Preface

This manual describes all features of the Oracle database server, an object-relational database management system. It describes how the Oracle database server functions, and it lays a conceptual foundation for much of the practical information contained in other manuals. Information in this manual applies to the Oracle database server running on all operating systems.

This preface contains these topics:

• Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Related Documentation

• Conventions

Audience

Oracle Database Concepts is intended for database administrators, system administrators, and database application developers.

To use this document, you need to know the following:

• Relational database concepts in general

• Concepts and terminology in Chapter 1, "Introduction to the Oracle Database"

• The operating system environment under which you are running Oracle

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Related Documentation

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for information about upgrading a previous release of Oracle

• Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for information about how to administer the Oracle database server

• Oracle Database Application Developer's Guide - Fundamentals for information about developing Oracle database applications

• Oracle Database Performance Tuning Guide for information about optimizing performance of an Oracle database

• Oracle Database Data Warehousing Guide for information about data warehousing and business intelligence

Many books in the documentation set use the sample schemas of the seed database, which is installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document: