Re: Databases in a server box

Usually, there is just one SQL Server *server* on a box, no? Within which there are many databases.

Well, Oracle is just the same. Usually, there is just one Instance on a box, managing one database. Within that database, there are many tablespaces, and many schemas.

As Sean M points out, though, you can have many instances/databases on the one box. Within each of which will be many tablespaces and schemas.

The point is, an Oracle database is more like the SQL Server server itself. It's not the same thing as a SQL Server database at all.

Actually, just yesterday, I was watching a video called 'SQL Server 2000 for the Oracle Customer' in which the presenter sneakily made just this confusion to get his (marketing) point across: "Look how complicated it is to create an Oracle database", he said. "See how many files there are, and how big they are!! Now look at how quickly I can create a SQL Server database (click click)... and how small they are!!" (he'd created a SQL Server database of 1M!!!). I was practically yelling at the video: compare apples with apples! Had he created a 1M tablespace in Oracle, that would have been a fair comparison. Had he gone to the C:\Program Files\MSSQL directory and shown how many files there were there, and how big they were, that would have been a fair comparison. But as he was trying to sell SQL Server, he compared one component of Oracle with a completely different component of SQL Server... which unfortunately happen to share the same name 'database'.

Regards
HJR "NoName" <PlayMan_at_Somewhere.com> wrote in message news:VCcA8.1425$ce4.128371_at_newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> Hi,
>
> I am MS SQL DBA in a large company. In SQL servers, we have 20-50
databases
> in each box, but in Oracle servers, only one database in each Unix box,
even
> for very small databases (a hundred MB). Is that supposed to be? Can't or
> Shouldn't Oracle server host more databases? Thanks.
>
>
Received on Thu May 02 2002 - 17:46:45 CDT