Oracle Networking Fundamentals
Oracle networking software has been known by a few different names over the years. Prior to Oracle8, the name was SQL*Net; with Oracle8, the name of the software was changed to Net8; and with Oracle9i, the name was changed to the more generic Oracle Net Services. For the remainder of this chapter, we use the term Oracle Net Services to refer to all versions of Oracle networking software, with version-specific differences noted.
Regardless of name, the purpose of the networking software has remained the same. If a client of an Oracle instance needs to connect to an Oracle database—whether that client is a traditional client, an application server, or some other type of server—that client must connect to one end of a network connection as implemented by the Oracle network software. The network software transparently implements the communication to the Oracle instance.
Oracle Net Services supports many different client and server platforms and many different network protocols. The underlying architecture and complexity of the network infrastructure is all handled by Oracle Net Services. However, you have to manage Oracle Net Services. This chapter focuses on the configuration files used to accomplish this management task.
Oracle Net Services provides the implementation of the network transport of data and communications, but more as well. Certain features, such as Shared Server (known as Multi-Threaded Server prior to Oracle9i), which can help to improve ...