RE: Oracle 8i/HP-UX,Solaris,Windows/Active Directory Question

Yechiel,

We weren't able to get OID replication to be stable for more than a few weeks under 9.0.1. After a week or two, it would just flake out like it needed to make more than 10 or 20 connections to the DBs and it halted. The only solution was to bounce OID -- not the DBs, just the LDAP part. This interruption also caused problems with the replication. In more than one instance, we needed to fully rebuild the slave. Since we only have about 1000 entries, it was no big deal to recreate (<15 minutes), but unnerving enough that we felt that a replicated OID was not ready for a production environment. Aparently, we were one of the first to attempt to use OID on Linux as Oracle Support didn't even have a Linux box to verify some of the problems we had. They had claimed to be running replicated OID on Solaris (and maybe Winders -- I forget) without major problems, however, since our LDAP project dropped OID in favor of Sun One (with full replication), I have no reason to test it.

As far as our failover, we developed a load balancer in house that would automagically detect which LDAP boxes were available and use those. For startup and shutdown of OID and, optionally, replication, I developed some scripts in Korn for our Linux boxes. If you'd like a copy, I'll make them available with the standard legal disclaimers.

Mike, check with your Oracle Sales Rep on licensing for OID. It comes with 9iAS, but I don't know if it's separately licensable. If you really really really want to use Active Death -- erm, "Directory" -- you'll still need to have OID act as a gateway between it and Oracle. As far as the Oracle DB's concerned, it only talks to OID. Marketing will tell you that the DB talks to any v3-compliant LDAP, but they don't tell you it's only thru the separately licensable OID. Well, I should say by "supported" means because a co-worker was able to get Oracle Networking to talk with Sun One by converting Oracle's proprietary LDIFs (don't let them tell you their LDIF files are fully v3-compliant!!!) to standards. Also, be prepared to be GUI-fied. There are many operations with OID, particularly in the installation and setup, that are GUI-only!

Also, 7.x cannot authenticate or do names resolution to LDAP. I'm not sure, but I think that started with 8i.

I need to stop babbling now and get back to work... ;)

HTH! GL! :) Rich

Rich Jesse                           System/Database Administrator
Rich.Jesse_at_qtiworld.com              Quad/Tech International, Sussex, WI USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Yechiel Adar [mailto:adar76_at_inter.net.il]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 1:24 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: Re: Oracle 8i/HP-UX,Solaris,Windows/Active Directory Question
>
>
> I am currently busy with the same project. Junk tnsnames.ora for OID.
> I installed OID 9.2.0.1.
> I then converted the tnsnames.ora to OID entries with no problems.
> I then tried to access the OID from 8.1.6 client and got zilch, nada,
> gurnisht etc. .
> After Deborah from Oracle Israel came in she told me that I need to
> create the Oracle Context under an entry in the root and not in the
> OID root itself. After we did that 8.1.6 and 9.2.0.1 clients worked
> with OID version 9.2.0.1.
>
> Still testing on my machine. After we solve the problem of replication
> and Failover (two OID servers with the client automatically switching
> from one to the other in case of failure (not clustering))
> I will think about moving it to the users.
>
> Yechiel Adar
> Mehish
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 2:08 AM
>
>
> > Happy Holidays Everyone!
> >
> > I have been hacking around the MetalLink site looking for how to
> > move from using a TNSNAMES.ORA file to Active Directory. We use a
> > mixed environment of HP-UX, Solaris, and Windows, with versions
> > of Oracle from 7.3.4 (really!) to 9iR2.
> >
> > All the notes and docs I can find seem to be only for a Windows
> > environment. Any pointers to docs or tips would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike
> >
> > ---
> >
> ==============================================================
> =============
> > Michael P. Vergara
> > Oracle DBA
> > Guidant Corporation

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