Changes in This Release for Oracle Data Provider for .NET

This section describes new features added for each ODP.NET release. A summary of these new features by release are also available on Oracle’s Web site.

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.4

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.3

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.2

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.1

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.0

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.9

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.8

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.7

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.6.1

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.6

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.5.1

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.5

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.3

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.12)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.8)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.7)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.6.1)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.5)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.4.1)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.4)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.3)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (21.1)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.15.1)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.10)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.9)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET ODAC Release 19c (19.3.2)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.7)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.6)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.5)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET in ODAC Release 19c (19.3)

• Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 19c (19.3)

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.4

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.26.4.

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• ODP.NET Core – Execute SQL and PL/SQL scripts

  ODP.NET can now programmatically execute SQL and PL/SQL commands from a stream, providing a new scripting option. Developers can bind any needed script parameters in a JSON format with results output to a JSON string.

  This new SQL script execution capability makes it easy to apply and automate database change tasks using .NET runtime without requiring another tool, such as SQL Plus.

  See Also: SQL Script Execution

• ODP.NET Core - Deep Data Security End-User Security Context Provider

  The new ODP.NET Deep Data Security provider model allows ASP.NET Core apps to adopt Oracle Deep Data Security with minimal application code changes.

  After one-time setup to enable the provider, existing apps can now easily incorporate Oracle Deep Data Security without explicitly creating or setting an end-user security context.

  See Also: Deep Data Security

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Optional User Identity for Deep Data Security

  Previously, Oracle Deep Data Security required an end user identity, either an end user access token or name for an end-user security context. In this release, the end user identity is now optional.

  Some services host a combination of multiple applications and AI agents within a database. Each application or agent may use a dedicated connection pool and performs work independently without acting on behalf of a human end user. Without a user identity requirement, these services can now utilize Oracle Deep Data Security.

  See Also: Deep Data Security

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – New OpenTelemetry Attribute Tags and Semantic Conventions

  ODP.NET OpenTelemetry traces support the newest attribute tags and database semantic conventions from the OpenTelemetry specification. Older tags are deprecated.

  Developers can direct ODP.NET to trace using the latest tags, deprecated tags, or both.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• Reset to Original Application State for Each Database Session

  When an ODP.NET connection returns to the connection pool, the client and database session states can be reset to the original login states to prevent leaking connection state to the next user. This feature is enabled by setting the RESET_STATE database service attribute to LOGIN.

  This enhancement ensures all newly dispensed connections begin with the same starting session state with fewer artifacts which can occur after a failover event.

  See Also: Reset Session State to Limit Application State Leaks

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.3

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.26.3.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Oracle AI Database Vector Store Connector Production Release

  The Oracle AI Database Vector Store Connector for .NET is now generally available as part of the Oracle.VectorData NuGet package. This is an out-of-the-box vector store connector, supporting standard .NET vector functionality available in most connectors. Existing .NET vector C# code can incorporate Oracle’s connector to store and retrieve vectors in Oracle AI Database.

  See Also: Oracle AI Database Vector Store Connector Classes

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Deep Data Security End-User Names and Lookup Keys

  ODP.NET Deep Data Security now supports end-user names and lookup keys for end-user security contexts.

  The DeepSec end user can represent an app’s authenticated human or AI agent, in contrast with a database user account common in traditional apps.

  A lookup key allows Deep Sec to securely track and enforce fine-grained access policies for application-managed end users. An app’s external user identity is mapped to a database session without requiring an explicit external identity and access management account, such as Microsoft Entra ID.

  These new ODP.NET DeepSec capabilities provide more flexible options to create and manage end-user security contexts with users and AI agents.

  See Also:

  Deep Data Security

  OracleEndUserSecurityContext Class

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.2

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.26.2.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – End-to-end Observability with Oracle AI Database OpenTelemetry

  With end-to-end OpenTelemetry support, ODP.NET and Oracle AI Database can trace operations from your .NET app to the database, making it easy to spot bottlenecks and debug errors.

  By monitoring Oracle activity alongside other OpenTelemetry tools, you can resolve issues faster and boost developer productivity.

  See Also: Oracle Database OpenTelemetry and ODP.NET

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Oracle Database Vector Store Connector and Microsoft Agent Framework

  ODP.NET now supports Microsoft Agent Framework via the Oracle Database Vector Store Connector (Oracle.VectorData NuGet package). The connector enables vector search, create, read, update, and delete operations for Oracle AI Database.

  With it, you can build AI vector, agent, LLM, MCP, and workflow solutions that tap into ODP.NET’s and Oracle AI Database’s native AI features, seamlessly.

  See Also: Oracle AI Database Vector Store Connector Classes

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Unblock Critical Updates with Priority Transactions

  When multiple transactions try to update the same rows, a lower-priority transaction can block a higher-priority one. Normally, administrators must step in and kill the blocker—disrupting users and hurting productivity.

  ODP.NET Priority Transactions solve this automatically. You can assign high, medium, or low priority to transactions. If a higher-priority transaction waits on a lower one, the lower-priority transaction rolls back, letting the higher-priority one proceed without admin help. This gives users a seamless experience.

  See Also: Priority Transactions

• ODP.NET Core - Spatial Data and NetTopologySuite

  Oracle EF Core now maps Oracle SDO_GEOMETRY spatial types using the NetTopologySuite (NTS) library. The new Oracle.EntityFrameworkCore.NetTopologySuite library connects Oracle spatial columns to .NET geometry types like Point and Polygon. LINQ queries for Oracle can now include spatial logic, such as, distance and intersection.

  EF Core apps gain a consistent way to query, insert, update, and delete Oracle spatial data.

  See Also: Spatial Data and NetTopologySuite

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Deep Data Security for Agentic AI Apps

  Oracle Deep Data Security is a database-enforced data authorization framework designed to work with modern agentic AI systems. An extensible end-user security context evaluates user identities, application settings, and environmental attributes to determine data access. ODP.NET uses and propagates the end-user security context payload between app and database tiers with new extension methods.

  Oracle Deep Data Security enables developers to define and enforce application-level security requirements in the database, providing the benefits of centralized administration, declarative independence from app code, and a versatile security policy definition capability.

  See Also: Deep Data Security

• Post-Quantum Cryptography

  ODP.NET and Oracle AI Database support Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), a new class of cryptographic algorithms designed to be secure against attacks by large-scale quantum computers

  Current common public-key cryptographic methods rely on mathematical problems that are computationally difficult for classical computers to solve. However, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could easily break these systems. PQC algorithms are believed to be difficult for both classical and quantum computers to solve. The transition to PQC is a critical, proactive measure to protect data from being harvested today and decrypted in the future once quantum computing becomes available.

  See Also: Post-Quantum Cryptography

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OracleConnection In-Memory Certificates and Credentials

  ODP.NET apps can now load and use SSO, P12, and PEM user certificates and credentials in-memory using the OracleConnection class. This enhancement handles multiple certificates and credentials per user, enabling more granular control and flexibility for application-specific security.

  Previously, ODP.NET supported loading security information from wallets stored on file systems or URL locations. With this new capability, developers can now programmatically configure and load user certificates and credentials directly. This simplifies management, improves efficiency, and offers greater security configuration flexibility.

  See Also: In-Memory Certificates and Credentials

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Avoid TLS Renegotiation with TLS State Transfer

  The new TLS state transfer feature can share TLS context across processes. This avoids renegotiation, saving both compute power and network round trips.

  See Also: TLS State Transfer

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – .NET Metrics Filtering

  ODP.NET metrics track connection statistics for monitoring and alerts, published at the application domain, connection pool, and database instance levels. With this release, Oracle adds metrics filtering, so you can publish metrics only at the levels you need.

  This lets administrators focus on the most relevant connection data.

  See Also: Metrics Filtering

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.1

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.26.1.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Amazon Web Services Centralized Configuration Provider

  ODP.NET can store and retrieve application configuration data from Amazon Web Services (AWS) using centralized configuration providers. The data can be connection information, such as connect descriptors and tuning parameters, accessible in object storage, such as AWS Simple Storage Service. It can be secrets as well, such as passwords and wallets, that are stored in AWS Secrets Manager.

