A database is a collection of related tables and other database objects—views, indexes, and so on.
When you install Adaptive Server, it contains these system databases:
master – controls the user databases and the operation of Adaptive Server as a whole.
sybsystemprocs – contains the system stored procedures.
sybsystemdb – contains information about distributed transactions.
tempdb – stores temporary objects, including temporary tables created with the name prefix “tempdb..”.
model – is used by Adaptive Server as a template for creating new user databases.
In addition, system administrators can install these optional databases:
pubs2 – a sample database that contains data representing a publishing operation. You can use this database to test your server connections and learn Transact-SQL. Most of the examples in the Adaptive Server documentation use the pubs2 database.
pubs3 – a version of pubs2 that uses referential integrity examples. pubs3 has a table, store_employees, that uses a self-referencing column. pubs3 also includes an IDENTITY column in the sales table. Additionally, the primary keys in the pubs3 master tables use nonclustered unique indexes, and the titles table has an example of the numeric datatype.
interpubs – similar to pubs2, but contains French and German data.
jpubs – similar to pubs2, but contains Japanese data. Use it if you have installed the Japanese Language Module.
These optional databases are user databases. All of your data is stored in user databases. Adaptive Server manages each database by means of system tables. The data dictionary tables in the master database and in other databases are considered system tables.