Oracle is launching a cloud-based multi-tenant database to be available in 2013.

Oracle has announced a new version of its database server that will support multi-tenancy. This means users will be able to create multiple "pluggable" databases that reside in a single database container.

Oracle senior vice president Andy Mendelsohn described the changes as "a fundamental re-architecture of the database" during his keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld taking place this week in San Francisco.

Announced the new database during the opening of the Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said will it provide superior security, control and efficiency for software services delivered from the cloud. He described 12c as “the first multi-tenant database in the world" with separate memory and processes allocated to each database.

The "c" in 12c refers to the cloud, and Ellison also said that Oracle 12c is the foundation for an expanding cloud business at Oracle.

Oracle’s approach to multi-tenancy differs from that offered by Software as a Service vendors who offer multi-tenancy at the application layer. Ellison said this means security features and querying tools don’t work correctly.

Oracle Database 12c will make more efficient use of hardware resources, according to Mendelsohn. He gave examples such as a "heat map" feature that shows how frequently different data blocks are used, so administrators can choose to archive information that is less frequently used onto lower-cost storage. Mendelsohn also gave examples of patching, backup and restore as being simpler as they can be applied to many databases at once in the single database container.