  Centralized application configuration makes client configuration and secrets management across multiple deployments simpler, especially for modern architectures, such as microservices, cloud application services, and serverless apps.

  See Also: Centralized Configuration Providers for Deployments

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Google Cloud Platform Centralized Configuration Provider

  ODP.NET can store and retrieve application configuration data from Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using centralized configuration providers. The data can be connection information, such as connect descriptors and tuning parameters, accessible in object storage, such as GCP Cloud Storage. It can be secrets as well, such as passwords and wallets, that are stored in GCP Secret Manager.

  Centralized application configuration makes client configuration and secrets management across multiple deployments simpler, especially for modern architectures, such as microservices, cloud application services, and serverless apps.

  See Also: Centralized Configuration Providers for Deployments

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Granular OpenTelemetry Enablement

  ODP.NET OpenTelemetry tracing previously could be enabled at the process level through OracleConfiguration.OpenTelemetryTracing. This new feature exposes the same property on the OracleConnection, OracleDataSource, and OracleDataSourceBuilder classes, allowing tracing to be enabled at more granular levels.

  Developers can trace for specific needs and use cases, limiting trace overhead and volumes.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.26.0

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.26.0.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET 10 Runtime

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 10.

  See Also: System Requirements

• Entity Framework Core 10

  ODP.NET Entity Framework Core now supports Entity Framework Core 10 with Oracle databases. ODP.NET EF Core NuGet package 10.23.2600 or higher is required.

  See Also: Oracle Entity Framework Core 10 Features

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Upgrading ODP.NET Time Zone File

  ODP.NET now allows an app to specify a newer time zone file if the ODP.NET default uses an older version. This feature eliminates errors from using outdated time zone files.

  See Also:

  OracleConfiguration.TimeZoneFileLocation

  OracleConnection.DatabaseTimeZoneFileVersion

  OracleConnection.ClientTimeZoneFileVersion

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OpenTelemetry Rows Fetched per Round Trip

  ODP.NET OpenTelemetry now returns the number of rows returned per database roundtrip for ODP.NET SELECT statements in a new db.response.returned_rows tag.

  This tag enhances visibility into ODP.NET activity and performance.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Application Continuity Maximum Calls Per Request Boundary

  In Application Continuity, ODP.NET stores all the driver calls that occur between request boundaries, generally when connections are checked out and in. Having this call record is what makes session restoration possible after a failover. For long-running connections, more calls to restore mean more memory is necessary to retain all the changes between request boundaries. ODP.NET allows you to disable session replay when this memory usage becomes too high by setting a maximum number of calls to retain between request boundaries.

  If you have long-running connections using Application Continuity that consume too much memory for replay, you can free memory from the connections with the most calls by setting the OracleConfiguration.MaxCallsPerRequestBoundary property to a lower value.

  See Also: OracleConfiguration MaxCallsPerRequestBoundary property

• Raft Replication

  All ODP.NET provider types now support Oracle Globally Distributed Database Raft replication for fault-tolerant replication with transactional support.

  ODP.NET apps will then have automatic failover with no data loss while using distributed databases and Oracle Data Guard. No ODP.NET code changes are necessary to use Raft replication.

  See Also:

  ODP.NET Oracle Globally Distributed Database

  Using Raft Replication in Oracle Globally Distributed Database

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.9

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.9.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• ODP.NET Core – Distributed Transactions on Windows

  With a fully managed System.Transactions library now available, ODP.NET Core now supports distributed transactions on Windows. In-doubt transaction recovery occurs via the Oracle Services for MTS recovery service.

  Distributed transactions apps running in .NET Framework can be ported to .NET runtime. New .NET distributed transaction apps can be developed with .NET 8 and higher.

  See Also: Distributed Transactions

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Binary Sparse Vector Data Types for AI Apps

  ODP.NET enhances its sparse vector data type support by adding binary numeric format. ODP.NET sparse vectors can now be represented in all four numeric formats: BINARY, FLOAT32, FLOAT64, and INT8.

  The BINARY format advantages are:

  • Its vector storage footprint can be reduced by a factor of 32 compared to FLOAT32.

  • Distance computations between two vectors are up to 40 times faster.

  Its disadvantage is possible accuracy loss, though that loss is often not substantial.

  See Also: Artificial Intelligence Vectors and Semantic Search

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Bulk Copy Vector Data Types

  ODP.NET now supports bulk copying vector data types into the database.

  Apps can now efficiently load AI and vector data sets for use in Oracle database.

  See Also: Bulk Copy

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – ODP.NET OpenTelemetry Round Trip Count and Duration Activity Tags

  ODP.NET OpenTelemetry now returns the total roundtrips and the duration of individual ODP.NET method calls.

  These tags enhance visibility into ODP.NET activity and performance.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• ODP.NET Core – PEM Files for Securing ODP.NET Apps

  ODP.NET now supports PEM files for storing client security certificates.

  This feature gives apps another option to store credentials and certificates.

  See Also: Mutual TLS/SSL Certificate Selection

• Managed ODP.NET – Kerberos.NET

  Managed ODP.NET has the option to utilize the Kerberos.NET library for Kerberos authentication. ODP.NET Core already uses Kerberos.NET.

  Developers can now standardize on Kerberos.NET for both their ODP.NET managed and core apps. Managed ODP.NET programmers can choose between MIT Kerberos or Kerberos.NET. Oracle recommends customers select Kerberos.NET as it is a fully managed solution built specifically for .NET.

  See Also: Using Kerberos

• SHA2-based Thumbprint for Certificate Selection

  ODP.NET can now select certificates via thumbprint using SHA2 algorithms in addition to existing SHA1 support.

  SHA2 is generally considered more secure than SHA1 and provides another security option for ODP.NET apps.

  See Also:

  OracleConfigration.SSLCertificateThumbprint

  OracleConnection.SSLCertificateThumbprint

• Easier TLS Version Configuration

  ODP.NET can specify a minimum TLS version by appending the plus (+) sign to the property version value, such as 1.2+ or TLSv1.2+. ODP.NET will automatically use the highest TLS version the Oracle database server supports. This property can be set in the TLSVersion or SSLVersion properties.

  To exclude specific higher TLS versions from use, developers set the TLSExcludeVersion property to identify the excluded versions.

  These new capabilities make it easier to upgrade and specify newer TLS versions when they become available on the database server.

  See Also:

  OracleConfiguration Secure Connection Properties

  OracleConnection Properties

• ODP.NET Core – More OracleDataSource and OracleDataSourceBuilder Properties

  OracleDataSource and OracleDataSourceBuilder classes support the new properties, RetryCount and RetryDelay.

  In addition, OracleDataSource supports the DatabaseCharset, DatabaseNCharset, and MaxIdentifierLength properties.

  See Also:

  OracleDataSource Properties

  OracleDataSourceBuilder Methods, Properties, and Events in Common with OracleConnection or OracleDataSource

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Configurable Connection String URL Expiration Grace Period

  Applications set the time to keep connection string URLs cached. Once they expire, ODP.NET attempts to refresh the connection string values. If it can not, then it continues to use the old connection string URL to open new connections. The length of this time can now be set using the config_time_to_live_grace_period property.

  Apps can determine the grace period expired connection string URLs can continue to be used.

  See Also: Connection URL Caching

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.8

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.8.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• ODP.NET Core – OracleDataSource and OracleDataSourceBuilder

  With the new OracleDataSource and OracleDataSourceBuilder classes, ODP.NET Core supports ADO.NET DbDataSource from which apps can retrieve connections and execute commands directly. The class encapsulates all Oracle database connection configuration.

  OracleDataSource is portable and can be registered in dependency injection as a connection factory. It can be used in provider agnostic code to connect to Oracle databases.

  OracleDataSourceBuilder instantiates an immutable OracleDataSource class.

