ODBC and EZCONNECT or my way out of active directory

The traditional way of connecting Excel (or Access) to Oracle (and other databases) is to use ODBC and TNSNAMES. You install an Oracle client, you create a connection and specify your tnsnames connection alias as server, here below DB01

tnsnames.ora
DB01 = 
  (DESCRIPTION=
    (ADDRESS=
      (PROTOCOL=TCP)(host=srv01)(Port=1521)
    )
    (CONNECT_DATA=
      (SERVICE_NAME=DB01)
    )
  )

But the file is often managed centrally and deployed to the client by the DBA via home scripts. The syntax is pretty ugly and very soon you’ll see, a space or a parenthesis is missing and the loss of service is complete…

When working with Windows, one guy may try to setup active directory resolution. Before Exchange 2003, the schema was extended and that’s it, it works. But later, Microsoft made things more secure, among others by disabling anonymous bind and probably later by enforcing SSL, and one day you’ll see, the connection no longer works. Also, the schema extension could not be reverted, so it is not a thing you do just for fun in production

While there are white papers and blog articles on using authenticated bind, I could not find any support note.
Note 361192.1 mentions :
When anonymous operations are disabled, anonymous operations performed against Active Directory will fail
And note 455031.1 mentions :
Configuring Non-Anonymous LDAP Access Prerequisites: – A working LDAP naming environment should already exist between a client and OID (not Active Directory)
While note 1587824.1 refers the white paper Configuring Microsoft Active Directory for Oracle Net Naming , it clearly states This document is provided for information purposes only
So when AD changes, chances are, you will get an issue. Maybe in 2020Q1 according to https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/advisory/ADV190023

Clearly, if you need more, you should go for an Oracle directory server like OID.

But if you need less? maybe you could go for easy connect (EZCONNECT). This is a zero-configuration setup that puts all the configuration out of the DBA tasks. So it seems to be better.

There are plenty of examples on how to use it, even with SSL and RAC and so on. In its simplest form you’ll use

sqlplus scott/tiger@srv01:1521/DB01

instead of

sqlplus scott/tiger@DB01

So a little bit more details but no more ActiveDirectory and no more tnsnames.ora.

But does it work with Excel and family? actually yes

You need to specify
Service Name : //srv01:1521/db01

If you don’t prefix with //, it doesn’t work.

Conclusion: if you are not willing to maintain local tnsnames and struggling with ActiveDirectory security enhancement, consider easyconnect but be aware of the additional slashes in the server name