Applications such as SharePlex can be configured to connect to the Oracle database via Bequeath or listener. The latter is also referred to as sql*net. This article delves on the pros and cons of these two approaches.
Here are some of the advantages of Bequeath:
In Bequeath, the connection to the database do not have to depend on the listener to be up and running.
Bequeath is more efficient if the application is running on the database server.
Bequeath does not require the listener to be configured which simplifies the configuration steps somewhat.
For smaller transactions, the listener would lose out to Bequeath.
Here are some of the advantages of sql*net:
If using array processing or batch processing, then the listener approach would be better as the time spent on network (which is one deciding criteria) as a percentage of overall time would be much smaller for each DML or transaction.
When it comes to RAC, sql*net is the only option.
The same goes for RDS, Cloud, etc
If wishing to use Oracle Network Encryption, then SharePlex needs to be configured to use sql*net as the Oracle Network Encryption does not work with Bequeath.
If needing to use security thru firewall, then the use of listener is more conducive.
Listener are also more conducive if wishing to use failover feature that would allow client to request a different listener if the previous one fails.
Likewise, load balancing can be incorporated in listener configuration so that the load can be shared by multiple listeners for optimum efficiency.