  See Also: DbDataSource

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Sparse and Dense Vector Data Types for AI Apps

  ODP.NET now supports new vector data types for storing sparse and dense data sets. Sparse vectors typically have a large number of dimensions and few non-zero dimension values. Dense vectors are better suited when nearly every dimension stores a non-zero value.

  Because sparse vectors only store non-zero values, they are more storage and memory efficient and ODP.NET can process them faster than dense vectors when there are few non-zero dimensions. That makes them better for some AI applications, such as text retrieval systems in which an inputted phrase identifies relevant matching documents.

  Dense vectors are better for semantic search when the word meaning nuances are important to identify matches.

  ODP.NET EF Core 9 and higher now support sparse vectors in addition to its existing support of dense vectors.

  See Also: Artificial Intelligence Vectors and Semantic Search

• EF Core – Scaffolding Data Type Mapping Customization Templates

  Oracle EF Core scaffolding of entity properties from database columns can now be customized using custom reverse engineering templates when developers prefer an alternative set of .NET data type mappings than the default.

  Developers can flexibly choose a more complementary set of .NET data type mappings for their database columns, including CLR types that store all possible values of the mapped Oracle Database data types.

  See Also: Scaffolding Or Reverse Engineering

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – PKCS #12 Wallet Files and Secure External Password Store

  ODP.NET now supports using PKCS #12 wallet files and Secure External Password Store. PKCS #12 is a popular file format that stores security credentials and certificates. These files typically use the .p12 file extension.

  This feature gives ODP.NET apps another option for storing credential and certificate file storage.

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Protect ODP.NET Code from SQL Injection Attacks

  ODP.NET developers write secure code using bind variables to limit SQL injection attacks. However, it’s not always possible to use bind variables. ODP.NET adds new methods to sanitize the input literal and database identifier values to protect against SQL injection attacks.

  Through some simple code modifications, developers can secure their SQL literal and identifier usage easily and automatically.

  See Also:

  Securing Identifiers and Literals from SQL Injection Attacks

  OracleDBMSAssert Class

• Automatic Connection Recovery

  ODP.NET can now automatically detect invalid connections resulting from planned or unplanned outages. After detecting an invalid session, ODP.NET fails over by creating a new session to an available database instance. The end user can conduct their work without encountering an error.

  This feature makes apps more resilient and highly available without developers have to add or maintain code to do so.

  See Also: Automatic Connection Recovery

• Prevent Application State Leaks Between Database Sessions

  When an ODP.NET session returns to the connection pool, the database session state is partially reset preventing much of the state from leaking to the next connection’s state. This feature is enabled by setting the RESET_STATE database service attribute to LEVEL1.

  This enhancement ensures all newly dispensed connections have a more consistent session state with fewer artifacts which can occur after a failover event.

  See Also: Reset Session State to Limit Application State Leaks

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Bulk Copy Boolean Data Types

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core provider types now support Oracle database Boolean data types with bulk copy.

  Apps can now efficiently load data sets that contain Boolean data.

  See Also: Bulk Copy

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Bulk Copy Index Check Enforcement

  ODP.NET bulk copy can enforce index checks when this option is enabled. When an index-related error occurs, no rows are loaded and indexes remain unchanged.

  Apps can now abort data loads unless constraints are kept in an usable state.

  See Also: OracleBulkCopyOptions Enumeration

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.7

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.7.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• ODP.NET Core – Alpine Linux and macOS

  ODP.NET Core is certified with Alpine Linux and macOS (ARM64).

  See Also: System Requirements

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Sessionless Transaction

  ODP.NET sessionless transactions enable apps to start a transaction, suspend the transaction, and then continue the work in another database session before finally committing.

  With sessionless transactions, transactions can span multiple sessions for more app development flexibility. Programmers have more options available, allowing them to select more efficient, easier to manage, and faster running app implementations.

  See Also: Sessionless Transactions

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Set Rows to Fetch Per Round Trip

  ODP.NET apps can now set the number of rows to fetch per database round trip using the RowsToFetchPerRoundTrip property available in the .NET configuration file, OracleConfiguration, OracleConnection, OracleCommand, OracleDataReader, and OracleRefCursor classes.

  This setting is easier for developers to use when they know exactly the number of rows they wish to fetch for each round trip.

  See Also: Controlling the Number of Rows Fetched in One Database Round-Trip

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Set Database Role on Connections

  Database roles are created by users, usually administrators, to group multiple privileges or other roles together. ODP.NET can set database roles programmatically on connections it creates and those retrieved from the connection pool. The connection can then use the role’s privileges.

  This feature makes assigning database roles to ODP.NET database connections straightforward and simple.

  See Also:

  OracleRoleCollection Class

  OracleConnection Roles

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Customize Each Connection’s Encryption and Data Integrity Settings

  ODP.NET can now set encryption and data integrity properties for each connection at the OracleConnection level instead of at only the app level with OracleConfiguration. App connections may not all use the same security settings. Each connection can have different security settings if needed.

  This feature allows apps to customize and individualize their connection security settings when business and technical requirements dictate.

  See Also: OracleConnection Properties

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Server Name Indication

  Server Name Indication (SNI) is a TLS extension normally used to send the hostname in the client hello message. ODP.NET now supports SNI.

  SNI is used by Oracle to pass the relevant connect_data information, such as the service name, clients send when connecting to the database server. On the listener side, the requested connect data is obtained without performing TLS negotiation and consuming the client hello packet. With this information, an appropriate handler is selected. The listener can proceed with spawning dedicated server process.

  SNI improves resource usage, scalability, security, and ease of management.

  See Also:

  OracleConnection UseSNI

  OracleConfiguration UseSNI

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Enhanced Password Security with OracleOpaqueString

  .NET SecureString class is more secure than the String class, but still has some security weaknesses. OracleOpaqueString class securely obfuscates string data, such as passwords, without SecureString’s limitations. ODP.NET APIs that use SecureString now have the same APIs that use OracleOpaqueString.

  Oracle recommends using OracleOpaqueString for more robust security instead of SecureString.

  See Also: Securing Passwords with OracleOpaqueString

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Sharding Split Partitionset

  ODP.NET supports sharding split partitionset events in core and managed drivers. A split partitionset is an operation on the sharding database performed when moving data within a specified super sharding key to a different shardspace.

  ODP.NET connection pools receive database events about data in a chunk being split and moved across these partition sets. The provider updates its sharding topology appropriately and transparently so that end users are dispensed the correct connection to use.

  See Also: Sharding Split Partitionset

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.6.1

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.6.1.

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• .NET 9 Runtime

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 9.

  See Also: System Requirements

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Connection Configuration Restriction

  ODP.NET can now be configured to restrict connection string Data Source attribute settings at a global level when using full connect descriptors, Easy Connect (Plus), or TNS net service names.

  Independent software vendors and application administrators have an easy way to control which connection settings and options are allowed. This capability makes securing application connectivity simpler.

  See Also: Connection Configuration Restriction

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.6

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.6.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Entity Framework Core 9

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 9 with Oracle databases. ODP.NET EF Core NuGet package 9.23.60 or higher is required.

  See Also: Oracle Entity Framework Core 9 Features

• ODP.NET Core – Kerberos

  ODP.NET Core now supports Kerberos, a network authentication service for security in distributed environments. ODP.NET applications can use Kerberos for single sign-on and centralized user authentication.

  See Also: Using Kerberos

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OpenTelemetry enhancements

  OpenTelemetry has been enhanced to publish the ODP.NET NuGet version as the activity source version, ODP.NET executed statement texts, and to redact traced command text to hide literal values for security reasons.

  These new features provide more trace options and capabilities for ODP.NET OpenTelemetry.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Vector BINARY Numeric Format

  ODP.NET developers can use the BINARY dimension format for vectors.

  The BINARY numeric format is 32 times smaller than the FLOAT32 format and distance computations between two vectors are up to 40 times faster.

  There is a potential loss of accuracy with format; however, the loss is often not substantial.

