A Namespace is a predefined group of resources that consists of datastores, networks (application network), and external storage (local and cloud storage). It is a logical grouping or subset of the resources of an environment that can be used for provisioning a database.
The default storage (datastore, local storage, and cloud storage) and network options (application network) that you select during onboarding an environment creates the Namespace for the environment that is onboarded.
A Namespace is created from an environment. If a Provider Administrator onboards an environment, the Provider Administrator needs to associate the environment with an organization and the Namespace created from the onboarded environment is also implicitly associated with the organization. However, if an Organization User onboards an environment, the association of the environment and Namespace with that organization is established automatically.
If an organization onboards more than one environment and associated Namespaces, you have the option to select any one of the Namespaces associated with that organization during the process of provisioning databases in that organization.
Apart from provisioning Replica databases, all other database operations, such as backup, restore, recover, PITR, and so on, use the same Namespace as the database on which these operations are performed. During the process of provisioning a Replica database, you have the option of selecting any one of the Namespaces associated with the organization in which it is replicated.
If you navigate from Databases in the left navigation pane, and then select a database from the list of databases in the Databases view, you can see the Namespace associated with that database in the Environment section of the VM Settings tab.
When you modify the default resources of an environment of a Namespace, such as the networks, datastore, and external storage, the Namespace associated with the environment is modified automatically.