Linked DB -- availability function?

[dswitzer]

I have an Oracle DB setup as a linked server -- which a DTS package hits early in the morning.

My problem is that if the linked DB is not available when the DTS runs -- it fails.

Is there a way to systemically check to see if the server is available? I guess I can do some sort of DTS quick query -- if it fails, wait for 5 minutes and try the query again until it works -- but it seems like that is not the best way to do this.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[jhall156]

Perhaps you could use OpenQuery() and see if you get a result like

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM OPENQUERY(YourLinkedServer,'SELECT stuff FROM YourOracleTable')

JHall