The full Teradata system is quite similar to a database in Oracle.
A database in Teradata is the same as a schema in Oracle.
A user is almost the same as a database in Teradata ( you can create objects in both), the main difference is the ability to logon to the system.
And there's a hierarchy of users & databases in Teradata, root is user dbc
. Users might own databases and databases might own users. A user has the implicit right to manage his children (i.e. GRANT
& REVOKE
access rights on owned databases & users).
End users are usually a leaf in the hierarchy, no children & no perm space to store tables.
For more details see: About Databases and Users in Teradata