Oracle will remind its customers this week that it's more than a pretty database. At the company's annual OracleWorld user conference in San Francisco, the vendor will give the expected 20,000 attendees a look at upcoming additions and enhancements to its application-server software and the recently introduced Collaboration Suite.

Oracle also is expected to debut a new release of its Enterprise Manager software used to manage Oracle software within large-scale computing environments. Enterprise Manager will now include a data repository for storing information about IT components--including non-Oracle technology such as network routers and firewalls--and IT management policies.

Planned application server enhancements include expanding the software's application integration capabilities. And Oracle's database software won't be ignored. Company executives are expected to highlight examples of customers using the database in clustered Linux environments and provide insight into the direction of Oracle's clustering technology, particularly for building clustered database systems using off-the-shelf hardware and software.

Lithonia Lighting, a manufacturer of commercial and residential lighting equipment, uses the Oracle9i database and Oracle's Real Application Clusters software to manage its 22 manufacturing facilities and seven distribution centers in North America. The four-node, Linux-based system, installed last spring, resolved scalability problems Lithonia was experiencing with its Windows-based system. "After about 150 users, we ran into memory-management issues with Windows," IT director Phil Kilgore says. The Linux-based clustered database system is more secure, and batch-processing jobs run 50% faster than with the previous system, he says.

By showcasing its flagship database and other software products, Oracle hopes to give its slumping sales a boost (see chart). What OracleWorld attendees won't see, at least not in person, is CEO Larry Ellison, who's in New Zealand captaining a yacht in the America's Cup races. Ellison will deliver his keynote speech via satellite on Thursday.