Just deployed an application using the "Oracle Data Provider for .NET" and received the error "Exception: The provider is not compatible with the version of Oracle client"
Unless I am mistaken, it appears that the version of ODP.NET that one uses in their code must exactly match the oracle client deployed to the server.
I've always worked with the System.Data.Oracle provider which is independent of the oracle client version, and before that ADODB.. and ADO (DAO anyone?). With all of these technologies, they would work with most any Oracle client, and this was very important, both for organization-wide deployment of client applications and for deployment of web-based applications to servers used by many developers.
Does Oracle seriously expect us to deploy ONE SINGLE oracle client version across our entire enterprise? Under this scenario, how would we upgrade that version later, without re-compiling and re-deploying our entire application suite?
Am I missing something fundamental here, or is there truly a tight coupling between Oracle's ODP.NET and the specific oracle client? If so, how could this ever work in a production environment?