| Home | A Database Management System (DBMS)
is used to manage relational databases. A few popular database systems
are Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle. These
DBMS keep data stored in a structured environment and data is easy to
retrieve by users or software. Basically, a DBMS is a software program
that has a purpose to store important data that is structured and
organized,
supports a query language (ex. SQL), produces reports, and create data
entry screens (ex. forms in Access). With a DBMS, it's easy to add new categories or modify the database without disrupting the system. Usually system design decisions are done by systems analysts and database design is done by database administrators. DBMS and related software run on database servers, which usually are multiprocessor computers with RAID disk arrays used for storage. Hardware database accelerators are used in large volume transaction processing environments. Organizations may use one DBMS for daily transaction processing and another DBMS for random inquiries and analysis. DBMS includes four main building blocks. These are the modeling language, the data structure, the database query language, and the transaction. The modeling language defines the schema of each database about how the data would be processed in the DBMS based on the data model. The four common data models are the hierarchical model, the network model, the relational model, and the object model. The hierarchical model is when data is organized in a tree-like structure. The network model allows data to have multiple parent and child records unlike the hierarchical model when each record has one parent record and many children records. The relational model is based on first-order predicate logic and is discussed on the relational database page. The object model is a collection of objects used for a program to perform its function. Data structures are the fields, records, files, and objects optimized for large amounts of data stored on a data storage device. A database query language allows users to interactively interrogate the database, analyze its data, and update it according to the users privileges on data. A database query language also controls data security. A database transaction mechanism maintains the integrity of the data in the database by not allowing more than one user to update the same record at the same time and preventing duplicate records. |
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