  See Also: Artificial Intelligence Vectors and Semantic Search

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Easier proxy server setup for cloud deployments

  More ODP.NET apps are being deployed with cloud databases that are behind firewalls. This setup requires using web proxy servers in the Oracle database connection address. New OracleConnection properties (AutoProxy, HttpsProxy, HttpsProxyPort, SSLServerDNMatch, SSLServerCertDN, and SSLVersion) have been introduced to make it easier to use web proxy servers.

  These interfaces allow ODP.NET to detect or set the proxy so that proxy setup is simpler.

  See Also: OracleConnection Class

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – IsFloatingPointNumber Schema Table Column

  This new column in the ADO.NET SchemaTable indicates whether the result set column data type is a floating-point number or not.

  It allows apps to easily distinguish whether a column stores floating-point numbers or some other type, such as fixed-point numbers.

  See Also: OracleDataReader GetSchemaTable

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Disallow UNC Paths

  Apps can disallow ODP.NET access to configuration files with Universal Naming Convention (UNC) location paths.

  Server Message Block coercion attacks use UNC paths to have a target machine authenticate an attacker’s computer. If successful, then the attacker copies that authentication to gain access to another system. Disabling UNC paths protects ODP.NET apps from this attack.

  See Also: OracleConfiguration AllowUncPaths

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – User-Created Wallet Stored Client Secret for Azure Service Principal Authentication

  ODP.NET now allows Azure Service Principal authentication flows using a client secret stored in a user-created wallet in addition to the existing methods of providing the client secret directly and client certificate.

  This new option securely stores the client secret and provides more flexibility when using Azure Service Principal with ODP.NET.

  See Also: Azure Centralized Configuration Provider

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Disable Double Encryption and Double Data Integrity

  When TCPS is enabled along with Oracle Native Network Encryption (NNE) and/or data integrity, ODP.NET can be configured to use TCPS only.

  This feature allows apps to avoid inadvertently enabling double encryption and double checksumming, which can lower performance.

  See Also: OracleConfiguration SqlNetIgnoreANOEncrytionForTCPS

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.5.1

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.5.1.

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Eliminate Exception Using Transparent Application Failover SELECT Mode

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core 23.5.1 introduced TAF session mode support. TAF SELECT mode is not yet supported.

  ODP.NET 23.5.1 has been enhanced so that no error occurs when TAF SELECT mode is configured. ODP.NET will use TAF session mode instead.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.5

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.5.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - REF CURSOR column type

  ODP.NET can now return REF CURSOR type column in a select list to an OracleDataReader, OracleRefCursor, or as JSON-formatted .NET string or OracleString result set.

  This feature improves flexibility and adds another way to consume Oracle result sets.

  See Also:

  OracleDataReader.GetOracleDataReader

  OracleDataReader.GetOracleRefCursor

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Globally Suppress GetDecimal Invalid Cast Exception

  The SuppressGetDecimalInvalidCastException property has been added to OracleConfiguration and OracleConnection classes. Previously, they were available to only to OracleDataReader and OracleDataAdapter classes. When enabled and GetDecimal is called, ODP.NET suppresses the InvalidCastException and returns a rounded-off 28 or 29 precision .NET decimal value, that represents the Oracle NUMBER.

  This feature allows the exception suppression to be set at either the application level (OracleConfiguration) or connection level (OracleConnection), which improves ease of use. All of the settings also enable suppressing the exception when UDTs and OracleParameters retrieve large numbers.

  See Also:

  OracleConfiguration.SuppressGetDecimalInvalidCastException

  OracleConnection.SuppressGetDecimalInvalidCastException

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – ODP.NET Product Information and Application Metadata

  ODP.NET adds new properties that indicate the provider type (core or managed), NuGet version, and allow applications to assign a program name to identify the client app in the database’s PROGRAM column in V$SESSION.

  These new properties provide a systematic way for database administrators and application support personnel to identify the ODP.NET provider type, version, and application name.

  See Also:

  OracleConnection.ProviderName

  OracleConnection.ProviderNuGetVersion

  OracleConfiguration.Program

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OCI Object Storage Change Notification for Connection Information

  Since connection information retrieval takes longer from a cloud resource than local disk, ODP.NET caches connection information. If that information is updated, cache updates can occur using a pull model (polling) or automated push model (change notification). Change notification for ODP.NET connection attributes stored in Azure was previously introduced. This new release introduces the same capability for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage.

  Change notification provides an automated way to get fast updates to connection properties changes without having to sacrifice the performance of storing the information locally.

  See Also: Connection URL Caching

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Bulk Copy Notification After All Rows Processed

  ODP.NET bulk copy can now send a notification after all rows have been processed when the bulk copy operation has completed. This feature is enabled using OracleBulkCopyOptions.NotifyAllRowsProcessed. The number of rows is returned via the OracleRowsCopiedEventArgs.RowsCopied property in the notification.

  By using this property, applications can now determine the total number of rows processed when their bulk copy operations complete.

  See Also:

  OracleBulkCopyOptions Enumeration

  OracleRowsCopiedEventArgs.RowsCopied

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Easy Connect Plus Address Lists

  ODP.NET incorporates address list support in Easy Connect Plus configurations.

  With address lists, multiple lists of addresses, each with its own characteristics can be configured for ODP.NET connections.

  See Also: Easy Connect and Easy Connect Plus Naming Methods

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Microsoft identity platform tokens v2.0 enhancement

  ODP.NET supports Microsoft identity platform tokens v1.0 for Microsoft Entra ID-only applications and v2.0 for applications that support consumer accounts. ODP.NET 23.5 and higher check the roles (roles) and user principal name (UPN) claims in v2.0 tokens to verify at least one is present. If both claims are missing, then the provider will report an error.

  See Also: Vault Wallets and Tokens

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OpenTelemetry Activity Tag for rows affected by SQL

  ODP.NET OpenTelemetry now returns the row count affected by SQL DML (INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE only) when using ExecuteNonQuery*, ExecuteReader*, or ExecuteScalar* methods.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• Unmanaged ODP.NET – Dynamic loading of System.Text.Json DLL and its dependencies

  Unmanaged ODP.NET adds support for dynamic loading of the System.Text.Json.Dll and its dependencies if they are not loaded by the application or a different version is loaded. This enhancement is for unmanaged ODP.NET’s token-based authentication feature used by the applications, such as Power BI.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 23.3

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 23.3.

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• ODP.NET: AI Vector Search

  You can now leverage semantic search capabilities using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Vector Search. These capabilities include a new vector data type, vector indexes, and vector search SQL operators that allow the database to store semantic document content, images, and other unstructured data as vectors and then run fast performing similarity queries. This allows the database to better understand user intent and the search context to find similar matches, rather than only find exact matches.

  AI Vector Search provides your business with the capability to leverage Generative AI constructs, specifically Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), for responding to natural language questions. RAG effectively merges large language models (LLMs) with your private business data, preserving data privacy while enhancing response accuracy. This functionality allows you to unlock new opportunities for growth with AI.

  See Also: Artificial Intelligence Vectors and Semantic Search

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Asynchronous Programming

  ODP.NET supports the .NET Task Asynchronous Programming (TAP) model with the core and managed drivers. With support for TAP and the async and await keywords, ODP.NET data access operations are more responsive and easier to develop for asynchronicity. This feature includes support for Entity Framework Core and Entity Framework asynchronous query and save.

  See Also: Asynchronous Programming and Pipelining

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Pipelining

  ODP.NET core and managed drivers support pipelining for its database communication. It allows subsequent database requests to be sent and queued transparently even while ODP.NET awaits a database response. Pipelining improves overall app performance and allows database resources to be used more effectively. ODP.NET does not need to wait for the database to respond from previous requests before submitting subsequent requests.

  See Also: Asynchronous Programming and Pipelining

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – OpenTelemetry

  OpenTelemetry is a popular open-source observability framework for instrumenting, generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data. It provides a common specification and protocol so that multiple services can furnish a unified version of traces, metrics, and logs.

  Numerous managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core APIs have been instrumented to support OpenTelemetry observability and standards. Developers and operators can customize the ODP.NET metrics collected with OpenTelemetry. ODP.NET OpenTelemetry includes support for automatic, dynamic, and manual instrumentation.

