The Sybase Server
A Sybase server consists of:
A) two processes, data server and backup server ;
B) devices which house the databases; one database (master) contains system and configuration data ;
C) a configuration file which contains the server attributes. The Oracle Instance
An Oracle instance consists of:
A) five processes: system monitor, process monitor, db writer, checkpoint, and log writer.
B) data files which contain the tables and other data objects, control files which contain configuration information, redo log files for transaction processing, and archive files for recovery purposes.
C) configuration files which contains the instance attributes, and external security information | 
