This chapter describes the challenges of operating in a heterogeneous environment. Oracle recognizes these challenges and offers both synchronous and asynchronous solutions that enable companies to easily operate in such an environment. The synchronous solution, Oracle Database gateway, is discussed in this guide.

• The Information Integration Challenge
  Information integration is a challenge that affects many organizations because they may run several different database systems.
• How Oracle Addresses Synchronous Information Integration
  Using an Oracle Database gateway, you can access data anywhere in a distributed database system without being required to know either the location of the data or how it is stored.
• Benefits of Oracle's Solution for Synchronous Information Integration
  The processing power of Oracle Database gateways is integrated into the database.