Re: Informix to Oracle question

Comments embedded

Hth,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA

"VWP914" <vwp914_at_aol.com> wrote in message news:20001117013307.15477.00000166_at_ng-bh1.aol.com...
> Hi everybody:
>
> I come from an Informix background where we log into a particular database
> instance by going to the directory, and typing 'isql' to get in. In
 Oracle, it
> seems that all the tables are kept in one central location and only
 seperated
> by users. This leads me to wonder what happens when you run out of space
 on
> that partition. Is there not a way to have seperate instances of
databases?

Sure there is. However, putting all applications in their own database is not desirable.

> For example, can a marketing database be kept in a different directory
 from an
> accounting database, etc?
>

If you have different applications implemented as different schema's, you can easily create new tablespaces for that application. Doing so, you can spread them across disks.

> My other question concerns backup. In Informix, when someone screws up a
 table
> really bad, we just restore the files that make up that table. Does the
 same
> hold for Oracle?
>

No, a database is a logical whole. Screwing up a tablespace would mean you would have to reset the entire tablespace. This is why export was invented: it provides you with a *logical* copy of the database instead of a *physical* one.
Please read the Oracle Concepts Manual to get a clearer picture. It's online at http://technet.oracle.com

And forget about Informix or Sybase or Sqlserver or whatever. Trying to have Oracle behave like any of these products from the Oracle perspective will result in major disasters.

> Any help would be much appreciated.
Received on Fri Nov 17 2000 - 00:44:48 CST