I’ve been working with Oracle since version 8.0 and have wanted to be able to select * from some.table@db2 within Oracle since version 8.0. The technology has existed but it was never easy enough for me. There were heterogeneous services which sounds pleasant but I never could get it to work. So, I’ve worked through 8i, 9i, 10g and finally 11g. In 11g I’ve finally made the connection. Literally.