Oracle Net Services

Overview

Oracle Net Services provides a scalable, secure, and easy-to-use high-availability network infrastructure for Oracle environment. It eases the complexities of network configuration and management, maximizes performance, and improves network security and diagnostic capabilities as summarized hereafter.

• Connectivity: Oracle Net Services enables a network session from a client application to an Oracle database server. Once a network session is established, Oracle Net acts as the data courier for both the client application and the database server. It is responsible for establishing and maintaining the connection between the client application and database server, as well as exchanging messages between them.
• Manageability: it encompasses location transparency, centralized configuration and management, quick installation and configuration.
  • Location Transparency service allows a database client to identify the target database server; to achieve this goal, several naming methods are available today: Oracle Net Directory naming, Local naming (TNSNAMES.ORA), Host naming, and External naming.
  • Centralized Configuration and Management: allows administrators, in large network environments, to easily access a centralized repository (i.e., LDAP-compliant directory server such as Oracle Internet Directory) to specify and modify the network configuration.
  • Quick Installation and Configuration: networking components for the Oracle database server and clients are preconfigured for most environments. The Oracle database service is resolved using various naming methods. As a result, clients and servers are ready to immediately connect when installed.
• Performance and Scalability: features such as Database Resident Connection Pool (connection pooling), Shared Server (session multiplexing), and scalable event models (polling) enable performabce and high scalability.
• Network Security: Oracle Net Services enables database access control using features of firewall access control and protocol access control.
• Diagnosability: a diagnostic and performance analysis tool, Trace Assistant, provides detailed information about the source and context of problems as they arise.

What's New in Oracle Database 11gR1 & 11gR2

The new features for Net Services in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 include:

• Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Addressing and Connectivity for single-instance database (please refer the IPv6 Statement of Direction below for more information).
• Oracle Restart in single instance environment for restarting the listener, the database and other Oracle components following hardware/software failure or host restart.
• Support for CONNECT_TIMEOUT and TRANSPORT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT for each IP address
• CIDR notation and wildcard support for valid node checking

The new features for Net Services in Oracle Database 11g Release 1 include:

• Support for authenticated LDAP access for Net Naming
• Performance Improvements
  • Fastpath for common usage scenarios, enforced transparently (no configuration required)
  • Efficient network support for bulk/large data transfers (such as, SecureFile LOBs)
  • Efficient event dispatch mechanisms for PHP and process-based systems (enforced transparently, no config. required)
• Fast Reconnects for High Availability: efficient detection of terminated instances and conect time failover
• Support for Database Resident Connection Pool
• Enhancements to the Easy Connect Naming method
   

For more details see the Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide

Technical Information   Oracle OpenWorld 2011 Net Services: Best Practices for Performance, Scalability, High Availability (PDF)   Oracle Database 11gR2 Application Failover in Oracle Database 11g IPv6 Statement of Direction (PDF) Oracle Database 11gR1 Authenticated LDAP Name Lookup (PDF) Configuring Microsoft Active Directory 2003 for Net Naming (PDF) Oracle Net Listener Connection Rate Limiter (PDF) Oracle Easy Connect Naming (PDF)   Oracle Database 10g Oracle Net Services Overview for Oracle10g (PDF) Oracle Net High-Speed Interconnect Support (PDF) Oracle Connection Manager Overview (HTML)   Oracle Database 9i Oracle Net Services New Features Overview (HTML) Directory Naming Migration: New Features and a Case Study (PDF) Migrating from Oracle Names and Local Naming to Directory Naming (PDF)