Virtual federation is about leaving the data where it is and providing the user community with a view to the data through the tool of their choice, including a web browser. Instead of moving data around like physical federation, an Oracle product is used to provide users with a single view of their data. Virtual federation using Oracle products can be done at the developer level using SQL, using Java development tools to service-enable any data source, drag and drop development using Oracle JDeveloper, and by end users using Oracle Business Intelligence tools.
The core of Oracle's database virtual federation strategy is Heterogeneous Services (HS). Heterogeneous Services provides transparent and generic gateway technology to connect to non-Oracle systems. Heterogeneous Services is an integrated component of the database. Therefore, it can exploit all the capabilities of the Oracle database including PL/SQL and Oracle SQL...