[Zope] Zope and Databases

[Matthew T. Kromer]

Richard Hewison wrote:

>Our Zope 2.4.3 install is running on a SuSE Linux 7.3 server and 
>we want to connect to an Oracle database which is sitting on a 
>different server; a Sun Solaris based machine running OS 5.8 with 
>Oracle Enterprise Edition 8.1.7.0 installed.
>
>We have downloaded the DCOracle2 product (for Red Hat Linux 
>7.1, Python 2.1) but we aren't using Red Hat and we seem unable 
>to get the product to install properly. It complains about the 
>ORACLE_HOME. Also, skimming through the documentation is 
>extremely confusing. As far as we can tell, the docs seem to 
>assume that the Oracle Database is installed (or to be installed) on 
>the same server as the one that runs Zope. In our scenario, this 
>isn't the case.
>

Hello Richard,

DCOracle2 requires that you have the Oracle client libraries installed 
on your computer.  You may download from Oracle corporation the ISO 
images necessary to do an install of the client libraries, see 
http://technet.oracle.com.  Currently, the Oracle 9i ISO set is three 
volumes, so I hope you have a good connection.

I cannot redistribute Oracle's client libraries; you must obtain them 
from an authorized Oracle source.

Once you have the Oracle client libraries installed you may connect to 
your remote database server on your Sun system.

>Basically, how can we discover the correct ORACLE_HOME info 
>from the Sun box and what else do we need to do with DCOracle2 
>to get it connecting to our Oracle database? (We know very little 
>about Oracle if you can't tell already!).
>

If installing Oracle's client libraries is a daunting task, you may also 
pursue some kind of SQL relay agent.  One commercial relay agent is 
OpenLink (http://www.openlink.com) which you may use with an ODBC 
database adapter with Zope to connect to your remote databases.

I do believe there are also free Python-level remote database adapter 
modules, but I do not have details on them.

-- 
Matt Kromer
Zope Corporation  http://www.zope.com/