From: usenet@oracle.us.oracle.com (Oracle News Poster)
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle
Subject: Re: Oracle 7 and heterogeneous distributed databases
Date: 10 Dec 92 21:44:24 GMT
Organization: Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores CA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <Dec.6.18.16.09.1992.5540@andromeda.rutgers.edu> holowcza@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Richard D Holowczak) writes:
>thompson@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (William Thompson, code 682.1, x2040) writes:
>
>>>I was reading some Oracle 7 propaganda (well, the notes from a course
>>>on oracle 7 somebody here took), and saw a few pages discussing
>>>"heterogeneous database networks" or some such -- it seems Oracle 7
>>>will be able to cooperate with other vendors' databases.  Unfortunately,
>>>these notes are basically copies of overheads, and so contain very
>>>little information.  Could anyone suggest where I might find further
>>>documentation or information?  (Our regular Oracle 7 docs haven't
>>>arrived yet, and besides I suspect this is a bit esoteric to be in
>>>the usual set.)
>
>>I'm not using Oracle, but I have been looking around at databases lately.  The
>>story I got from the Oracle rep was that Oracle does allow to connect to
>>certain other *mainframe* databases, e.g. DB2, RDB, etc.  They do *not* however
>>connect to another of their SQL competitors, i.e. Ingres, Sybase, Informix,
>>etc., which is the only kind of connectivity we're interested in.  It may be
>>that they do starting with version 7, and the word hasn't gotten down to the
>>sales reps yet, but I doubt it.  Oracle seems to have a very Krushevian "we
>>will bury you" attitude towards the rest of the SQL market.
>
>>Bill Thompson
>
>
>         It seems that Sybase will support this type of connectivity to other
>         vendor's databases.  It will be interesting to see how well this
>         works (i.e. distributed 2PC, recovery, termination, etc.).  
>
>         Perhaps Oracle should take note.  Now-a-days you have to be "open"
>         to other systems if you want to be taken seriously. The days of
>         the single vendor shop are definitely over.
>
>         My $.02
>
>  Rich Holowczak
>  Rutgers University

Hopefully this will clarify some of the isssues that have been discussed here
about a gateway from Oracle to competitors products.  Currently under Version
6.0 of the database Oracle provides gateways to other relational and         
non-relational databases (such as DB2, RDB, VSAM flat files) with what are
called SQL*Connect products.  These are hardcoded connections to a given 
database or flat file structure that Oracle has written.

With the introduction of ORACLE7 to the market, we are now developing a new
product to be called Open Gateway which will provide a set of development tools
to allow a client to essentially write their own connect product from oracle
to any relational database, heirarchical database, or flat file system.  In
addition, Oracle will continue to create new Connect products for specific 
databases and flat file systems.  This new Open Gateway product will allow
a client, with a standard set of tools, to create a gateway to Sybase, Ingres,
Informix, etc....

Hope this help!

Jeff Michael
Sales Consultant
Oracle Corporation
jmichael@oracle.com

The information contained above expresses my opinions only and not those of my
employer.
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle