Configuring Oracle ODBC DSN

Before you configure the data source, you must configure Net8 database services, so there is an entry for each Service Name.
To do this start the Oracle Net8 Assistant:

• either click on the Oracle for Windows NT program group and click on the Oracle Net8 Assistant icon
• or from the start bar select Programs, select Oracle for Windows NT, and select the Oracle Net8 Assistant.

Using the Oracle Net8 Assistant, you can create, modify, or delete a Service Name or its associated network protocol information, and view configuration information.
For example, to create a Service Name:

• double click on the Service Names folder in the left hand side screen
• click on the + (Create) icon on the tool bar, and follow the instructions provided in the Oracle Service Names Wizard.

• open the Service Names folder
• double click on the service name to display its current configuration information in the right hand side panel
• edit the applicable parameters, and save your changes.

After Configuring Net8 database services , and before using the Oracle8 ODBC Driver, you must configure the data source.
Before an application can communicate with the data source, you must provide configuration information. The configuration information informs the Oracle8 ODBC Driver as to which information you want to access.
The data source consists of the data that you want to access, and its associated operating system, database management system, and network platform used to access the database management system. The data source for requests submitted by the Oracle8 ODBC Driver is an Oracle database and supports transports available under Net8.
Use the ODBC Administrator to perform the configuration.

Select the Oracle8 ODBC Driver in the list of installed drivers and click on OK. The Oracle8 ODBC Driver Setup dialog box is displayed.

You must enter the Data Source Name and Service Name. You can provide the other information requested in the dialog box, or you can leave the fields blank and provide the information when you run the application.

The Oracle8 ODBC Setup dialog box has the following options:

Main Setup Options

• Data Source Name - the name used to identify the data source to ODBC. For example, "Personnel Data."
• Description - a description or comment about the data in the data source. For example, "Hire date, salary history, and current review of all employees."
• Service Name - the location of the Oracle database from which the ODBC driver will retrieve data. This is same name entered in configuring Net8 database services using the Oracle Net8 Assistant. For more information, see the Net8 documentation and troubleshooting using the Oracle8 ODBC Driver for the first time.
• UserID - the UserID is the user name of the account on the server used to access the data.

• Read Only - check this box to force read-only access.
• Prefetch Count - a numeric value that sets the number of rows that the ODBC Driver will fetch at a time from an Oracle database. The default is 1 row. To tune your application, set a value that optimizes network use versus PC memory use. For example, if you only need to view the first couple of rows, set this value to 3 or 4, thus allowing a fetch of 3 or 4 rows in one operation versus fetching one row at a time and increasing network use; if you need to always view the first 25 rows, set this value to 25 to fetch 25 rows in one operation, but realize that you will use more PC memory to hold these rows.

WorkAround Options

• Force Retrieval of Long Columns - check this box to read the entire Oracle long datatype into memory during SQLFetch. Oracle restricts any read/write operations to be performed once the streaming of data from a long column has started. Therefore, the contents of a LOB column cannot be accessed until the data for all long columns has been retrieved. The Oracle ODBC Driver will force the entire read on the long column and place it into memory until the application is ready to receive it. This will free up the application to do other read/write operations on the database. The size of the data in the long column determines the memory consumption on the client. Force Retrieval of Long Columns is disabled by default.

Note: This feature could exhaust a PC of memory if the data in the long column is too big. This feature degrades performance because the data for all long columns must be copied twice, once to internal buffers and once to the applications buffer.

• Disable MTS Support - check this box to disable Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) support. By default MTS support is enabled.

Application Options Enable

• Thread Safety - thread safety can be disabled for a data source. If thread safety is not required, disabling this option eliminates the overhead of using thread safety. By default, thread safety is enabled.
• Enable LOBs - enables the writing of Oracle LOBs. If writing Oracle LOBs is not required for your application then LOB support can be disabled. There is a small performance penalty for insert and update statements when LOBs are enabled. LOB Writing is enabled by default but disabled for Oracle Databases that do not support the LOB datatype.
• Enable Result Sets - enables the processing of Oracle Result Sets. If Result sets are not required for your application then result set support can be disabled. There is a small performance penalty for procedures called from packages not containing result sets. Result sets are enabled by default.
• Enable Failover - enables Oracle Fail Safe and Oracle Parallel Server failover capability. The Oracle client must be release 8.0.5 or higher.
• Retry Count - the number of times the connection failover will be attempted. Delay - the number of seconds to delay between failover attempts. See the Oracle Fail Safe and Oracle Parallel Server documentation on how to set up and use both of these products.
• Enable Query Timeout - enables query timeout for SQL queries. By default the timeout value is zero (0), meaning there is no timeout for SQL queries. If this box is not checked, the Oracle8 ODBC Driver responds with a "not capable" message.
• Enable Closing Cursors - enables closing cursors. By default closing cursors is disabled (box is not checked), meaning a call to close a cursor does not force the closing of OCI cursors when this behavior is not desired because it can cause an unnecessary performance hit. You should enable closing cursors when it is desirable to force the closing of OCI cursors upon a call to close a cursor.

Translation Options