Allocation is done for each multi-tenant database object for each tenant, except when set to not allocate. A storage object is created even if space for an object is not allocated. When space is allocated for an object it is known as a partition.

There are three types of multi-tenant database objects: tables, the indexes defined for tables, and the LOBs (CLOBs and BLOBs) defined for that table. As a group, the database objects defined for a table are known as a table instance.