Simon Willison’s Weblog

What is way that android connect to Oracle database?

24th October 2013

My answer to What is way that android connect to Oracle database? on Quora

As a general rule it’s not a good idea to allow mobile devices to connect directly to a server-side database, as it’s an invitation to hackers to figure out what’s going on and then connect to the database themselves for nefarious reasons.

Instead, most apps have a server-side web service API (usually REST-ish) which the mobile app talks to. This API then communicates with the database. Instead of exposing SQL statements directly to the device, the API provides a restricted, application-specific set of functionality that the mobile app can use.