Oracle Net8 Configuration and Troubleshooting

Directory Naming

Directory naming refers to the use of an LDAP directory service to resolve net service names to their definitions. Currently, Net8 supports the following three LDAP directory products:

• Oracle Internet Directory (OID)

• Microsoft Active Directory (MAD)

• Novell Directory Services (NDS)

The advantage of using LDAP is that you no longer need to maintain synchronized copies of tnsnames.ora files across your client base. You can centrally create and change net service name definitions. Figure 2.2 shows a simple OID/LDAP configuration.

Figure 2-2. Net service name resolution using Oracle Internet Directory

Directory naming is relatively new on the scene. Support for OID/LDAP began in Oracle8i release 8.1.6. Aside from the advantage of centralized management, LDAP also has the benefit of being a recognized and widely used industry standard. In the past, Oracle Names was the preferred choice if you wanted to centrally manage net service names. Going forward, OID/LDAP is the clear choice.

To support sites that are currently using Oracle Names, or that are running older releases of the Net8 client software that do not support LDAP, Oracle has developed the Oracle Names LDAP Proxy. This gateway looks like an Oracle Names server as far as clients are concerned, but it really gets its information from an LDAP repository. It allows you to implement LDAP as a name resolution method ...