Tables & Databases

Hi,

I am new to database concepts and look to develop my skills in it.

I am confused about the difference between "TABLES" and "DATABSASES"...are they the same thing? I read about "employee tables" "customer tables" and then i read about "employee databases" and "customer databases"...my questions are:

1) are tables and databses same thing? (and used interchangibly?)
2) how many databases are there typically in a small sized companies (say a company with 100 employess and about 600 customers)...what do you think will be the ideal number of databses in a comapny of that size?
3) Will running an Oracle Database for such a coampny (with 100 employees and 600 customers) be feesable?

Thanks!- look forward to your comments

1) The best thing here is to have a look at the Oracle Concepts Guide. Here's the index page ... http://download-west.oracle.com/docs...b14220/toc.htm Have a look at the "Oracle Database Architecture" section and it will give you an extremely thorough grounding in many important concepts -- tablespaces, data files, tables, indexes, views etc.

2) Very difficult to answer. It could just be half a dozen important ones, oe if you include all the ad-hov desktop databases that individual employees throw together you could be looking at over a hundred.

3) Absolutely. Oracle is not just the behemoth of Enterprise Edition -- look at the Standard Edition and how you could use Oracle's Application Express to centralise a shed-load of minor (and quite major) applications.

Thanks for the link slimdave!!