 11, but is Oracle Streams now the "best practice" for implementing replication (i.e. instead of advanced replication?)

Thanks in advance,

Werner