Suppose you have two databases: Oracle7 (7.3.3) and Oracle8i (8.0.6). An Oracle7 client and a release 8.0 client are connected to the Oracle8i database.

You have another Oracle7 client (configured with SQL*Net Client release 2.x) which you migrate to a release 8.1 client (configured with Net8 Client). This release 8.1 client can now connect to both the Oracle7 and Oracle8i databases.