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Written by:
Graham Keitch
Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:07:58 GMT
This time last year, I recall Microsoft causing something of a stir amongst developers following their announcement that the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle would be removed from the ADO.NET roadmap. To be fair, they never actually said the System.Data.OracleClient would be completely withdrawn - rather, it would be regarded as having reached end of life. Although the news ruffled a few feathers at the time, it made sense given that a number of third parties and Oracle themselves, were already providing high performance tools to connect Oracle Database to the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment. Over the past few years, Grey Matter has helped spread the word about a number of free Oracle tools that bring these two worlds together. These include Oracle's own data provider for .NET (ODP.NET), which features optimised ADO.NET data access to the Oracle database and allows you to take advantage of advanced Oracle functionality, including Real Application Clusters, XML DB and advanced security. Oracle's provider can be used with the latest .NET Framework 4 version - and you can download your copy of ODP.NET here
There are also third party tools such as those available from Quest Software that provide additional functionality. Earlier this year, Quest released Toad Extension for Visual Studio 2010, having developed the solution under the code name 'ProjectFuze'. Toad Extension is more than just a data provider or connector. It provides integration with the application lifecycle management (ALM) tools that are part of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS). This allows Oracle developers to participate fully in the collaborative ALM processes that help ensure quality and consistency across the project landscape. You will need the Premium or Ultimate editions of Visual Studio for this, as well as Oracle Client or Oracle Instant Client 10g or later. The Quest product also requires Oracle Database 9.2 or later.
Toad Extension allows you to import Oracle schemas into a Visual Studio project. You can perform Oracle change management to synchronise and track application and database code. Keeping the application code and the database schema synchronised would otherwise be a constant challenge involving risk and excessive documentation. Now, this can be done offline while using TFS to track and handle versioning as well as compare and merge schema changes. This provides developers with insight into how projects will be affected as a consequence of changes made to offline Oracle schema (when refactoring, for instance). Toad Extensions and TFS also allow you to generate test data for unit testing with your Oracle databases. You can automate daily builds to ensure that Oracle and application development is always synchronised.
Grey Matter maintains an on-going interest in assisting developers looking for the best tools to support their application and database development projects and has teamed up with Quest to offer an exclusive 20% discount on Toad Extension for Visual Studio. This special offer is available ONLY through Grey Matter and runs until September 30th, 2010. For further information about this offer and Quest, Oracle and Microsoft development tools in general, please call 01364 654100 or see
Copyright ©2010 Graham Keitch