One of the great benefits of using Oracle products is their support for multiple programming frameworks. By supporting .NET, Java/J2EE, PHP, and C/C++ applications, all developers can use Oracle’s advanced database features, providing true flexibility for development organizations. Each of Oracle’s data access drivers is designed to maximize performance of its respective framework and to enable access to the latest database features.

Within the .NET realm, Oracle offers a multitude of products to develop applications with the Oracle database, including Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET, Oracle Database Extensions for .NET, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, and Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET). ODP.NET is a native .NET data access provider for Oracle databases. It offers standard ADO.NET data access for .NET Framework 1.x, 2.0, and higher. For developers who have used another ADO.NET provider, basic ODP.NET data access requires very little new to learn. It can be used with existing constructs, such as the Microsoft Data Access Application Blocks (DAAB) for .NET. As such, ADO.NET developers can start using Oracle data sources very quickly. While ODP.NET shares common basic elements with other ADO.NET providers, ODP.NET’s unique value is its tight integration with the Oracle database. ODP.NET exposes many of the database’s unique capabilities, such as Real Application Clusters (RAC) tuning, advanced security, and complex data types, to .NET developers. These features allow .NET middle-tiers to take advantage of the Oracle database’s unique capabilities.

This white paper focuses on ODP.NET data access and its unique capabilities, discussing .NET development features that are part of Oracle Database 11g and prior releases. Many ODP.NET 11g features are enabled with older Oracle database server releases, such as the Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Database 9i. This white paper does not cover ODP.NET features released after Oracle Database 11g on Windows, such as ODP.NET 11.1.0.6.20.

Download pdf Oracle Data Provider For .NET 11g