If you select an Oracle external loader, the default external loader executable name is sqlload. This is accurate for most UNIX platforms, but if you use Windows, check the Oracle documentation to find the name of the external loader executable.

For a connection that uses Oracle OS Authentication, enter the PmNullUser user name and PmNullPasswd when you create the external loader connection. PowerCenter uses Oracle OS Authentication when the connection user name is PmNullUser and the connection is to an Oracle database.

The target flat file for an Oracle external loader can be fixed-width or delimited.

For optimal performance when writing to a partitioned target, select Direct Path. For more information, see the Oracle documentation.

If you configure a session to write subsecond data to a Timestamp column in an Oracle 10.x or Oracle 11.x target, the Integration Service writes subsecond data up to microseconds by default. To ensure greater precision, edit the control file and change the Timestamp precision. For example, specify TIMESTAMP(9) to process nanoseconds.

For optimal performance, use the following guidelines to determine settings for partitioned and non-partitioned targets:

Target	Load Method	Parallel Load	Load Mode
Partitioned	Direct Path	enable	Append
Partitioned	Conventional Path	enable	n/a
Non-partitioned	n/a	disable*	n/a
* If you disable parallel load, you must choose round-robin partitioning to route data to a single target file.