No its not that simple. We have the right details. We do indeed get connections to the db using the IP. We can see the meta data connections pass thru just fine. The query that runs WHERE (1=2) or whatever it is to get the column mapping info. The problem happens when it goes back to do the actual work of getting the data.
We may have found a workaround .. using the physical IP address of one node (of 8) rather then using the rac IP’s or virtual IPs. (Oracle Exadata). Its not great since we are losing the load balancing aspects of RAC.