  With OpenTelemetry support, monitoring, tracking, and analyzing how ODP.NET operations interact in cloud computing, microservices and distributed systems becomes easier using this industry standard.

  See Also: OpenTelemetry

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - .NET Metrics

  .NET Metrics are application numerical measurements collected at regular time intervals for the purposes of monitoring and alerting about application health. In an ODP.NET setting, metrics can monitor connection statistics, such as number of ODP.NET hard connections to the database, number of active connections, or number of free connections.

  ODP.NET Core and managed ODP.NET support .NET Metrics. ODP.NET metrics can be published to and analyzed by the rich and expansive toolsets integrated with OpenTelemetry and .NET Metrics, such as Grafana and Prometheus.

  See Also: .NET Metrics

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Advanced Queuing and Transactional Event Queues

  ODP.NET Core and managed ODP.NET now support Advanced Queuing (AQ) and Transactional Event Queues (TxEventQ) application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used in modern applications, such as microservices. TxEventQ’s highly optimized and partitioned implementation leverages the functions of Oracle AI Database so that producers and consumers can exchange messages at high throughput, by storing messages persistently, and propagate messages between queues on different databases. TxEventQ are a high performance partitioned implementation with multiple event streams per queue, while AQ is a disk-based implementation for simpler workflow use cases.

  ODP.NET developers can leverage the same APIs no matter if they use TxEventQ or AQ. The APIs provide access to a robust and feature-rich message queuing systems integrated with Oracle AI Database. It can be used with web, mobile, IoT, and other data-driven and event-driven applications to stream events or communicate with each other as part of a workflow.

  See Also: Advanced Queuing and Transactional Event Queues

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Application Continuity and Transparent Application Continuity

  ODP.NET Core and managed drivers now support Application Continuity (AC) and Transparent Application Continuity (TAC). AC and TAC mask outages from end users and applications by recovering the in-flight database sessions following recoverable outages, including transactions. The recovery is transparent such that the end user merely experiences a slightly delayed execution, but no perceptible outage nor error.

  AC and TAC improve the user experience for both unplanned outages and planned maintenance. They enhance the fault tolerance of systems and .NET applications that use an Oracle AI Database. Developers can use AC and TAC with existing .NET apps without making any code changes.

  See Also: ODP.NET and Application Continuity

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Transparent Application Failover

  Oracle Transparent Application Failover (TAF) is a high availability feature that enables client apps to automatically reconnect to a secondary database instance if the connected primary instance fails or shuts down. ODP.NET Core and managed ODP.NET now support connection and basic session state TAF.

  ODP.NET TAF enables apps to recover and continue operating when database downtime occurs. It requires no changes to .NET application code to use.

  See Also: Transparent Application Failover

• JSON Relational Duality

  JSON Relational Duality manifests as fully updatable JSON views over relational data. Data remains stored in relational tables in a highly efficient normalized format but can be accessed by .NET applications in the form of JSON documents. All ODP.NET provider types, core, managed, and unmanaged, support using JSON Relational Duality.

  Duality views provide game-changing flexibility and simplicity by overcoming the historical challenges .NET developers have faced when building applications using relational or document models.

  See Also: Native JSON Support

• Oracle Client Driver Support for SQL BOOLEAN Data Type

  Oracle client drivers support fetching and binding the new BOOLEAN database column. Applications can use the native database BOOLEAN column data type with a native driver BOOLEAN data type. This enhancement makes working with BOOLEAN data types easier for developers.

• True Cache

  Oracle True Cache is a read-only, in-memory, high performance SQL and key-value cache that is automatically managed and consistent. It improves application response time while reducing the load on the database server. Automatic management and consistency simplify application development; reducing developer effort and cost.

  All ODP.NET provider types can transparently use Oracle True Cache without needing any code changes.

• Faster Connection Establishment

  ODP.NET connection establishment has been optimized to reduce the number of database round trips required when connecting with Oracle AI Database 26ai and higher. Applications that upgrade experience this performance improvement transparently.

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Centralized Configuration Providers

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core can store and retrieve application configuration data from a centralized on-premises, cloud infrastructure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), or Azure store using centralized configuration providers. This store contains connection information, such as connect descriptors and tuning parameters. Secrets, such as passwords and wallets, can be stored in OCI Vault or Azure Key Vault with the same providers.

  Centralized application configuration makes client configuration and secrets management across multiple deployments simpler, especially for modern architectures, such as microservices, cloud application services, and serverless apps.

  See Also: Centralized Configuration Providers for Deployments

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Azure Active Directory Single Sign-On

  ODP.NET can now request the Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) OAuth2 access token directly from the Entra ID endpoint in addition to the prior methods of receiving the token through a file location or the .ODP.NET API. This simplifies the use of the OAuth2 tokens since applications don’t need to be modified or a separate helper utility isn’t needed to get the token.

  Users can sign-on once with Microsoft Entra ID, acquire the token, and access their on-premises and cloud-based Oracle AI Databases. This feature is available in ODP.NET Core and managed ODP.NET. This multicloud capability eases authentication and authorization between Microsoft Entra ID and Oracle AI Databases by simplifying user access and management.

  See Also: Using Microsoft Entra ID

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Oracle IAM SSO token

  ODP.NET can now request the OCI IAM access token directly from IAM in addition to the prior methods of receiving the token through a file location or the .ODP.NET API. This simplifies the use of the IAM tokens since applications do not need to be modified or a separate helper utility is not needed to get the token.

  Users can sign-on once with OCI IAM, acquire the token, and access their OCI DBaaS Oracle AI Databases. This feature is available in ODP.NET Core and managed ODP.NET.

  See Also: Connecting to Oracle Database

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - TLS/SSL Certificate Selection

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core allow selecting a specific TLS/SSL certificate stored in the Microsoft Certificate Store wallet location via a graphical user interface or thumbprint. The selected key is cached so that it doesn’t have to be re-selected on subsequent connection attempts.

  The graphical interface selection is enabled by setting the OracleConnection AllowCertificateSelectionUI property to true. Thumbprint selection is enabled by populating the SSLCertificateThumbprint property with the thumbprint value.

  This feature was backported to the latest ODP.NET 19c and 21c release updates.

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Enhanced Transaction Management Options

  By default, ODP.NET auto-commits after every SQL operation execution outside of a transaction. Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core now allow disabling auto-commit so that SQL statements can be executed after an explicit commit without requiring a transaction.

  The OracleConnection class adds new APIs to manage local transactions.

  These new capabilities provide ODP.NET developers flexible and simpler transaction management options.

  See Also: Command Auto-Commit

• Data Use Case Domain Name and Schema

  A Data Use Case Domain is a dictionary object that belongs to a schema and encapsulates a set of optional properties and constraints for common values, such as credit card numbers or email addresses. After you define a Data Use Case Domain, you can define table columns to be associated with that domain, thereby explicitly applying the domain’s optional properties and constraints to those columns.

  With Data Use Case Domains, you can define how you intend to use data centrally. They make it easier to ensure you handle values consistently across applications and improve data quality.

  All ODP.NET provider types support using Data Use Case Domains, as well as retrieving Data Use Case Domain schema and name information

  See Also: Data Use Case Domains

• Annotations

  Oracle AI Database annotations enable storing and retrieving metadata about database objects. These are either name-value pairs or only a name. These are free-form text fields that applications can use to customize business logic or user interfaces. All ODP.NET provider types support Oracle AI Database annotations.

  Annotations help you to use database objects in the same way, across all applications. This simplifies development and improves data quality.

  See Also: Annotations

• Increased Database Password Length

  Starting with this release, Oracle AI Database and client drivers including ODP.NET managed, unmanaged, and core drivers support passwords up to 1024 bytes in length.

• Transport Layer Security 1.3

  ODP.NET supports Transport Layer version 1.3 for the core, managed, and unmanaged providers. TLS is used to encrypt data and authenticate connections. TLS 1.3 offers better security and performance over TLS 1.2.

