Connecting to remote Oracle database using Oracle Client

Question

I have to connect to a remote Oracle database. Connection will only work with a VPN access to the remote network. I have already setup the VPN, and that is working.

Remote team has passed TNS.ORA settings. I have hardly worked on configuring oracle and neither I am aware of the setup that I need to have on my machine. I just need to run few queries to test the data.

Can somebody guide me on the setup and the configuration I need to have on my windows 7 to connect to a remote Oracle database ?.

My first assumption was to download Oracle client. I downloaded Oracle Insta Client files, but I have no idea how to configure it to connect to a remote database. I couldn't even find any ORA file in the installed files of Insta client.

Answer 1

One you installed the instant client and installed it, you can conect to the remote database by using an easyconnect string. If you are in sqlplus you can do the following:

CONNECT username@[//]host[:port][/service_name][:server][/instance_name]

Lets assume your remote host is remote1 and the service_name is test (This can be retrieved from the tnsnames.ora)

connect username@//remote1/test