Visualizing the Complete Oracle Environment - Oracle 10g Database Administration Concepts and Implementation Made Simple - page 7

7) Never forget the concept of following three terms

o

Instance

o Database

o Session

8) Following analogies help you in building concepts

Instance = Genie
Database = Notebook
Session = Aladdin (or connected Users)
9) Users can connect to Oracle server independent of their
location.

10) Oracle Server: When we talk about Oracle Instance &
Oracle Database collectively we use the word Oracle
Server.