What is the fastest way to bulk insert fixed width flat-file data into Oracle 11g r2?

Question

I am tasked with inserting ~1 million rows from a fixed width format flat-file on a daily basis. I do not have the privilege of direct access to the database file system. The file system also cannot be accessed by any external mounts or samba shares.

Some suggestions that i've been given on accomplishing this are:

• Use some type of ETL application such as Scriptella
• Convert the file to XML first and insert it that way
• Use SQL*Loader
• Use some type of PL/SQL script to accomplish this

The system which is available to run any of these types of solutions is Windows Server. If something can be written programmatically to accomplish this it would also have to be in C#.

What would be the most desired method for accomplishing this given the access limitations presented? Are there other solutions besides the suggestions above?

Answer 1

Nothing beats SQL*Loader with a direct load (except maybe external tables - but as you cannot access the file system on the server you can't use them).