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The Oracle database is capable of supporting many different environments, from small workgroups supporting tens of users and hundreds of megabytes of data, to enterprise applications with thousands of simultaneous users, gigabytes of data, and hundreds of transactions per second. In a similar vein, Oracle networking is designed to support both the smallest and largest environments. If your needs are simple, your Oracle networking components can be configured so that one person can easily administer them with a minimum of time and effort. For larger installations with more complex implementations, the same concepts used in a small installation can be built on and expanded to support more challenging requirements. In this chapter, you look at some of the features of SQL*Net and Net8 that enable it to serve the needs of the enterprise.
Unfortunately, installing the SQL*Net networking software is the least of your Oracle networking administrative duties. SQL*Net software must be carefully configured before it can be used, both on client and server machines. There are, in general, two accepted methods of configuring SQL*Netthrough manual editing of the correct configuration files, or through the usage of the supplied Oracle configuration tools, Network Manager for Oracle7 and Net8 Assistant in Oracle8.
Oracle recommends configuration of the SQL*Net configuration files only through the supplied configuration. However, experienced (or impatient!) network administrators are often more comfortable making configuration changes directly to the configuration files. Also, there are times when the only way to configure a brand-new networking product, or enable a feature, is through direct configuration file manipulation. For these reasons, it is highly recommended that you at least familiarize yourself with the configuration files involved in SQL*Net and Net8 communication.
NOTE |
Currently, the Network Manager and Net8 Assistant utility will not edit configuration files that have been modified by hand. Therefore, you must make the choice to either use the tool, or not to use the tool. |
The easiest and most foolproof way to configure SQL*Net is with the Network Manager utility. In most cases, configuring your network resources using the Network Manager or Net8 Assistant is simply a matter of choosing the appropriate icon and filling in a few parameter values. The way these tools work is that the network configuration is stored internally. Based upon the Oracle resources you have created (such as Listeners, Names Servers, Databases, and so on), the appropriate configuration files for clients and servers are generated when you execute the utility. You are then responsible for placing these generated configuration files in the appropriate directories on the client or server.
The Net8 Assistant is different from Network Manager in that it is a Java application, and as such can run on any platform that has the appropriate Java runtime environment installed.
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It also contains additional functionality not found in Network Manager, as well as support for new Net8 features, such as the Connection Manager and the Advanced Networking option.
The following step-by-step explanation will create a simple Oracle network using the Network Manager tool. We will create a Oracle network consisting of a database server, a Listener, a database, and a Names server. Note that placing your mouse cursor over a button will cause a message explaining the button's purpose to appear. All of the button's functionality can also be performed using menu items. Complete the following steps: