A service name is a logical representation of a service, which may include a database. A service may comprise one or more instances. When creating a net service name, you must identify a release 8.1 service with a service name. Optionally, you may identify a release 8.1 instance with a instance name.

The service name is typically the global database name, a name comprised of the database name and domain name, entered during database creation. If you are not sure what the global database name, you can obtain it from the combined values of the SERVICE_NAMES and DB_DOMAIN parameters in the database initialization file, INIT.ORA. For example, if an Oracle8i database has a service name of SALES and a domain of COM, you specify a service name of SALES.COM to identify the service.