Oracle Database Administration for Microsoft SQL Server DBAs

Memory Structures

Databases use memory to cache data blocks for fast access. They have some processes that use memory for sorting or calculations, and other processes that use the memory allocated to cache results.

SQL Server has minimum and maximum values for the memory available for the server. Memory it uses is limited to the memory available on the server. The minimum value does not affect how much memory SQL Server will start with, but rather up to what point it will give back memory to the operating system if the memory isn’t being used. Planning the memory for a SQL Server system is based on how many database instances and application processes will be running on the server.

Oracle also uses the memory available on the server. Oracle can ...