Work with schemas

  • 3 minutes

In SQL Server database systems, tables are defined within schemas to create logical namespaces in the database. For example, a Customer table might be defined in a Sales schema, while a Product table is defined in a Production schema. The database might track details of orders that customers have placed in an Order table in the Sales schema. You then might also need to track orders from suppliers for product components in an Order table in the Production schema.

A schema named Sales containing Order and Customer tables, and a schema named Production containing Order and Product tables

Database systems such as SQL Server use a hierarchical naming system. This multi-level naming helps to disambiguate tables with the same name in different schemas. The fully qualified name of an object includes the name of a database server instance in which the database is stored, the name of the database, the schema name, and the table name. For example: Server1.StoreDB.Sales.Order.

When working with tables within the context of a single database, it's common to refer to tables (and other objects) by including the schema name. For example, Sales.Order.