Oracle Net

Net8 has three major objectives:

• Location transparency An application that wants to connect itself to a server doesn't need to know where (IP number, Port, Network) the server is.
• Platform independance
  An application being written should not be aware of the platform it is going to run on. OCI is the interface between Net8 and the application that ensures this requirment.
• Network protocol independance
  Net8 should equally run on TCP/IP, SPX or other network protocols.

There are five naming methods. These translate a connect identifier to a connect descriptor. These methods are:

• Local naming
  =>tnsnames.ora
• Directory naming
• Oracle names
• Host naming
• External naming

In sqlplus someone/foopw@bladb, bladb is the connect identifier.

A connect identifier can be a:

• Net service name
• Database service name
• Alias
• Net service alias

sqlnet.ora, ..., ...