DJS Consulting Tech Blog
Technical Information You Can Use (or not - but hey, at least it’s free!)

Oracle SQL Developer is a Java-based tool that provides a graphical interface to a database. While it’s main focus is Oracle (of course), it can be hooked up, via JDBC, to many other databases, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. It’s similar to Toad, but is provided by Oracle at no cost.

Oracle provides SQL Developer in either an RPM, or a generic binary install. I like the ability to manage packages, but I’ve never had much luck at getting RPM to run on Ubuntu. I downloaded the RPM file, and, using alien, I converted the package to a .deb package (Debian package format) and installed it. I worked like a charm!

I haven’t tested it with gcj, but using Sun’s Java 6 update 7 from the Ubuntu repositories, it ran just fine. After you install the package, do a directory list on /usr/lib/jvm. You’re looking for the Sun JDK - if it’s installed, you’ll have a symlink java-6-sun that points to java-6-sun-1.6.0.07. Once you’ve determined the location of the JDK, run “sqldeveloper” from the command line - the program will prompt you for the path to your JDK. Enter it (probably “/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun”) and you’re good to go. (You have to install the package as root - but, for the rest of these steps, use your normal user, not root, as this puts settings in a .sqldeveloper directory off your home directory.) The package installs an icon in the “Programming” or “Development” group. Once you’ve told it where the JDK is, you can use this to launch it.

Download SQL Developer 1.5.1 Debian Package

There are lots of “how to” articles on sharing data between Oracle and SQL Server. Most of these involve installing Oracle’s code base on the SQL Server machine, then using that instance to link tables within Oracle. This technique does not require that, thanks to a product from Oracle called Oracle Instant Client.

To set up the Oracle piece, download the packages for “Basic” and “ODBC Supplement”, and follow the instructions for installation, on the machine with SQL Server. (This is not an “install” per se - it’s basically an unzip.) Next, you’ll need to provide a TNSNAMES.ORA file - this can be any valid file, including a simple shell with an “ifile=” statement pointing to a common TNSNAMES.ORA file. Finally, set the environment variable TNS_ADMIN to point to the directory where this TNSNAMES.ORA file resides.

Now, you can easily create a DTS script through SQL Server to push or pull data however you’d like. Oracle Instant Client will appear in the drop-down list of providers, and you’ll be able to specify your connection the way you normally do (i.e., “DB01.WORLD”).

Happy migrating!