title: Difference between NVARCHAR in Oracle and SQL Server?
body: <p>We are migrating some data from sql server to oracle. For columns defined as <code>NVARCHAR</code> in SQL server we started creating <code>NVARCHAR</code> columns in Oracle thinking them to be similar..But it looks like they are not.</p>
  
  <p>I have read couple of posts on stackoverflow and want to confirm my findings.</p>
  
  <p>Oracle VARCHAR2 already supports unicode if the database character set is say AL32UTF8 (which is true for our case).</p>
  
  <p>SQLServer <code>VARCHAR</code> <strong>does not</strong> support unicode. SQLServer explicitly requires columns to be in <code>NCHAR/NVARCHAR</code> type to store data in unicode (specifically in the 2 byte UCS-2 format)..</p>
  
  <p>Hence would it be correct to say that SQL Server NVARCHAR columns can/should be migrated as Oracle VARCHAR2 columns ? </p>