Oracle provides for the creation of multiple Oracle database configurations which all use a single Oracle installation. This is normally seen in test and development system to allow for a single server to house multiple databases with reduced space usage. In this article will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such a configuration, in order to determine which would best suit your needs.

Advantages:

1. Uses less disk space.
2. Environmental parameter setup centrally located.
3. Reduced time in patching all databases.
4. Reduced network setup configuration.

Disadvantages:

1. Corruption of binaries affects all databases.
2. Unable to patch a single database instance without affecting all instances.
3. Unable to shutdown network configuration to single database.
4. Oracle software owner is a single point of failure.

Larry J Catt, OCP 9i, 10g
oracle@allcompute.com
www.allcompute.com