Allowing Oracle transactions to span client processes

Hi all.

I hope I'm not sending this to an inappropriate group (but I reckon some people here will have some suggestions to help me).

We have a fairly large system consisting of multiple applications
(running on Windows and via a browser). These apps are implemented in
various languages (C++, Java and VB). They all access a single central Oracle database.

I want to be able to do work on the database from multiple processes and have them all commit as a single transaction.

I've spent some time researching Transaction Managers and the like, and it seems to me that these might be overkill (they are pretty expensive and my company can't really afford to buy Tuxedo or similar). Most distributed transaction discussions seem to be focussed on one application updating multiple databases, whereas what I want is the opposite: updating one database (and a *known* RDBMS at that!) from multiple processes.

One process will always 'control' the transaction (i.e. it is responsible for starting a transaction, calling other processes and then commiting or rolling back the transaction).

I'm hoping that the Oracle RDMS has some nifty way of doing this
(we're currently using 8.1.7 but we'll soon be on 9)?

Alternatively, if I do need a TM/TPM can I get something relatively cheap to deploy since my requirements are pretty specific?

Best regards
Ben Received on Thu Sep 04 2003 - 15:54:47 CDT