Environment: Oracle 11.2.0.3 EE on Solaris
I currently support an application that was converted from an MS Access database.
The Access database used NUMBER data types for all the Primary Keys and Foreign keys.
The keys in the Access database were generated from a SEQUENCE-type function in Access (no functional meaning).
The new application is written in Java and the designers/developers decided to use a RAW(16) data type for the Primary and Foreign keys.
I'm not sure how the RAW keys are generated.
Why would they switch from a NUMBER data type to a RAW(16) data type?
Is the performance better when doing DML?
Is it somehow more secure? If so, how? I couldn't find any supportive material on that one.
The values I've seen in the RAW keys are 32 hex characters so it has to be taking up much more storage than the NUMBER keys.
Any insight into their decision would be greatly appreciated!
-gary