Re: oracle names - pros/cons

Ed Stevens <Ed.Stevens_at_nmm.nissan-usa.com> wrote in message news:8atn6v$ncf$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com...
> I have been tasked with researching the pros and cons of using Oracle
> Names Servers vs. TNSNAMES files. I know that Oracle Names is supposed
> to give you a single point of maintenance for database name resolution.
>
> In our environment (Oracle on NT, NT clients), we have used the
> TNS_ADMIN registry key to relocate the SQLNET.ORA and TNSNAMES.ORA
> files to a shared server location. This gives us the single point of
> maintenance offered by Oracle Names. Are there any other advantages to
> O-Names? Maintenance? Admin? Performance? Any disadvantages? I
> would expect it to be a bit of a performance hit over even our server
> shared TNSNAMES simply because it is a more complex mechanism with
> another service running on the server and broadcasting itself over the
> network, but really don't know.
>
> --
> Ed Stevens
> (Opinions are not necessarily those of my employer)
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

Oracle Names is transparent. You can add services on the fly. Oracle Names takes care of global database links, they will be created implicitly.
Oracle Names doesn't broadcast, when it starts the services are retrieved from the database and dumped to a binary file. When a client contacts an Oracle names server, the server queries the binary file. Actually Oracle Names will be faster. A tnsnames.ora file is loaded by the client, sequentially and searched sequently. Without doubt, Oracle Names uses direct access to the binary file. I conducted measurements once (don't have them anymore) and noted Onames was significantly faster. Also, implicitly (and it seems very difficult to turn it off) sqlnet will search for well known names servers BEFORE using the tnsnames mechanism.

Oracle Names has delegated administration. If you divided your European or Worldwide network in regions, these regions will be administered indepedently and changes forwarded automatically. This is especially handy in worldwide companies with regions in different timezones (As in my previous job : the difference between Exton PA and Hoofddorp, the Netherlands was 6 hours, almost a working day). This should be handy in your situation probably (I live in the vicinity of the Nissan Amsterdam office).

Hth,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA Received on Fri Mar 17 2000 - 00:00:00 CST