Oracle Database 12C What is plugable database ?

Pluggable Databases (PDBs) is new in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1). You can have many pluggable databases inside a single Oracle Database occurrence. Pluggable Databases are fully backwards compatible with an ordinary pre-12.1 database.

Here this is example basic CDB / PDB Operations

How do I know if my database is Container Database or  Non Container database ?

SQL> select NAME, DECODE(CDB, 'YES', 'CONTAINER DATABASE', 'NON CONTAINER DATABASE') "Container DB ?" , OPEN_MODE, CON_ID from V$DATABASE;

NAME               Container DB ?                 OPEN_MODE                   CON_ID
---------           ------------------------       --------------------           ----------
CDB2              CONTAINER DATABASE       MOUNTED                       0

What Pluggable databases do we have in this container database ?

SQL>  select CON_ID, NAME, OPEN_MODE from V$PDBS;

    CON_ID NAME                          OPEN_MODE
---------- ------------------------       ------------
         2 PDB$SEED                        READ ONLY
         3 PDB1                                 MOUNTED
         4 PDB2                                 MOUNTED
         5 PDB3                                 MOUNTED
         6 PDB4                                 MOUNTED
         7 PDB5                                 MOUNTED
         8 PDB6                                 MOUNTED
         9 PDB7                                 MOUNTED
 ...

How do I connect to a Pluggable Database , say, PDB5 ?

SQL> alter session set container = pdb5;

How do I switch to main container Database ?

SQL> ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = CDB$ROOT;

How do I determine which PDB or CDB I am currently connected to ?

SQL> show con_name

CON_NAME
------------------------------
PDB5

Enjoy Oracle Database 12C !!! 

Chatchai