Appendix B. Connecting to Oracle with BDC
Connecting to Oracle is similar to connecting to SQL, as we fully explained in chapter 2. There are just a few differences that we need to mention. Within the application definition file, you’ll need to set authentication. Of course, you can use Single Sign-On, which was explained in chapter 3. But this is required only if you want to map your Active Directory credentials to the Oracle database credentials.
Setting up SSO for Oracle is the same as setting up SSO for SQL. If you’re connecting without SSO, you need to set the authentication type to PassThrough, even though PassThrough isn’t used and the username and password are stored within the ADF as clear text. (See figure B.1.)
Third-party products such as BDC Meta Man can write the application definition file for you, allowing you to quickly get up and running with the Business Data Catalog for an Oracle data source. One requirement is to have the Oracle client installed on the web front-end server that’s connecting to the database.