Re: lightest oracle client?

Actually, I have done custom installs several times with Oracle 8.0x and 8.1.x, just including the minimum packages for a client to connect. The lowest I have gotten things down to is about 38MB. Basically, all you need to make a connection is the net8 client 8.1.6.x.x package and the Oracle Protocol Support 8.1.6.x.x package. All else is extra. If you know what you are doing already, then choose the client install->custom configuration and just install these bare minimum packages, editing the tnsnames.ora by hand to get the desired service name to protocol/host/port/instance mapping. If not, then install the Oracle Utilities 8.1.6.x.x package as well, which will give you the net8 assistant and SQL*PLUS, allowing you a GUI configuration of tnsnames.ora and a command-line tool for testing connections.

Of course, you can use the JDBC thin (pure java) drivers if you want. Classes111.zip for 8.1.6 is 1.4MB and Classes12 is 1.5MB (but nlscharset.zip is >10MB if you need that functionality). However, you need a matching java runtime environment at about 22MB (which I would not recommend trying to prune), so there is not much difference between native and Java client, size-wise, unless you already need the JRE installed for other things. And be warned that, using Java v.s. native client libraries, you will experience a noticable hit to connection startup time, the performance of queries that return large result sets, and the use of GUI tools that provide a graphical view of the database metadata (such as forte4j or Jdeveloper3, etc.). I believe you can offset the performance issue somewhat by by installing the hotspot server engine, if it is available for your installed JRE version. But be warned here that it consumes considerably more resources than the standard JRE or with the client hotspot engine.

Zachary Hamm <zhamm_at_s-p-a-m--s-u-x-.nc.rr.com> wrote in message news:3A294F82.AE8BB3C9_at_s-p-a-m--s-u-x-.nc.rr.com...
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm building a perl remote client application using DBI/DBD-oracle, and
> am astonished that I have to install 400M of the oracle client software
> just to run a 200 line perl script to connect and query the db. There
> HAS to be a better way. I'm on AIX 4.3.3 connecting to an Oracle 8.1.6
> WIN/NT server on the same network.
>
> Does anyone know what the MINIMUM requirements are to use perl DBI for
> Oracle? Can I just copy a portion of the oracle libraries from the CD
> or what?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Zack hamm
> zhamm_at_s-p-a-m-s-u-x.nc.rr.com
>
>
>
>
Received on Mon Dec 25 2000 - 20:11:45 CET