Hi I am having 10g RAC with service name ldptsrv created and here is the status of service on one of the Oracle RAC node "/export/home/oracle"> srvctl status service -d LDPDB Service ldptsrv is running on instance(s) LDPDB1, LDPDB2 I can connect to the service with Sqlplus and here is Service entry in Tnsnames.ora file ldptsrv = (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = ldpsrv1-vip)(PORT = 1521)) (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = ldpsrv2-vip)(PORT = 1521)) (LOAD_BALANCE = yes) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = ldptsrv ) (FAILOVER_MODE = (TYPE = SELECT) (METHOD = BASIC) (RETRIES = 180) (DELAY = 5) ) ) ) Now on the Client side, I am running VB application and using Oracle 10g Client with TNS entry like shown below ldptsrv = (DESCRIPTION = (LOAD_BALANCE = YES)(FAILOVER = YES) (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = ldpsrv1-vip)(PORT = 1521)) (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = ldpsrv2-vip)(PORT = 1521)) ) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVICE_NAME = ldptsrv ) ) ) Now I can see that if I try to access the VP application, it is sometime connecting but sometime failed and I checked that Sqlnet log sometime shows ldpsrv2 and sometime ldpsrv1 when it failed to connect with 12545 errors Am I using right TNS String TIA Sanjay --------------------------------- Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell? Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.