|Oracle® Database Concepts 11g Release 2 (11.2) |PDF · Mobi ·
ePub| This chapter contains the following sections: A process is
a mechanism in an operating system that can run a series of
steps. The mechanism depends on the operating system. For
example, on Linux an Oracle background process is a Linux
process. On Windows, an Oracle background process is a thread of
execution within a process. Code modules are run by processes.
All connected Oracle Database users must run the following
modules to access a database instance: Application or Oracle
Database utility A database user runs a database application,
such as a precompiler program or a database tool such as
SQL*Plus, that issues SQL statements to a database. Oracle
database code Each user has Oracle database code executing on
his or her behalf that interprets and processes the
application's SQL statements. A process normally runs in its own
private memory area. Most processes can periodically write to an
associated trace file (see "Trace Files"). Multiple