1 Overview

Oracle used the schema SCOTT with its two prominent tables EMP and DEPT for many years. With advances in Oracle Database technology, these tables have become inadequate to show even the most basic features of Oracle Database and other Oracle products. As a result, many other schemas have been created over the years to suit the needs of product documentation, courseware, software development, and application demos.

This chapter contains the following topics:

About Sample Schemas
Oracle Database Sample Schemas Design Principles
Customer Benefits of Sample Schemas

About Sample Schemas

The Oracle Database Sample Schemas provide a common platform for examples in each release of the Oracle Database. All Oracle Database documentation and training materials are being converted to Sample Schemas environment as those materials are updated.

The Oracle Database Sample Schemas are a set of interlinked schemas. This set of schemas provides a layered approach to complexity:

A simple schema Human Resources (HR) is useful for introducing basic topics. An extension to this schema supports Oracle Internet Directory demos.
A second schema, Order Entry (OE), is useful for dealing with matters of intermediate complexity. Many data types are available in this schema, including nonscalar data types.
The Online Catalog (OC) subschema is a collection of object-relational database objects built inside the OE schema.
The Product Media (PM) schema is dedicated to multimedia data types.
A set of schemas gathered under the main schema name Information Exchange (IX) can demonstrate Oracle Advanced Queuing capabilities.
The Sales History (SH) schema is designed to allow for demos with large amounts of data. An extension to this schema provides support for advanced analytic processing.

Oracle Database Sample Schemas Design Principles

Sample Schemas have been created and enhanced with the following design principles in mind:

Simplicity and ease of use. The HR and OE schemas are intentionally simple. They will not become overly complex by the addition of features. Rather, they are intended to provide a graduated path from the simple to intermediate levels of database use.
Relevance for typical users. The base schemas and the extensions bring to the foreground the functionality that customers typically use. Only the most commonly used database objects are built automatically in the schemas. The entire set of schemas provides a foundation upon which one can expand to illustrate additional functionality.
Extensibility. Sample Schemas provide a logical and physical foundation for adding objects to demonstrate functionality beyond the fundamental scope.
Relevance. Sample Schemas are designed to be applicable to e-business and other significant industry trends (for example, XML). When this goal conflicts with the goal of simplicity, schema extensions are used to showcase the trends in focus.

Customer Benefits of Sample Schemas

Benefits of Sample Schemas are as follows:

Continuity of context. When encountering the same set of tables everywhere, users, students, and developers can spend less time becoming familiar with the schema and more time understanding or explaining the technical concepts.
Usability. Customers can use these schemas in the seed database to run examples that are shown in Oracle documentation and training materials. This first-hand access to examples facilitates both conceptual understanding and application development.
Quality. Through central maintenance and testing of both the creation scripts that build Sample Schemas and the examples that run against the schemas, the quality of Oracle documentation and training materials is enhanced.