The relationship between servers and databases is different in Adaptive Server Enterprise and SQL Anywhere.

In Adaptive Server Enterprise, each database exists inside a server, and each server can contain several databases. Users can have login rights to the server, and can connect to the server. They can then use each database on that server for which they have permissions. System-wide system tables, held in a master database, contain information common to all databases on the server.

No master database in SQL Anywhere

In SQL Anywhere, there is no level corresponding to the Adaptive Server Enterprise master database. Instead, each database is an independent entity, containing all of its system tables. Users can have connection rights to a database, not to the server. When a user connects, they connect to an individual database. There is no system-wide set of system tables maintained at a master database level. Each SQL Anywhere database server can dynamically load and unload multiple databases, and users can maintain independent connections on each.

SQL Anywhere provides tools in its Transact-SQL support and in its Open Server support to allow some tasks to be performed in a manner similar to Adaptive Server Enterprise. For example, SQL Anywhere provides an implementation of the Adaptive Server Enterprise sp_addlogin system procedure that performs the nearest equivalent action: adding a user to a database. See Using SQL Anywhere as an Open Server.

File manipulation statements

SQL Anywhere does not support the Transact-SQL statements DUMP DATABASE and LOAD DATABASE for backing up and restoring. Instead, SQL Anywhere has its own BACKUP DATABASE and RESTORE DATABASE statements with different syntax.