Help me put Oracle terminology into SQL Server terminology

sql sql-server oracle terminology rdbms
Jason Baker picture Jason Baker · Jul 6, 2009 · Viewed 8.8k times · Source

My company is now supporting Oracle for the first time, and most of my colleagues are SQL Server developers who haven't really worked with Oracle. I'm a little bit familiar with Oracle, but far from a genius on the subject. Unfortunately, that is enough to mean that I know more about Oracle than most of my co-workers, so I find myself constantly struggling to explain concepts I'm still learning myself in terms that people who aren't familiar with Oracle at all can understand.

The biggest problem that I run into is in knowing how SQL Server terminology translates into Oracle terminology. I understand that there's not a direct 1:1 mapping of terms, but it would be helpful to be able to know how to put Oracle concepts into SQL Server terminology and vice-versa when talking to my SQL Server-centric co-workers. Can someone tell me the best way to put these SQL Server terms into Oracle terminology?

  • database
  • instance
  • schema

And conversely, how to explain these Oracle concepts in SQL Server terms?

  • tablespace
  • database
  • listener
  • service name
  • SID

Answer

Osama Al-Maadeed picture Osama Al-Maadeed · Jul 6, 2009

Oracle/SQLServer:

  • tablespace = doesn't exist
  • database = doesn't exist
  • instance = instance
  • schema = database
  • listener = doesn't exist
  • service name = database name
  • SID = database name

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