JDBC Connection problem ORA-12505 SID does not exist

I have a problem with a java application connecting to a test Oracle DB and everything works fine. However, once we were ready to move to production I changed the database URL and SID to connect to the new database and I get an error. Below are the configurations that I changed in my properties file and the error that was received from the TNS listener.

OLD
driver=oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@host:1521:h8sontst

NEW
driver=oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@new_host:1521:h8sontst

Listener refused the connection with the following error: ORA-12505, TNS:listener does not currently know of SID given in connect descriptor
The Connection descriptor used by the client was: (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(HOST=new_host)(PROTOCOL=tcp)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=h8sontst)))

I can connect using sqlplus with no issues from that server. Please help if you have any ideas? Both the test server and production server are running the same version of Oracle. Received on Mon May 08 2006 - 15:02:57 CDT