# Oracle Protocol Agent

This Protocol Agent handles Oracle Transparent Network Substrate (TNS) protocol-based SQL*Net, Net7, and Net8 connections.

It is for cases where TCP port 1521 is used only for negotiating the port number for Oracle database connections and the port number for the actual connection is assigned dynamically.

This Protocol Agent is needed only if the database is on a different computer than the Oracle listener. The Oracle Protocol Agent does not change payload data because the database service connections might go through a different route than the listener connection. You can create custom Oracle agents with different settings when required.