--------------4B3254EE5A2731C3840F3F4D
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Oracle Objects for OLE 2.2 Beta Program
Oracle Objects for OLE 2.2 is the latest version of this multiple
award-winning product. Version 2.2 provides an even more advanced,
powerful, and expedient way to access Oracle Server data and features
from the Windows environment.
Oracle is conducting a beta test to fine-tune a number of new features,
including significant performance improvement. This is your chance to
test the new capabilities in your environment and ensure a smooth
upgrade when the production version is released. You will be able to
download the software from www.oracle.com in a couple of weeks and
version is expected to become production early-November.
New Features
This is a exciting upgrade because certain new capabilities enables
Oracle Objects for OLE (OO4O) to run in an NT server environment. This
changes the product specification from a desktop-only tool to a key
component for mission critical 7-by-24 systems. Because OO4O integrates
so well with the Microsoft environment, it is increasingly being used to
migrate to Oracle Servers from Microsoft SQL Server, which has
scalability limitations. OO4O allows the developer to replace SQL
Server with minimal client (or mid-tier) code modifications.
Thread-safety
OO4O offers both "Apartment" and "Free" models for Windows
thread-safety. The Apartment model has some overhead but almost all
existing applications use this model, and the free threading is faster
because it does not rely on COM/OLE to coordinate threads.
Developers writing multi-threaded applications can now safely use OO4O
from programming platforms like Microsoft C++, Microsoft Transaction
Server (MTS), and Internet Information Server (IIS). The latter two
require that OO4O run on a mid-tier, fault-tolerant environment.
An application server built with MTS can fully access Oracle through
OO4O in a thread-safe manner, which is not the case with most ODBC
drivers. OO4O 2.2 is also an installable component within MTS, which
provides some scaleability, load balancing, and manageability to
OO4O-based applications. OO4O cannot yet participate in MTS distributed
transactions because MTS only supports native OLE transactions.
However, Microsoft has committed to XA support and when that is
delivered OO4O 2.2 will automatically be MTS distributed transactions
enabled.
Internet Information Server developers can also use OO4O for building
web-based applications with seamless integration to Oracle Servers.
OO4O code can be embedded in Active Server Pages through either VBScript
or JavaScript. OO4Os multi-threading capability enables the pooling of
connections for excellent performance for Oracle data retrieval. OO4O
can also be used from Internet Server API (ISAPI), which pre-loads its
DLLs and shares them between HTTP requests.
PL/SQL Multi-Cursor Return
With Oracle Objects for OLEs cursor return capability the developer can
store the applications business logic on the server, thus, minimizing
client-side software upgrades, lessening load on the network, and
improving performance. In addition, OO4O 2.2 can now return multiple
cursors to the client from a single query. This is useful, for example,
if a user needs the resultset of two disjointed queries.
This feature improves performance by lowering network traffic. OO4Os
PL/SQL table return capability can send (or receive) an array of values
with a single network transaction, rather than one transaction per row
as is the case with ODBC. Multi-cursor return also requires a single
network round-trip for returning data from multiple cursors.
Performance Improvement
Oracle Objects for OLE provides fast and efficient access from the
Windows environment to Oracle data, especially for applications that use
PL/SQL extensively. Version 2.2 implements changes that further improve
performance.
Field collection access in a dynaset is improved. If field collection
access is not coded properly, field collection objects are created and
destroyed for each iteration. The system is now smarter in handling
this issue.
The help file now contains a number of tips and techniques for improving
performance. Coding methods, such as early binding and dynaset cache
tuning, can significantly improve performance over ODBC and older
versions of OO4O.
Bug Fixes
A number of bug fixes are included in OO4O 2.2. Some of the bugs, such
as very small memory leaks, become significant issues when OO4O is used
in a 7-by-24 environment.
Note: OO4O 2.2 will be available on Windows 95 and NT. There will not
be any 16-bit version of OO4O 2.2, and the current 16-bit OO4O 2.1 has
now entered maintenance mode.
