About Oracle JDBC drivers

Oracle JDBC drivers can be grouped into two main categories with the following attributes:

Java-based drivers (thin client / Type 4 driver)
- implemented entirely in Java
- highly portable
- downloadable from the server system to a web browser
- connect using the TCP/IP protocol
- only option for applets (due to security restrictions)
OCI-based drivers (Type 2 driver)
- implemented using native method libraries (OCI DLLs)
- OCI libraries must be available on the client system
- cannot be downloaded to a browser
- can connect using any Net8 protocol
- high performance

The following figure illustrates how JDBC components and the driver run in the same memory space as an applet.

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The following figure illustrates how the Oracle JDBC OCI drivers run in a separate memory space from your Java application. These JDBC drivers make OCI calls to a separately loaded file.

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Note: Don't confuse the terms JDBC and JDBC drivers. All Java applications, no matter how they are developed or where they execute, ultimately use the JDBC-level drivers to connect to Oracle. However, coding using the pure JDBC API is low-level development, akin to using the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) to develop a database application. Like the OCI, the JDBC API provides a very powerful, but also very code-intensive, way of developing an application.