Re: ODBC connectivity for front-end tools

In article <pgk-1609942029070001_at_paulkampmac.pacersoft.com>, Paul Kamp <pgk_at_pacersoft.com> wrote:
>In article <359vpl$97u_at_dcsun4.us.oracle.com>, rkrishna_at_us.oracle.com
>(Ramesh (cntr - rfisher) Krishnamurthy) wrote:
>
>> I am posting this for a friend who does not have internet access.
>>
>> What are the available ODBC drivers on MS-Windows for connectivity from
>> front-end tools such as Power-Builder or Visual-Basic to an Oracle Server?
>> Is the Microsoft ODBC driver reliable with either of the two front-end tools.
>> Also, are there any third-party report writer tools on UNIX for Oracle7
>> RDBMS ?
>
>As I understand it there are quite a few ODBC drivers available. Oracle's
>SQL*Net, EDA/SQL from Information Builders, SequeLink from TechGnosis,
>HyperStar fro VMark/Constallation, SQL Retreiver from VisionWare and DAL
>from Pacer Software (the company I work for).
>
>SQL*Net is Oracle specific where all the others listed above are more
>generic middleware tools. Each implementation is a little bit different.
I have to offer a correction of concepts here. The origianl poster asked whether there are Oracle ODBC drivers available. First, to answer that question, yes. MS ships an Oracle6 driver and Oracle (via compuserve at least) gives away the Oracle7 ODBC driver. There may be other ODBC written by other vendors for Oracle(I don't recall there being any)...
Using these drivers requires Oracle SQL*Net. Generally an Oracle app will be linked against the client Oracle lib(OCI), which then will 'talk' to SQL*Net, which 'talks' to your network layer, then to the SQL*Net sever process, then the server. You could call this the 'standard' model.  This is the model Oracle apps will use(FORMS, REPORTS, etc). ODBC is simply another layer above the OCI layer...

One other method I've heard of(I think this is where the previous poster's note is confusing), is where some vendor writes an ODBC 'client' driver which then does it's own networking to their ODBC serve, which, in this case talks to Oracle. Here, Oracle SQL*Net is avoided. For better or worse?

....
-Keith Received on Sun Sep 18 1994 - 21:58:15 CEST