Re: OLE DB and ODBC

I'll write this up on my site soon since they are such common questions.

Do I need an Oracle Client installed to use ODBC/OLEDB?

Any client application, including mid-tier applications running on
application servers such as IIS, will need a set of client libraries to talk
to the database with one exception only and that is java applications using
the thin or wire protocol drivers. So to use any of ODBC,OLEDB,ADO.NET to
connect to the Oracle database you will need to install an Oracle client. In
addition starting with Oracle 9.2 you will need to ensure that the security
account used to access the application has access to the client Oracle home.


Can I connect to an Oracle database from a windows client without using
tnsnames.ora?

Yes, there are any number of ways. Typically to connect to an Oracle
database you need a connect descriptor (which is a long string of
information needed to connect to an Oracle listener and tell it what
database you wish to connect to. Typically these are stored in a text file
called tnsnames.ora in ORACLE_HOME and associated with an easy to remember
alias. They can also be stored in a directory service such as Oracle
Internet Directory or Active Directory or can be supplied directly by your
program. In most cases the alternatives to using a tnsnames.ora file are
complex and carry significant overhead - you have to extend the Active
Directory schema for example. In addition Oracle has supplied a number of
ways of connecting simply to a database, for example by using the same name
as the database servers hostname for your database, and starting with 10g
you can supply a JDBC like connection string as well.

On 2/15/06, ora_forum <ora_forum@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi All:
>
> If application running on Windows using OLE DB to connect to the Oracle
> database does I need to install Oracle Client on Windows Server? OLE DB not
> using tnsnames.ora file correct?
> What the differences between OLE DB and ODBC?
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
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--
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.orawin.info

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