Oracle Database (commonly known as Oracle DBMS or simply Oracle) is a multi‑model database management system created and maintained by Oracle Corporation. Organizations use it widely for online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing (DW), and mixed workloads that combine both models.
Because of this, many companies need to integrate their applications with Oracle. To support these scenarios, BizTalk Server uses the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle Database, also known as the WCF‑ORACLE adapter.
In practice, the WCF‑ORACLE adapter exposes Oracle operations as WCF services. Clients interact with Oracle by exchanging SOAP messages with the adapter. The adapter receives the WCF message, translates it into the appropriate ODP.NET calls, and then sends the request to Oracle. After that, it returns the Oracle response to the client as a SOAP message.
📝 One-Minute Brief
A clear and practical whitepaper that explains how to install and configure the WCF‑OracleDB Adapter in BizTalk Server 2020. It walks through all prerequisites, including the ODAC (Oracle Data Access Components), Oracle client setup, and the correct configuration required for metadata generation and connectivity. This guide helps BizTalk teams avoid outdated information, ensures proper use of ODP.NET, and provides a reliable path to integrate BizTalk Server with Oracle databases.
The Oracle Database adapter surfaces metadata of Oracle database artifacts (tables, functions, procedures, etc.) that describes the structure of a SOAP message in the form of Web Service Description Language (WSDL).
- It uses the Add Adapter Service Reference Visual Studio Plug-in, the Consume Adapter Service BizTalk Project Add-in, and the Add Adapter Metadata Wizard to enable adapter clients to retrieve metadata for operations and generate programming artifacts for use in your programming solution.
- And it communicates with the Oracle database through the Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET) and the Oracle client, which are part of the Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC) for Windows.
The following figure shows the end-to-end architecture for solutions that are developed by using the Oracle Database adapter:
This paper explains, in detail, a step-by-step guideline to installing and configuring the WCF-OracleDB Adapter in a BizTalk Server 2020 standalone environment running Windows Server 2019.
What’s in the Whitepaper for you?
This whitepaper will give you a detailed understanding of the following:
- Installation requirements
- Supported systems
- Install Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC)
- Installation checks
- Testing Oracle connectivities
Where can you download it
You can download the whitepaper here:
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Hi Sandro, thanks for this guide.
We followed the instructions but the Oracle adapter isn’t working in BizTalk?
Connection is possible using Oracle SQL Developer…
But BizTalk fails to connect:
“Could not load file or assembly ‘Oracle.DataAccess, Version=4.122.18.3, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: ‘Oracle.DataAccess, Version=4.122.18.3, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342′”
How can we fix this?
The Oracle version in the GAC is 4.121.2.0
We have tried redirecting 4.122.18.3 to 4.121.2.0 using section in machine.config files, but the problem persists.
Thanks for any help!