I use Oracle OID. It's a pain to set up and to add entries to. But it is stable and works just like Oracle Names used to. We have three OID database instances running. Works just fine. -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Radoulov, Dimitre Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 8:56 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Centralized names resolution > With 10g you get easy connect. > > e.g. sqlplus scott/tiger@//someserver:1529/orcl And in 8i/9i you can connect with: sqlplus username/password@'(description=(address=(protocol=<protocol>)(host=<hos tname>)(port=<port>))(connect_data=(sid=<sid>)))' Regards, Dimitre -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l