When Microsoft said it was discontinuing its ADO.NET data provider for Oracle earlier this summer, it said the reason it did so was because there were suitable third party alternatives.
One of those alternatives was Oracle itself, which offers its Oracle Data Provider for .NET. In March Oracle released the beta for ODP for .NET 11.1.0.7.10. Indeed observers suggested Oracle's provider was every bit as good as Microsoft's at the time of the announcement.
ODP.NET is a native ADO.NET data access driver for Oracle databases. The new release offers simplified development, improved app scalability, performance and security, according to a white paper written by Alex Keh, a principal product manager at Oracle for .NET data access.
The release is designed to let .NET developers more easily integrate with Oracle databases from the .NET Framework, according to Keh. The new release is likely to come out shortly, though Keh said he could not officially comment on ship dates or features.
According to a breakdown posted by Oracle, ODP.NET has a messaging API for "highly available" .NET queuing, faster data retrieval, automated run-time tuning of the statement cache for optimized memory usage and performance and the ability to programmatically start or shut down an Oracle database.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article erroneously reported Oracle released new ASP.NET Data Providers. That is not the case. The latest data drivers forthcoming from Oracle for .NET developers are the ODP.NET drivers, covered in this updated report.
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