sql server - What is the difference between an Oracle and Microsoft schema?

Question

I am working on an enterprise project. Some members of the team have an Oracle background and some have a Microsoft SQL Server background. There is much confusion when we talk about schemas. I am trying to provide some clarity. Is this an accurate way to describe the difference in the meaning of schemas between the two technologies?

• An Oracle schema is associated with a single user and consists of the objects owned by the user.
• A MS SQL Server schema is a namespace.

Answer 1

Oracle schemas are like My Documents folders in the Windows OS. A user can grant permissions to other users to see things in their schema but an Oracle schema is essentially a user's workspace.

MS SQL Server's schemas are namespaces. While you can have Accounting and Marketing schemas, they are not tightly-coupled to individual users. Objects in an Accounting schema contain accounting information and objects in the Marketing schema have marketing information.

Oracle schemas are tightly-coupled to users and MS SQL Server schemas are primarily for classification.

See this question for more information: Difference between SQL Server and Oracle user