Question

I have an oracle 11g database. As I understand it, but have not tried it, you can expose a procedure in the database as a web service. But, since I own the database, is there any advantage to using that web service versus just hitting the database directly with ODBC?

I have an Intranet to display the results in and the data will never be shared with anyone outside of my front end web page. So, is there some benefit to doing it with a web service vs. just regular old odbc? No “magic” because it’s a web service (other than buzz word)?

thank you.

Answer 1

I would say the advantages of using a web service are these:

1) Security – you’re not directly exposing your database.
2) Typing – your web service can return strongly-typed objects.

If you’re talking about an intranet application, I would hit the database directly.

I’d be interested in other people’s responses though.