--------------4B3254EE5A2731C3840F3F4D
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
<HTML>
<B>Oracle Objects for OLE 2.2 Beta Program</B>
<P>Oracle Objects for OLE 2.2 is the latest version of this multiple award-winning
product. Version 2.2 provides an even more advanced, powerful, and
expedient way to access Oracle Server data and features from the Windows
environment.
<P>Oracle is conducting a beta test to fine-tune a number of new features,
including significant performance improvement. This is your chance
to test the new capabilities in your environment and ensure a smooth upgrade
when the production version is released. You will be able to download
the software from www.oracle.com in a couple of weeks and communicate directly
This version is expected to become production early-November.
<P><B>New Features</B>
<BR>This is a exciting upgrade because certain new capabilities enables
Oracle Objects for OLE (OO4O) to run in an NT server environment.
This changes the product specification from a desktop-only tool to a key
component for mission critical 7-by-24 systems. Because OO4O integrates
so well with the Microsoft environment, it is increasingly being used to
migrate to Oracle Servers from Microsoft SQL Server, which has scalability
limitations. OO4O allows the developer to replace SQL Server with
minimal client (or mid-tier) code modifications.
<P><B>Thread-safety</B>
<BR>OO4O offers both "Apartment" and "Free" models for Windows thread-safety.
The Apartment model has some overhead but almost all existing applications
use this model, and the free threading is faster because it does not rely
on COM/OLE to coordinate threads.
<P>Developers writing multi-threaded applications can now safely use OO4O
from programming platforms like Microsoft C++, Microsoft Transaction Server
(MTS), and Internet Information Server (IIS). The latter two require
that OO4O run on a mid-tier, fault-tolerant environment.
<P>An application server built with MTS can fully access Oracle through
OO4O in a thread-safe manner, which is not the case with most ODBC drivers.
OO4O 2.2 is also an installable component within MTS, which provides some
scaleability, load balancing, and manageability to OO4O-based applications.
OO4O cannot yet participate in MTS distributed transactions because MTS
only supports native OLE transactions. However, Microsoft has committed
to XA support and when that is delivered OO4O 2.2 will automatically be
MTS distributed transactions enabled.
<P>Internet Information Server developers can also use OO4O for building
web-based applications with seamless integration to Oracle Servers.
OO4O code can be embedded in Active Server Pages through either VBScript
or JavaScript. OO4Os multi-threading capability enables the pooling
of connections for excellent performance for Oracle data retrieval.
OO4O can also be used from Internet Server API (ISAPI), which pre-loads
its DLLs and shares them between HTTP requests.
<P><B>PL/SQL Multi-Cursor Return</B>
<BR>With Oracle Objects for OLEs cursor return capability the developer
can store the applications business logic on the server, thus, minimizing
client-side software upgrades, lessening load on the network, and improving
performance. In addition, OO4O 2.2 can now return multiple cursors
to the client from a single query. This is useful, for example, if
a user needs the resultset of two disjointed queries.
<P>This feature improves performance by lowering network traffic.
OO4Os PL/SQL table return capability can send (or receive) an array of
values with a single network transaction, rather than one transaction per
row as is the case with ODBC. Multi-cursor return also requires a
single network round-trip for returning data from multiple cursors.
<P><B>Performance Improvement</B>
<BR>Oracle Objects for OLE provides fast and efficient access from the
Windows environment to Oracle data, especially for applications that use
PL/SQL extensively. Version 2.2 implements changes that further improve
performance.
<P>Field collection access in a dynaset is improved. If field collection
access is not coded properly, field collection objects are
created and destroyed for each iteration. The system is now smarter
in handling this issue.
<P>The help file now contains a number of tips and techniques for improving
performance. Coding methods, such as early binding and dynaset cache
tuning, can significantly improve performance over ODBC and older versions
of OO4O.
<P><B>Bug Fixes</B>
<BR>A number of bug fixes are included in OO4O 2.2. Some of the bugs,
such as very small memory leaks, become significant issues when OO4O is
used in a 7-by-24 environment.
<P><FONT SIZE=-1>Note: OO4O 2.2 will be available on Windows 95 and NT.
There will not be any 16-bit version of OO4O 2.2, and the current 16-bit
OO4O 2.1 has now entered
...
read more »
Oracle Objects for OLE 2.2 Beta