Prerequisites for Oracle Network Topology

In order to get the most from this course, you should have a basic understanding of the UNIX operating system, PL/SQL coding techniques, and the following Oracle database concepts:

1. Oracle tables and tablespaces
2. Oracle instances
3. The Oracle data dictionary
   If you do not feel comfortable with one or more of these topics, techniques, or procedures, you may want to consider visiting the Sitemap .

In the next lesson, the full potential of this course will be outlined.

The NetworkAnalyst class in oracle.spatial.network.lod contains many new methods. This class is the single entry point to all the network analysis operations supported by the network data model load on demand (LOD) approach to analysis.The new methods include the following:

1. Hierarchical shortest path analysis (NetworkAnalyst.shortestPathHierarchical) supports hierarchical shortest path analysis for networks with multiple link levels.
2. Shortest path A* analysis(NetworkAnalyst.shortestPathAStar) supports the A* shortest path algorithm with a user-defined heuristic cost function.
   It provides better performance than the Dijkstra algorithm because fewer nodes are explored.
3. Network buffer zones (NetworkAnalyst.networkBuffer), also called zones of influence, operation on networks. Includes coverage and cost information.
4. TSP ("traveling salesman problem" or "traveling salesperson problem") analysis (NetworkAnalyst.tsp) supports the minimum cost tour that includes all given nodes. Supports both closed and open tours (start and/or end are fixed).
5. Minimum cost spanning tree analysis (NetworkAnalyst.mcst) finds the links with the sum of minimum link costs to connect all nodes.
6. Minimum cost polygon generation (NetworkAnalyst.withinCostPolygon) provides a spatial representation (polygon) based on the minimum cost network coverage. For example, the Drive Time polygon is one such representation when travel time is used as link cost.
7. K shortest paths analysis (NetworkAnalyst.kShortestPaths) finds the k shortest paths between two nodes