Introduction
While working on a project that was having issues with the Oracle's data provider for .NET (ODP.NET), I found myself looking for alternatives, which led me to a hunt for supported connection string attributes. I must say that this search was harder than I originally thought it would be. Perhaps I wasn't looking for the right thing, but I figured I'd document what I found here for future use and hopefully to help someone else out. If anyone has any information on what I've gathered here, please don't hesitate to let me know. My hopes are to gather as much valid information as possible; or, if there's already a good, up-to-date resource available with this information, I'd have no problem linking to that.
I do have to say two things that must be understood by everyone. First, I am only reviewing providers that implement OCI because that was one of the constraints initially set forth for the project I started looking at this for. Second, this is not an all-inclusive evaluation of the providers. I am only pointing out things I've found or others have shared.
Also of note, I've changed the focus of this article from being about connection string attributes to the broader Oracle data provider topic. My reason for this was that the connection string only chipped the surface in what would become a larger issue of considering what options were out there. This, of course, may lead to review of non-OCI providers, but that's for another time.