Synching SharePoint 2013 List with Oracle

Question

I'm having an issue where a customer wants to populate a SharePoint 2013 List with a data from Oracle (using a query) and have that List automatically synched with the Oracle database daily.

From my understanding the External Content Type is just a direct view of the external database pulled in real-time to SharePoint? What if in the SharePoint the user adds more data for the External List? When the External List is refreshed, will the key/id relationship (if any) exist in the External List so that user entry will map to the correct External List entry (with the data from Oracle)?

How should I go about any Oracle data synchronization with any List in SharePoint automatically? What are the ways I should go about doing this?

Answer 1

I haven't exactly worked with External Content Types. But I did displayed SQL table into SharePoint using Visual WebPart. If you are allowed to deploy sandbox/farm code into your SharePoint Environment, than you can create a visual webpart and do sql query to your oracle database just like you would do with ado.net applications and display the result in your sharepoint page. You can create a asp.net gridview to do CRUD operations as well.

Answer 2

View and modify data stored at an external database is an OOTB Feature of SharePoint. The Feature is called BDC and supports live CRUD operations. So there is no synchronization required. There are plenty samples on the net. For oracle have a look to

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff464424(v=office.14).aspx

or with a 3rd party tool: http://www.layer2solutions.com/en/community/FAQs/BDLC/Pages/How-to-connect-SharePoint-list-with-Oracle-data.aspx