Monday, July 06, 2009
Microsoft Deprecates OracleClient: Time to Consider Moving to ODP.NET
Microsoft recently announced that it will deprecate Microsoft System.Data.OracleClient. For existing Microsoft OracleClient developers, especially those that haven't taken a look at the Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET) in some time, this is a good time to look at ODP.NET again for new development or to migrate existing Oracle .NET applications. In recent years, ODP.NET has added lots of new features -- such as performance tuning, user-defined types, advanced queuing, RAC connection pooling, and supporting multiple ODP.NET client versions simultaneously on the same machine.
Alex Keh, who is the product manager for ODP.NET, has put together a special new webhome for developers using OracleClient...its called ODP.NET for Microsoft OracleClient Developers. This web page provides good information about why developers choose to migrate from ODP.NET from Microsoft OracleClient. Alex told me that the page will also provide a step-by-step Microsoft OracleClient to ODP.NET migration tutorial in the near future, which should be extremely useful. If you have questions about what this deprecation means for your company, please contact Alex over at alex.keh [at] oracle [dot] com or post to the ODP.NET Forum (OTN registration required).
In reading various comments on the MSDN post and elsewhere, I noticed a few misconceptions about ODP.NET that I would like to clarify:
Misconception: "This deprecation means I have to pay for an Oracle provider now!"
Fact: ODP.NET is free! You don't need to pay for a third party provider if you don't want to
Misconception: "I have to download a particular version of ODP.NET depending on the version of my database."
Fact: Any version of ODP.NET works with any version of Oracle Database. So you can use the latest version (currently 11.1.0.7) and use it against a 9.2, 10, or 11g database!
Misconception: "I'll have to use the Oracle installer when I deploy my app. Argh!!!"
Fact: At deployment time, you don't have to use the Oracle installer to install ODP.NET if you don't want to. If you so choose you can write your own installer, using scripting or Installshield or whatever you want. All you need to do is download the XCOPY version of ODP.NET. As a bonus, it has a smaller footprint too!
Misconception: "If I need to standardize on/test different apps with different versions of ODP.NET I'm in big trouble!"
Fact:Multiple versions of ODP.NET can live on the same box and your application can target whatever specific one it was tested with. Not everyone has multiple apps that have been tested with different versions of ODP.NET but it happens.
Misconception: "I hit a bug in ODP.NET 9/ODP.NET 10! I can't use ODP.NET because of it!"
Fact: If you hit some nasty bug of some sort with ODP.NET 9 or even 10, make sure to download the 11.1 version and try it as the bug is likely fixed in the years that passed. Again, it does not matter what version of the database you are using, the 11g ODP.NET version will work against them all and over the years we have added tons of new features and bug fixes.
So again, please check out the ODP.NET for Microsoft OracleClient Developers webpage. I'll blog again when the migration step-by-step guide is posted there, so feel free to subscribe to my blog to get an alert when that happens!
Happy coding :)
Alex Keh, who is the product manager for ODP.NET, has put together a special new webhome for developers using OracleClient...its called ODP.NET for Microsoft OracleClient Developers. This web page provides good information about why developers choose to migrate from ODP.NET from Microsoft OracleClient. Alex told me that the page will also provide a step-by-step Microsoft OracleClient to ODP.NET migration tutorial in the near future, which should be extremely useful. If you have questions about what this deprecation means for your company, please contact Alex over at alex.keh [at] oracle [dot] com or post to the ODP.NET Forum (OTN registration required).
In reading various comments on the MSDN post and elsewhere, I noticed a few misconceptions about ODP.NET that I would like to clarify:
Misconception: "This deprecation means I have to pay for an Oracle provider now!"
Fact: ODP.NET is free! You don't need to pay for a third party provider if you don't want to
Misconception: "I have to download a particular version of ODP.NET depending on the version of my database."
Fact: Any version of ODP.NET works with any version of Oracle Database. So you can use the latest version (currently 11.1.0.7) and use it against a 9.2, 10, or 11g database!
Misconception: "I'll have to use the Oracle installer when I deploy my app. Argh!!!"
Fact: At deployment time, you don't have to use the Oracle installer to install ODP.NET if you don't want to. If you so choose you can write your own installer, using scripting or Installshield or whatever you want. All you need to do is download the XCOPY version of ODP.NET. As a bonus, it has a smaller footprint too!
Misconception: "If I need to standardize on/test different apps with different versions of ODP.NET I'm in big trouble!"
Fact:Multiple versions of ODP.NET can live on the same box and your application can target whatever specific one it was tested with. Not everyone has multiple apps that have been tested with different versions of ODP.NET but it happens.
Misconception: "I hit a bug in ODP.NET 9/ODP.NET 10! I can't use ODP.NET because of it!"
Fact: If you hit some nasty bug of some sort with ODP.NET 9 or even 10, make sure to download the 11.1 version and try it as the bug is likely fixed in the years that passed. Again, it does not matter what version of the database you are using, the 11g ODP.NET version will work against them all and over the years we have added tons of new features and bug fixes.
So again, please check out the ODP.NET for Microsoft OracleClient Developers webpage. I'll blog again when the migration step-by-step guide is posted there, so feel free to subscribe to my blog to get an alert when that happens!
Happy coding :)
Labels: ODP.NET, OracleClient