  See Also: Using Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Programmatic Database Startup and Shutdown Operations

  Users with database administrator privileges can use the OracleDatabase class to startup or shutdown a database instance with managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core.

  See Also: OracleDatabase Class

• Allowed Logon Version Client Support

  This feature enables applications to specify the minimum authentication protocol that is to be used for a given application and/or a given OracleConnection object when authenticating against an Oracle AI Database.

  See Also: Allowed Logon Version Client Support

• Managed ODP.NET - Public OracleMigrationSqlGenerator class

  For Entity Framework 6 apps, the OracleMigrationSqlGenerator class is now public to allow developers to override the default SQL generation if they want to customize it.

  See Also: Unsupported Entity Framework Features

• HTTPS Proxy for Cloud Connections

  ODP.NET supports HTTPS proxy of the database connection. The feature enables tunneling of that connection over a forward HTTP proxy using the HTTP CONNECT method.

  It can be enabled in the connect address, such as

(description=(address=(https_proxy=www-proxy.example.com)(https_proxy_port=80)
(protocol=tcps)(port=1522)(host=dbhost.example.com))
(connect_data=(service_name=svc.example.com)) )

HTTPS proxy improves public cloud database service access as it eliminates requiring the client side firewall to open an outbound port.

Deprecated Features

The following features are deprecated in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 26ai:

• Oracle Data Provider for .NET, Unmanaged Driver

  Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET), Unmanaged Driver is deprecated in Oracle AI Database 26ai, and can be desupported in a future release. Oracle recommends existing unmanaged ODP.NET applications migrate to ODP.NET, Managed Driver.

  ODP.NET provides ADO.NET-based data access to Oracle databases. There are two primary Oracle data access drivers for Microsoft .NET Framework: ODP.NET, Managed Driver and ODP.NET, Unmanaged Driver.

  In Oracle AI Database 26ai, ODP.NET, Managed Driver supports all major features available in ODP.NET, Unmanaged Driver with the same application programming interfaces and configuration settings. Code migration from unmanaged ODP.NET to managed ODP.NET is straightforward for the vast majority of existing .NET applications.ODP.NET, Managed Driver is a more compact and simpler install that can be consumed via NuGet packaging. Unmanaged ODP.NET is not available as a NuGet package. It is easier to manage multiple managed ODP.NET deployments on the same machine than multiple unmanaged ODP.NET deployments. These advantages make managed ODP.NET preferable for customer use over unmanaged ODP.NET.

  As unmanaged ODP.NET no longer has any advantages over managed ODP.NET, Oracle has chosen to deprecate unmanaged ODP.NET.

• The mkstore wallet management command line tool

  The mkstore command-line utility is being deprecated in favor of orakpi.

• MY_WALLET_DIRECTORY

See Also:

• Oracle AI Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of deprecated features.

Desupported Features

Some features previously described in this document are desupported in Oracle AI Database 26ai. See Oracle AI Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of desupported features.

The following features are no longer supported by Oracle:

• Oracle Database Extensions for .NET

  Oracle Database Extensions for .NET is desupported. Oracle recommends that you either place .NET code in the middle tier, or use the External Procedures feature, or rewrite the code using PL/SQL or Java.

  Oracle Database Extensions for .NET is a feature of Oracle Database on Microsoft Windows that enables you to use stored procedures and functions written in a language managed by .NET, such as C#.

  Oracle Database hosts the Microsoft Common Language Runtime (CLR) in an external process, outside of the Oracle Database process. Application developers can write stored procedures and functions using any .NET compliant language, such as C# and VB.NET, and use these .NET stored procedures in the database, in the same manner as other PL/SQL or Java stored procedures. .NET stored procedures can be called from PL/SQL packages, procedures, functions, and triggers; from SQL statements; or from anywhere a PL/SQL procedure or function can be called.

  Migration options include:

  • Moving the .NET code (assemblies) into a middle tier

  • Using the External Procedures feature to have the external process load and execute the .NET assembly

  • Rewriting the stored procedures using PL/SQL or Java

• Oracle Wallet Manager (OWM)

• OracleConfiguration.DirectoryType Property

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.12)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.12).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET 8 Runtime

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 8.

• Entity Framework Core 8

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 8 with Oracle databases. ODP.NET EF Core 21.12.1 or higher is required.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.8)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.8).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET 7 Runtime

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 7.

• Entity Framework Core 7

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 7 with Oracle databases. Entity Framework Core is a cross-platform Microsoft object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational databases using .NET objects.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.7)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.7).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Microsoft Entra ID

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core 21.7 support Microsoft Entra ID, earlier known as Azure Active Directory authentication when connecting to Oracle Database. ODP.NET will then use an access token to authenticate instead of an username and password.

  This feature benefits applications and services that use Microsoft Entra ID for centralized user authentication with Oracle database. Those services can include Azure and Microsoft 365-based cloud services, such as Microsoft Power BI service, that rely on Microsoft Entra ID for user management.

  Using token-based authentication is more secure and simpler for the end user. It becomes unnecessary to specify credentials each time the user accesses a resource. Moreover, the resource never needs to handle and manage individual user credentials.

  See Also: Using Microsoft Entra ID

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Transport Layer Security 1.3

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core have added support for version 1.3 of Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. TLS allows applications to communicate securely with the database in a way that prevents message eavesdropping, tampering, and forgery.

  See Also: Using Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.6.1)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.6.1).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core - Oracle Identity and Access Management Cloud Service Enhancements

  ODP.NET adds more support for Oracle Identity and Access Management (IAM) cloud service for unified identity across Oracle cloud services for the managed and core drivers. ODP.NET can use the same Oracle IAM credentials for authentication and authorization.

  This capability allows single sign-on and for identity to be propagated to all services Oracle IAM supports. A unified identity makes user management and account management easier for administrators and end users.

  Managed ODP.NET adds support for IAM database password verifier, token, and database alternate password for token authentication.

  ODP.NET Core already has support for IAM database password verifier and token. This new version adds database alternate password for token authentication in ODP.NET Core.

  See Also: Connecting to Oracle Autonomous Database

• ODP.NET Core - Multi-Platform Secure External Password Store

  The Secure External Password Store (SEPS) is the use of a client-side wallet for securely storing the password credentials. ODP.NET Core can now be configured to use the external password store on any operating system it supports beyond just Windows.

  An Oracle wallet is a container that securely stores authentication and signing credentials. Wallets can simplify large-scale deployments that rely on password credentials for database connections. Applications no longer need embedded user names and passwords, which reduces security risk.

  See Also: Using Secure External Password Store

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.5)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.5).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Unmanaged ODP.NET – One-way TLS/SSL with Built-in Truspoints (Walletless)

  Unmanaged ODP.NET now supports one-way Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer without wallets. Not having to provide a wallet can simplify database connectivity, such as with Oracle Autonomous Database.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.4.1)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.4.1).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET 6 Runtime Certification

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 6.

• Entity Framework Core 6

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 6 with Oracle databases. Entity Framework Core is a cross-platform Microsoft object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational databases using .NET objects.

• ODP.NET Core - Oracle Identity and Access Management Cloud Service

  ODP.NET supports Oracle Identity and Access Management (IAM) cloud service for unified identity across Oracle cloud services, including Oracle Cloud Database Services, with the core driver. ODP.NET can use the same Oracle IAM credentials for authentication and authorization.

  This capability allows single sign-on and for identity to be propagated to all services Oracle IAM supports. A unified identity makes user management and account management easier for administrators and end users. See Also: Connecting to Oracle Autonomous Database

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.4)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.4).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – One-way TLS/SSL with Built-in Truspoints (Walletless)

  ODP.NET core and managed now support one-way Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer without wallets. Not having to provide a wallet can simplify database connectivity, such as with Oracle Autonomous Database.

• ODP.NET Core – Ubuntu and Debian Linux

  ODP.NET Core add certification for additional Linux distributions: Ubuntu and Debian.

