Access an Oracle database on a different computer

[Victor Geere]

I agree.  I would just like to add that you have to have the Oracle client software installed on the application server, which is kind of implied when you need a tnsname.
Good luck.
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"We are using PH 810c on Alpha OpenVMS to access both our RDB database and an Oracle 7 database. The TNSNAMES.ORA file on VMS contains the Oracle DB descriptors (which resides on a Unix box) - our 810c dictionary is built from a PDL: "