Developers sometimes have a hard time grasping the concept of separating the tnsnames for the database they want to work with, from the regular installation - they also tend to want everything installed, including the database utilities, sqlPlus, networking utils and all of the shortcuts.

PROS: developers who need to maintain it themselves can be simply left out of the distribution.

CONS: Ill be constantly producing upgrades for it.

Treat it as an INI file or custom action it (Not quite sure how yet) i.e.

PROS: Each package can update TNSNAMES.ORA as necessry CONS: Can become a mess of obsolete entries.

No self repair in the TNSNAMES.ORA file.

Does anyone use another solution that Im not considering yet.

The TNSNAMES.ORA file is composed of this line only: IFILE C:Program FilesOracleTNSNAMESTNSNAMESMASTER.ORA All this does is redirect enquries from the original TNSNAMES file to the new one, TNSNAMESMASTER.ORA You can call it whatever you wish and place the new ORA file wherever you wish.

In TNSNAMESMASTER.ORA is where we keep the list of applications in this manner: IFILE C:Program FilesOracleTNSNAMESYour App Name Here.ORA Yes, this another redirector.

You can have as many redirectors in the new TNSNAMESMASTER file that you want.

Within the Your App name Here.ORA file is where you keep the actual TNS connection information for your application.

Depending on your naming convention, that name can be anything you want in order to differentiate between applications.

It has not effect on other applications.

I have a few applications that have been deployed extremely successfully using this method.

Now if I can only get our Oracle DBAs to get away from this outdated method.

Doug.

One place I worked at had the TNSNAMES.ORA in a public share - the clients who required it would copy it if newer, the TNSNAMES.ORA was a global one that had all required settings in it.

Is that a specific function of the application or can it be forced I suppose that isnt in the scope of.LOCAL isolation, right.

I happen to stumble across a webpage some time back that mentioned this technique.

It has worked for almost every application I have tried it on.

To test it out make a bogus tnsnames.ora file and put it in the traditional location.

Next create a valid file and put it in the applicaiton directory.

Im skeptical. Falls into the Too good to be true catagory.:) Ill try it out though, and damn I hope youre right.

The only problem is we had users who did not log off and log on, thats why we did a nightly reboot.

If it works you are golden.

Nope. No dice. Didnt work.

Definitely should be separate from the package, and either copied down or somehow replicated.

Of course any app that uses its own tnsnames should be good, provided Oracle networking is solid (and it usually is).

Sql Tools Tnsnames.Ora