Connecting 3rd party software to the Penta Database

Owned by Mike Lohmiller (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 05 20, 2021

Issue/Symptom/Question

How do I connect to my PENTA database from a Third Party software?

Applies To

Customers of Penta who want/need to access data from Penta via Third Party software.  

Resolution/Fix/Answer

To connect to a PENTA database via a 3rd party software, you will need the following:

  • Oracle client
  • Internal connectivity to the database server on port 1521
  • A database read-only user account

Licensing Information:

  • Per the MSA (Master Service Agreement), each active connection to the database will count towards your concurrent user count when determining your total PENTA concurrent user licenses

  • Pending on your oracle license type these may be affected as well.  (See “How to get the necessary information” Section below)


Oracle client software

You will need to install the oracle client software on the system that will need to access the database.  If your software uses the 64-bit ODBC settings, you will need to ensure you install the 64-bit version of the Oracle client.

The install can be found here:

https://penta-provisioning.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/oracle/oracle_32bit_client.zip

https://penta-provisioning.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/oracle/ORACLE_winx64_12c_client.zip

How to configure the TNSNames.ora

You need 3 components.  Server name, Database name, and port number 1521.

Here is a sample tnsnames.ora file for you to download:

https://penta-provisioning.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/oracle/tnsnames.ora


 

The following picture shows you the default location the oracle 32 bit client installs to.

 


In a Windows environment, we recommend you add the TNS_ADMIN environment variable in windows to point to the tnsnames.ora file path

 


Windows ODBC Settings

If your Third party software requires an ODBC setting in addition to tnsnames.ora configuration, please refer to your application-specific documentation. 

Networking and connectivity requirements

You will need INTERNAL Networking access to the Linux Database server on port 1521. 

If you are running Penta in an on-premise scenario, you should reach out to your Network Engineer or an equivalent team member who can verify this traffic is open.


How to get the necessary information

Please submit a Support Ticket requesting the following information:

Oracle 3rd party database connection information

Request - Database Server name, database name, and to create a read-only account. If you need an additional license, and any inquiry to your type of oracle license, unless you know it’s a per processor license which will be fine.  If you are using an Application Only license this will have to be addressed.  


Testing

Once you have all the necessary info and installed the client, you can test connectivity by using a telnet client.  I am basing this off Windows server source where your 3rd party software will be connecting from.


Command Prompt - Networking

At a command prompt type ‘telnet servername 1521’.

If the screen goes blank, you successfully connected via port 1521

*Note telnet client is not installed by default since windows server 2012.  You need to manually add the feature for this command to work



 


Powershell - Networking

Test-netconnection servername -port 1521

This will come back as success or fail



 


Command prompt  - oracle connection settings


You can run tnsping <server name> as this will test the actual connection to the database.