OCI connections and Oracle client dependencies

[acm_pfa]

My company is using dotConnect for Oracle to phase out use of Oracle ODAC for Windows client (and associated problems with it) on a range of asp.net applications. We have a problem however, because our Oracle production servers are configured for failover and our database administrators do not want us to use direct connections.

If we use OCI based connections, what other software is required on our IIS servers? I am specifically worried that we will return to the same versioning problems we were seeing using Oracle ODAC for windows client. This is a big issue for us as we have multiple environments we need to deploy applications to, and we do not have control over our production and some of our testing environments (they are contracted out to a service provider).

Alternatively if we want to use direct connections, how can we provide for database failover? If transparent application failover is unavailable to us, is there something else we can do to allow some sort of failover ability?

[Shalex]

We have a problem however, because our Oracle production servers are configured for failover and our database administrators do not want us to use direct connections.

In the Direct mode you can connect only to one database instance (doesn't matter whether SID or Service Name is used to identify this single instance). We will investigate the possibility of implementing the RAC support in the Direct mode but there is no timeframe.

As a workaround you can use the service name parameter of the connection string. If the first instance redirects the connection to the second instance, you will connect to the second instance, but if the first instance is shut down, then you will fail to connect to other instances. For more information, please refer to http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/oracle ... eName.html.

If we use OCI based connections, what other software is required on our IIS servers?

You should install Oracle client.

I am specifically worried that we will return to the same versioning problems we were seeing using Oracle ODAC for windows client.

dotConnect for Oracle doesn't depend on a particular version of Oracle client. The list of Oracle client versions supported by the latest version of dotConnect for Oracle is available at http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/oracle ... ility.html.

If transparent application failover is unavailable to us, is there something else we can do to allow some sort of failover ability?

The dotConnect for Oracle features which can be employed in this case:
1) http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/oracle ... ~Ping.html
2) http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/oracle ... ction.html (or the Validate Connection connection string parameter)