Access to the database is granted to a database account known as a user. A user may exist in the database without owning any objects. However, if the user creates and owns objects in the database, those objects are part of a schema that has the same name as the database user. A schema can own any type of object in the database:
- tables,
- indexes,
- sequences, and
- views
With database authentication, the encrypted password for the user is stored in the database.
In contrast, operating system authentication makes an assumption that a user who is already authenticated by an operating
system connection has the same privileges as a user with the same or similar name (depending on the value of the OS_AUTHENT_PREFIX initialization parameter). Network authentication uses solutions based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
These network authentication methods require Oracle 11g or 12c Enterprise Edition with the Oracle Advanced Security option.