  See Also: System Requirements

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 21c (21.3)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c (21.3).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – User-Defined Types

  ODP.NET Core and managed providers now support user-defined types (UDT), including Oracle Collections (VARRAY and nested tables), Oracle Objects, and references (REF) to object types. These new features provide near-parity functionality with existing ODP.NET, Unmanaged Driver UDT functionality. This new enhancement allows the vast majority of unmanaged ODP.NET applications to migrate to managed ODP.NET or ODP.NET Core easily with minimal code changes necessary.

  See Also: Oracle User-Defined Types (UDTs) and .NET Custom Types

• OracleConfiguration SqlnetURI Setting

  ODP.NET OracleConfiguration SqlnetURI property is being renamed to SqlNetURI. This setting specifies the WebSocket universal resource identifier. The change reflects improved adherence to .NET’s PascalCasing capitalization convention. If you currently use the property, then please modify your code accordingly.

Deprecated Features

The following property and setting are deprecated in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 21c:

• OracleConfiguration DirectoryType property

• Configuration file DIRECTORY_TYPE setting

  The OracleConfiguration DirectoryServerType property replaces the DirectoryType property. The .NET configuration file DIRECTORY_SERVER_TYPE setting replaces the DIRECTORY_TYPE setting. All these properties have identical functionality. Oracle recommends developers to use and migrate to the new properties. The DirectoryServerType and DIRECTORY_SERVER_TYPE names better align with the ldap.ora parameter DIRECTORY_SERVER_TYPE, which provides equivalent functionality.

• Deprecation of Oracle Database Extensions for .NET

See Also:

• Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a complete list of deprecated features.

Deprecation of Oracle Database Extensions for .NET

Oracle Database Extensions for .NET is deprecated in Oracle Database 21c. Oracle recommends that you either place .NET code in the middle tier, or use the External Procedures feature, or rewrite the code using PL/SQL or Java.

Date: September 2021

Oracle Database Extensions for .NET is a feature of Oracle Database on Microsoft Windows that enables you to use stored procedures and functions written in a language managed by .NET, such as C#.

Oracle Database hosts the Microsoft Common Language Runtime (CLR) in an external process, outside of the Oracle Database process. Application developers can write stored procedures and functions using any .NET compliant language, such as C# and VB.NET, and use these .NET stored procedures in the database, in the same manner as other PL/SQL or Java stored procedures. .NET stored procedures can be called from PL/SQL packages, procedures, functions, and triggers; from SQL statements; or from anywhere a PL/SQL procedure or function can be called.

Migration options include:

• Moving the .NET code (assemblies) into a middle tier

• Using the External Procedures feature to have the external process load and execute the .NET assembly

• Rewriting the stored procedures using PL/SQL or Java

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (21.1)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (21.1).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Entity Framework Core 5

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 5 with Oracle databases. Entity Framework Core is a cross-platform Microsoft object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational databases using .NET objects.

  See Also: Oracle Data Provider for .NET Entity Framework Core

• Oracle Database JSON Data Type

  ODP.NET supports the native JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data type in Oracle Database. The new JSON data type is optimized for query and DML processing, yielding database performance improvements processing JSON.

  When using a .NET string or OracleString, JSON data can be bound as a parameter using the OracleDbType.Json enumeration value. ODP.NET Core, managed, and unmanaged all support these new JSON features.

• Client Initiated Continuous Query Notification

  Client Initiated Continuous Query Notification (CICQN) is similar to the traditional Continuous Query Notification (CQN) feature available in ODP.NET. In CQN, applications receive client-side notifications when server side change occurs that would affect the client’s query result set, the underlying schema objects, or the database state. This notification is out of process, occurring without an existing ODP.NET connection.

  CICQN uses in-process notifications. ODP.NET creates one separate connection per pool for receiving notifications. The database server uses this specific connection to send change notifications to ODP.NET. CICQN is useful when out of process communications is not available between client and database server, such as in cloud deployments.

  See Also: Client Initiated Continuous Query Notifications

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Oracle Globally Distributed Database

  ODP.NET Core and managed providers now support sharding. Oracle Globally Distributed Database provides the ability to horizontally partition the data across multiple independent Oracle databases (shards). Based on a key specified in the connect string, ODP.NET can route the database requests to a particular shard. Oracle Globally Distributed Database is a shared-nothing architecture that allows near-linear scaling of the database across low-cost commodity database servers located in one or more local or global data centers. Other key benefits include global data distribution (store particular data close to consumers) and fault containment (failure of one shard does not affect the availability of other shards). Global Data Services manages the location of data among the shards and allows ODP.NET client requests to be routed to the appropriate shard in this distributed database system.

  In addition to the same sharding functionality that unmanaged ODP.NET supports, ODP.NET managed and core also support pausing connection requests during chunk migrations. Users will not experience a timeout without giving the chunk migration sufficient times to move across shards.

  See Also: Oracle Globally Distributed Database

• New Administrative Privileges

  ODP.NET now supports assignment of task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges to enable database administrative duty separation. The newly added privileges include SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, SYSKM for encryption key management, and SYSRAC for Oracle Real Applications Clusters operations. Core, managed, and unmanaged ODP.NET support all these administrative privileges.

  See Also: OracleDBAPrivilege Enumeration

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core– Debug Tracing Redaction

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core has introduced a new trace level, that can exclude SQL statements and network packet contents from being included in the trace file.

  See Also: Debug Tracing

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.16)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.16).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Transport Layer Security 1.3

  Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core have added support for version 1.3 of Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. TLS allows applications to communicate securely with the database in a way that prevents message eavesdropping, tampering, and forgery.

  See Also: Using Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.15.1)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.15.1).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• Microsoft Entra ID

  Starting with ODP.NET 21.7 and 19.15.1, ODP.NET supports Microsoft Entra ID, earlier known as Azure Active Directory authentication when connecting to Oracle Database. ODP.NET will then use an access token to authenticate instead of a username and password.

  This feature benefits applications and services that use Microsoft Entra ID for centralized user authentication with Oracle database. Those services can include Azure and Microsoft 365-based cloud services, such as Microsoft Power BI service, that rely on Microsoft Entra ID for user management.

  Using token-based authentication is more secure and simpler for the end user. It becomes unnecessary to specify credentials each time the user accesses a resource. Moreover, the resource never needs to handle and manage individual user credentials.

  See Also: Using Microsoft Entra ID.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.10)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.10).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET 5 Runtime Certification

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET 5.

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Bulk Copy

  ODP.NET Bulk Copy enables applications to efficiently load large amounts of data from a table in one database to another table in a different database. Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core now support Bulk Copy and all its APIs.

  ODP.NET Bulk Copy is the most optimized .NET solution when a large data set needs to loaded into a table or between database tables in different databases.

  See Also: Bulk Copy

• Oracle Provider Types Deserialization into DataSet and DataTable

  Due to a change in all .NET versions to enhance application security, the allowed DataSet and DataTable data types that can be deserialized are now restricted. This change applies to .NET 5, .NET Core, and .NET Framework with new updates. If application DataSets and DataTables use ODP.NET data types with one of these newer .NET versions, then they may encounter an ODP.NET type initializer exception. To avoid this exception, developers can add ODP.NET-specific data types to the “allow” list to permit deserialization into DataSet or DataTable.

  To do this, call the OracleConfiguration AddOracleTypesDeserialization method or add the types individually via a .NET configuration file.

  See Also: Deserializing ODP.NET Types into DataSet and DataTable

• ODP.NET Core – KeepAlive on non-Windows platforms

  KeepAlive is supported on non-Windows operating systems, such as Oracle Linux. In previous releases, ODP.NET Core supported these KeepAlive properties for Windows platforms only. The properties include KeepAlive, KeepAliveInterval, and KeepAliveTime.

  KeepAlive is used to prevent idle TCP connections from being closed, such as by a firewall or load balancer. In some cloud deployments, this idle TCP connection timeout cannot be changed. KeepAlive will keep the connection alive by periodically sending a probe packet with no data in it and the ACK flag turned on.

