My company has just implemented Oracle 8.1.7 & i am in the process of using Oracle's NetAsst. to try & create my first database instance. however, with the limited knowledge i have of Oracle, can anyone tell me if there are any limitations or restrictions on what your global database name must be? mainly i'm referring to the length. also, can my global database name be anything i want? and if so, can my created global database name be the same as my tnsnames.ora entry? i ask because there will be several database instances i need to create on this same server, but think each instance could share a global name.