Jonathan Kehayias (1/21/2010)
Funny you should mention that because there is no SAFE or EXTERNAL ACCESS support for accessing external data sources such as Oracle for SQLCLR so you have to do things like use UNSAFE and enable TRUSTWORTHY on the database to load third party assemblies that you don't have key files for or create excessive amounts of work trying to build certificates off all the dependent signed assemblies.
You're right: some external access requires jumping through security hoops, which makes it painful. Striking a good balance beween security and ease of use is still a work in progress.
That said, EXTERNAL ACCESS often works fine (e.g., for files, networks, registry settings). And even when you have to jump through security hoops, the actual code that does the data access will generally be simpler and clearer in .NET than T-SQL. Much as I like T-SQL, it just wasn't built for that sort of thing. 🙂
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