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Oracle Database Architecture

The oracle database is composed of the following components:

1. The Oracle software that you install on your host computer
2. The database, which is a collection of physical files on one or more disks
3. The Oracle instance, which is composed of the following:
   • The background processes, which are the operating system processes or threads that perform the work of accessing, storing, monitoring, and recovering user data, metadata, and control files associated with the database
   • The shared memory areas used by the background processes
4. Server processes that perform work on behalf of connected users and applications, and the memory and temporary storage used by these processes 5. Oracle Net, which is a software layer that enables client applications and Oracle Database to communicate over a network, and the Oracle Net listener, which is a process that listens for connection requests from the network.