Oracle DB connection
Oracle DB is a relational database management system. In Prophecy, you can connect to Oracle to read from and write to database tables as part of your pipelines. This page explains how to set up the connection, including required parameters, permissions, and how connections are shared within teams.
Prerequisites
Prophecy connects to Oracle using the database credentials you provide. These credentials are used to authenticate your session and authorize all data operations performed during pipeline execution. To use an Oracle connection effectively, your user account must have:
- Read access to query data from tables
- Write access to insert, update, or delete data
Feature support
The table below outlines whether the connection supports certain Prophecy features.
| Feature | Supported |
|---|---|
| Read data with a Source gem | Yes |
| Write data with a Target gem | No |
| Browse data in the Environment browser | Yes |
Connection parameters
To create a connection with Oracle, enter the following parameters:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Connection name | A name to identify your connection in Prophecy |
| Server | Hostname of the Oracle database server |
| Port | Port used by the Oracle database (default is 1521) |
| Username | Username for connecting to the Oracle database |
| Database | Oracle Service Name or SID of the target database |
| Password (Secret required) | Password for the specified user |
Data type mapping
When Prophecy processes data from Oracle using SQL warehouses, it converts Oracle-specific data types to formats compatible with your target warehouse. This table shows how Oracle data types are transformed for Databricks and BigQuery.
| Oracle | Databricks | BigQuery |
|---|---|---|
| NUMBER | DECIMAL(38,5) Alias: Decimal | BIGNUMERIC(38, 5) Alias: BigNumeric |
| SMALLINT / INTEGER / NUMBER(38) | BIGINT Alias: Bigint | INT64 Alias: Integer |
| FLOAT | DOUBLE Alias: Double | FLOAT64 Alias: Float |
| REAL / FLOAT(63) | DOUBLE Alias: Double | FLOAT64 Alias: Float |
| DOUBLE PRECISION / FLOAT(126) | DOUBLE Alias: Double | FLOAT64 Alias: Float |
| BINARY_FLOAT | DOUBLE Alias: Double | FLOAT64 Alias: Float |
| BINARY_DOUBLE | DOUBLE Alias: Double | FLOAT64 Alias: Float |
| DECIMAL | DECIMAL(38,5) Alias: Decimal | BIGNUMERIC(38, 5) Alias: BigNumeric |
| NUMERIC | DECIMAL(38,5) Alias: Decimal | BIGNUMERIC(38, 5) Alias: BigNumeric |
| CHAR | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| VARCHAR | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| VARCHAR2 | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| NCHAR | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| NVARCHAR2 | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| LONG | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| CLOB | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| NCLOB | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| BLOB | BINARY Alias: Binary | BYTES Alias: Bytes |
| DATE | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp |
| TIMESTAMP | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp |
| TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp |
| TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp | TIMESTAMP Alias: Timestamp |
| INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| RAW | BINARY Alias: Binary | BYTES Alias: Bytes |
| LONG RAW | BINARY Alias: Binary | BYTES Alias: Bytes |
| XMLType | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| BOOLEAN | BOOLEAN Alias: Boolean | BOOL Alias: Boolean |
| URIType | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| DBURIType | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| XDBURIType | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| HTTPURIType | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| LongVarChar | STRING Alias: String | STRING Alias: String |
| LongRaw | BINARY Alias: Binary | BYTES Alias: Bytes |
Learn more in Supported data types.
Sharing connections within teams
Connections in Prophecy are stored within fabrics, which are assigned to specific teams. Once an Oracle connection is added to a fabric, all team members who have access to the fabric can use the connection in their projects. No additional authentication is required—team members automatically inherit the access and permissions of the stored connection credentials.
Be mindful of the access level granted by the stored credentials. Anyone on the team will have the same permissions—including access to sensitive data if allowed.
To manage this securely, consider creating a dedicated fabric and team for high-sensitivity connections. This way, only approved users have access to those credentials.
Fetching data
Prophecy fetches data from Oracle connections in the following ways:
-
When you browse an Oracle connection in the Environment browser, Prophecy fetches data on demand as you expand folders. You can manually refresh the Environment browser to see updated files.
-
When a pipeline runs, Source gems will read the latest available version of the data. If the schema of your data in Oracle changes, Prophecy will automatically use the new schema.