The author (Lincoln A Baxter) of the article I linked above explains that beginning with Perl 5.8.0, the $SIG{ALRM} doesn't work as it previously did, that the code just hangs. At least as it relates to connects and long running statements attempting to communicate with Oracle.

I have not had the time to test his assertion, but have given him the benefit of the doubt. I also hesitate to quote directly from his article, though I imagine since it is on the cpan.org site, it might not be an issue.

Since the code you posted is minimal, I will test it and relay the results here.