Sqlplus meets the cloud.....

Love sqlplus but looking to make use of the cloud.....?


This 'functionality' has been around for a long time (maybe even prior to 9i - i didn't have anything old enough running where i could test it) but I've never seen anyone (other than me) actually ever use it. That could be because it's not useful and to be honest i've never really used it for anything really meaningful but it is occasionally useful and it's nice to know this feature is available....

So what is this mysterious cloud feature i speak of?

Well how would it be if you could run sql scripts that are stored in the cloud directly in a sqlplus session - wouldn't that just be amazing (well maybe amazing is stretching it).

Well you already can - just execute the script like this

I create a dummy sql file (test.sql) and stick it on a webserver  cloud server somewhere - the contents of test.sql is as follows:

select sysdate from dual;

(original eh?)

Now if we log on to sqlplus we can do this

SQLPLUS>@http://some-random-cloudserver/test.sql

SYSDATE
--------------------
10-OCT-2014 18:21:41

groundbreaking stuff.....

So in theory you could just store all your scripts somewhere in the internet cloud and you can access them from anywhere (assuming you can reach the webserver from your db server).

For me at least external sites clouds are difficult to reach from db servers as everything is pretty much blocked - however you could use an internal webserver cloud  which can be reached.

Calling some total strangers sql files remotely maybe isn't such a hot idea though - there could be any series of nasty things lurking in the cloud......

You think i shoehorned enough mentions of cloud into this... :-)