How many databases does a sybase instance have?

Question

I'm a newbie to sybase and could not find the clear answers on Sybase tutorials/docs

• How many databases can one Sybase instance have? Oracle has one instance which corresponds to only one database, is it the same with Sybase ?
• What is a master database, is it a db that holds metadata? Does each instance have one master database ?
• What is a user database ? Is it similar to a tenant db in sap hana ?

Answer 1

ASE can have up to 32K dbs (includes various system dbs).

The master db holds server wide metadata (eg, logins, roles, configs, databases) and can also hold user data (though this is discouraged).

Other system databases include sybsystemprocs (collection of system stored procs and functions), tempdb (temporary scratch space; DBA can create additional temporary dbs), model (template used when creating a new database), sybsystemdb (used to manage distributed txns); there are several other system dbs that can exist depending on options/features the DBA enables.

Any other databases would fall under the heading of user databases.

And yeah, a user db would be similar to a HANA tenant db, though all ASE databases are accessed via the same host:port combo (HANA tenants have their own port if I recall correctly).