  See Also: OracleConnection Properties

• Suppress GetDecimal Invalid Cast Exception

  The SuppressGetDecimalInvalidCastException property has been added to the OracleDataReader and OracleDataAdapter classes. When enabled and GetDecimal is called on the OracleDataReader object explicitly by the application or implicitly through the Fill() method on the OracleDataAdapter object, for example, it suppresses the InvalidCastException and returns a rounded-off 28 or 29 precision .NET decimal value, that represents the Oracle NUMBER.

  See Also: SuppressGetDecimalInvalidCastException

• ODP.NET Core – LDAP for Non-Windows Platforms

  ODP.NET Core now supports connecting with net service names mapped to connect descriptors in an LDAP-compliant directory server from all non-Windows operating systems the provider supports, such as Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Now ODP.NET Core apps on all platforms can use LDAP authentication to connect to Oracle Database.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.9)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.9).

New Features

The following feature is new in this release:

• In-Band Fast Application Notification

  In some scenarios, such as cloud deployments and when firewalls block notification messages between the database and client, out of band messages and using Oracle Notification Service may not be possible. ODP.NET can use in-band FAN notifications instead in these scenarios. In-band notifications rely on existing ODP.NET connections to communicate messages. ODP.NET will check for notifications every time a connection makes a database round trip, is checked in, or checked out. When a DOWN notification is received, ODP.NET will scan the pool for affected connections and close them.

  This feature was introduced with managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core in 19.9. It was introduced in unmanaged ODP.NET in 19.10.

  See Also: In-Band Notification

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET ODAC Release 19c (19.3.2)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for ODAC Release 19c (19.3.2).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Entity Framework Core 3.1

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core now supports Entity Framework Core 3.1 with Oracle databases. Entity Framework Core is a cross-platform Microsoft object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational databases using .NET objects. This ODP.NET EF Core release adds support for relational views and materialized views. These views can be read-only or updatable.

  Oracle EF Core 3.1 developers can now create and migrate data models in the Oracle Database. They can scaffold EF Core classes based on an Oracle Database schema objects. They can migrate and scaffold with Oracle views. Oracle EF Core is integrated with popular EF Core tools, such as the EF Core Package Manager Tools.

  See Also: Oracle Data Provider for .NET Entity Framework Core

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.7)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.7).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – Administer Storage using SYSASM Privilege

  Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) is a volume manager and a file system for Oracle database files. SYSASM is a system privilege that enables administrators to manage ASM instances. Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core can now connect using the SYSASM administrative privilege to perform storage management of the Oracle Database.

  ODP.NET can now perform database ASM administration when connecting with a SYSASM privileged connection.

  See Also: OracleDBAPrivilege Enumeration

• WebSocket and WebSocket with SSL/TLS

  WebSocket is a protocol that offers full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. WebSocket with SSL/TLS offers a secure WebSocket connection. WebSocket is an extension to HTTP and is able to work with HTTP proxies and intermediaries. ODP.NET Core, managed, and unmanaged providers all support WebSocket and secure WebSocket protocols.

  See Also: Using WebSocket

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.6)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.6).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET Core 3.1 Certification

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET Core 3.1.

• Linux 8 Certification

  ODP.NET Core is certified on Oracle Linux 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.

• Entity Framework 6.4 Certification

  Managed and unmanaged ODP.NET Entity Framework is certified for Entity Framework 6.4.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.5)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET (19.5).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET Core 3 Certification

  ODP.NET Core is certified for .NET Core 3.

• Entity Framework Core 2.1 Certification

  ODP.NET Entity Framework Core is certified for EF Core 2.1.

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET in ODAC Release 19c (19.3)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for ODAC Release 19c (19.3).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• Entity Framework Core

  ODP.NET Entity Framework (EF) Core is a database provider that allows Entity Framework Core to be used with Oracle databases. Entity Framework Core is a cross-platform Microsoft object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational databases using .NET objects.

  Oracle EF Core developers can now create and migrate data models in the Oracle Database. They can reverse engineer/scaffold EF Core classes based on an Oracle Database schema. Oracle EF Core is integrated with popular EF Core tools, such as the EF Core Package Manager Tools.

  See Also: Oracle Data Provider for .NET Entity Framework Core

• Managed ODP.NET and ODP.NET Core – More Configuration Options with New OracleConnection Properties

  OracleConnection class introduces additional properties to configure ODP.NET connections. The new properties are:

  • KeepAlive, KeepAliveInterval, and KeepAliveTime - specifies whether and the conditions under which to keep idle connections alive

  • TnsAdmin - specifies the tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora directory

  • WalletLocation - specifies the wallet directory location Note: OracleConnection Class

• Unmanaged ODP.NET – Administer Storage using SYSASM Privilege

  Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) is a volume manager and a file system for Oracle database files. SYSASM is a system privilege that enables administrators to manage ASM instances. Unmanaged ODP.NET can now connect using the SYSASM administrative privilege to perform storage management of the Oracle Database.

  ODP.NET can now perform database ASM administration when connecting with a SYSASM privileged connection.

  Note: OracleDBAPrivilege Enumeration

• Dynamically Enabled Tracing and Size Limits

  To improve diagnostics ease of use and productivity, ODP.NET trace output can now be enabled and disabled at runtime using the OracleConfiguration.TraceLevel property. To keep trace files down to a manageable size, the TraceFileMaxSize property can be set.

  Administrators can isolate tracing to only known times or events when problems occur. This feature helps keep trace files down to the minimum size needed to investigate issues. If a trace file does become large, ODP.NET will write to a new trace file once the maximum file limit that is set in TraceFileMaxSize is reached. These features are available with core, managed, and unmanaged providers.

  See Also:

  • Debug Tracing

  • OracleConfiguration Diagnostics and Tracing Properties

Changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 19c (19.3)

The following are the changes in Oracle Data Provider for .NET for Release 19c (19.3).

New Features

The following features are new in this release:

• .NET Framework 4.8 Certification

  ODP.NET Core, Managed, and Unmanaged Drivers are certified with .NET Framework 4.8.

• ODP.NET, Managed Driver – Configuration as Code

  Managed ODP.NET now supports OracleConfiguration, OracleDataSourceCollection, and OracleOnsServerCollection classes.

  These classes allow developers to configure managed ODP.NET within source code in lieu of .NET configuration and Oracle configuration files.

• ODP.NET Core – Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

  ODP.NET Core can use connect identifiers mapped to connect descriptors in an LDAP-compliant directory server, such as Oracle Internet Directory and Microsoft Active Directory. The provider supports the same LDAP features and settings as managed ODP.NET.

  ODP.NET Core LDAP support is available on Windows operating systems only.

  See Also: OracleConfiguration Directories Properties

• ODP.NET Core – Performance Counters

  ODP.NET Core can publish key runtime connection counters to Windows Performance Monitor or a file. The provider supports the same counters, setup process, and settings as managed and unmanaged ODP.NET.

  ODP.NET Core performance counters are available on Windows operating systems only. They require System.Diagnostics namespace in using performance counters programmatically.

  See Also: Connection Performance Counters

• Easy Connect Plus

  Oracle Easy Connect Plus provides a simple way to configure TCP/IP connections to the Oracle Database without having to use parameter files, such as tnsnames.ora, nor environment variables. Easy Connect Plus includes support for:

  • TCP/IP with SSL/TLS

  • Any SQL*Net description level parameter can be used

  • Multiple hosts and ports

  • A straightforward name-value pair format

  Easy Connect Plus supports more configurations and a wider breadth of ODP.NET applications than traditional Easy Connect, including clustered or cloud databases.

  See Also: Easy Connect and Easy Connect Plus Naming Methods

• More Secure Oracle Notification Service Connections

  ODP.NET now enables Oracle Notification Service (ONS) communications to occur over TCP/IP with SSL/TLS (TCPS), which is more secure than just TCP/IP. As TCPS requires using a wallet for storing keys and certificates, ODP.NET can use one wallet for both ONS and ODP.NET connections or have separate wallets for each.

  TCPS provides more secure ONS communication, gives administrators flexibility in how to configure their wallets, and enables cloud database connections.