Oracle 10g

[abhijit]

My database is moving to 10g and my client code uses ADO to connect to the present oracle database.

If the database upgrades, will that make any difference to the connectivity or do I need to upgrade the drivers?

-Abhijit

[Hack]

I've never worked with 10g, but I was on a job once that went from 7i through all versions up to 9i, and everytime the DBA's did an upgrade, they had to upgrade the drivers as well. But, that should just be a standard part of the upgrade package.

As a developer, I didn't have to do anything at all, because as a part of the upgrade, those drivers were "pushed" to all the client workstations.

If memory serves, the TNSNames files that were on all the workstations had to have a change made to them as well, but I could be wrong about that.

[abhijit]

Hack,
All our client workstations connect to the application using citrix. The citrix server farm has a number of servers and those need to be upgraded with the drivers. I presume you mean the SQLNET client drivers.

I wonder if any changes need to be done to ADO Dlls. Like maybe install mdac (latest version) or something.

[Hack]

I presume you mean the SQLNET client drivers.

Yes

I wonder if any changes need to be done to ADO Dlls. Like maybe install mdac (latest version) or something.

I didn't actually do the upgrades. Their DBA did, but I don't believe anything needed to be done with either one.

Do you have any test machines connected to a test server that you could run the upgrade on first to check the results prior to rolling it out to your customers?

[GaryMazzone]

There should be nothing required to update the SQL*Net driver. As long as a client software set is on the machine (the SQL*Plus piece) then the app will still connect to the new server, just update the TNSNames file to reflect the approriate names. I have connected to an Oracle 10g DB using the client set from Oracle 8i and from the Oracle 10g machine back to the Oracle 8i machine with out any issues.

The only caviate to this is that you are not trying to take advantage of any new features that might be found in the new driver set.

[abhijit]

Well we don't need to use the new features of 10g yet.

We have a test machine. However there is only one test machine and all the testing goes on that. I will try to test this application on that machine.

[Hack]

Well we don't need to use the new features of 10g yet.

We have a test machine. However there is only one test machine and all the testing goes on that. I will try to test this application on that machine.

Is it possible to just roll out a change to a subset of your users?

I've been in several places where changes like this were first tested on a textbox or two, then the change was rolled out to the IT department ONLY.

When that got smoothed out, then the rest of the company got the update.