What Is a Database Management System (DBMS)?
Read how a DBMS helps you manage business-critical databases in an organized and secure way.
What Is a Database Management System (DBMS)?
What Is a Database?
A database is a collection of business-critical information stored electronically in a computer system. The data is categorized to be easier to search, access, update, and manage. Businesses can process useful information from a database such as customer data, inventory, accounting information, employee data, and more.
Application of Databases
Databases are used in various sectors:
- Banks have massive amounts of customer data, including information about their account activities, transaction histories, loans, and so on stored in databases
- Telecom companies use databases to store and retrieve call records, monthly bills, and more
- Manufacturing industries use databases to manage supply chains, track the production of items, maintain inventory, and check the status of warehouses
- HR Management teams use them to maintain employee-related information such as salaries, paychecks, and payroll
- IT companies use databases to centralize business-critical, security-sensitive, and compliance-focused information that grows exponentially as the business grows
Database management is crucial as it helps administrators define, maintain, manipulate, secure, and process the data stored in databases.
What Is a Database Management System (DBMS)?
A database management system (DBMS) offers a systematic approach to manage databases. It enables administrators to manage large and complex organization's databases and interact with their unique attributes efficiently. Besides managing databases, a DBMS also provides administrative operations, including performance monitoring, compliance and regulations, disaster recovery, and change management.
What Are the Advantages of a DBMS?
Allow Administration of Data A DBMS facilitates interactions between users and data. It helps database and system administrators monitor and assess the performance of the database, restrict user access to the database, maintain and verify data, and recover information that may have become corrupted. Database administrators can also update, modify, retrieve, and delete data using a DBMS.
Reduce Data Redundancy Data redundancy is the repetition or duplication of data within a database. A DBMS reduces data redundancy by maintaining a single repository that can be defined, modified, and updated. Minimizing data redundancy improves database consistency, enhances storage, and promotes data integrity.
Promote Data Integrity Data integrity refers to the overall accuracy, consistency, and completeness of data stored in a database. A DBMS runs tests to check errors and validate data. This helps increase the stability and performance of the database. Maintaining data integrity helps ensure recoverability, searchability, and connectivity within a database.
Allow Sharing of Data Data sharing is a primary feature of a database management system (DBMS). However, to share data within or outside an organization, users must follow the correct authorization protocol. Different levels of authorizations need to be taken care of to make the data accessible.
Provide Data Security Data loss can lead to financial loss, reputation damage, brand erosion, and non-compliance of government and industry regulations. Database security is crucial as it prevents data from getting corrupted or lost due to programming errors. An efficient DBMS reinforces policies to allow secure management of databases, keep sensitive information safe, and enable compliance and security.
What Are the Four Types of Databases?
Organizations from different industries use databases to manage their critical processes and store sensitive information. As there are different types of databases, organizations can choose what best suits their specific requirements.
Hierarchical Database A hierarchical database refers to the data model that organizes data into a tree-like structure. In this type of database, the data is linked together and organized into fields. Each field contains a single value known as a record. These records are further organized into a parent-child relationship within a tree. In this type of hierarchy, a parent can have multiple child records, whereas a child record can only have one parent. This type of database is helpful as it improves navigation and is easy to understand. The most common examples of a hierarchical database are IBM Information Management System (IMS) and Windows Registry.
Network Model Database The network database represents data and its relationships in the most flexible way. A network database model is similar to a hierarchical database model as it organizes data into a tree-like structure with records defined in parent-child relationships. The only difference between the two models is in the network model, each child record can have multiple parent records. This type of database is useful in organizations that require modeling of complex relationships between different items. A network database can help manufacturing industries keep track of inventories and understand which parts are needed to manufacture a particular product.
Relational Database A relational database collects and organizes data in independent tables with defined relationships for easy access. The tables can be linked to one or more tables with similar data using primary and virtual keys. This type of database is the most widely accepted database model. Some common examples of database management systems designed to use the relational database model are Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL.
Object-Oriented Database An object-oriented database stores organizations’ information in objects rather than actions and logic. Simply adding a database capability to an object-oriented programming language such as Java, Ruby, or C++ makes it a database model. In this type of database, the data can be grouped and treated as a single object.
What Is a Database Management System (DBMS)?
What Is a Database?
A database is a collection of business-critical information stored electronically in a computer system. The data is categorized to be easier to search, access, update, and manage. Businesses can process useful information from a database such as customer data, inventory, accounting information, employee data, and more.
Application of Databases
Databases are used in various sectors:
- Banks have massive amounts of customer data, including information about their account activities, transaction histories, loans, and so on stored in databases
- Telecom companies use databases to store and retrieve call records, monthly bills, and more
- Manufacturing industries use databases to manage supply chains, track the production of items, maintain inventory, and check the status of warehouses
- HR Management teams use them to maintain employee-related information such as salaries, paychecks, and payroll
- IT companies use databases to centralize business-critical, security-sensitive, and compliance-focused information that grows exponentially as the business grows
Database management is crucial as it helps administrators define, maintain, manipulate, secure, and process the data stored in databases.
What Is a Database Management System (DBMS)?
A database management system (DBMS) offers a systematic approach to manage databases. It enables administrators to manage large and complex organization's databases and interact with their unique attributes efficiently. Besides managing databases, a DBMS also provides administrative operations, including performance monitoring, compliance and regulations, disaster recovery, and change management.
What Are the Advantages of a DBMS?
Allow Administration of Data A DBMS facilitates interactions between users and data. It helps database and system administrators monitor and assess the performance of the database, restrict user access to the database, maintain and verify data, and recover information that may have become corrupted. Database administrators can also update, modify, retrieve, and delete data using a DBMS.
Reduce Data Redundancy Data redundancy is the repetition or duplication of data within a database. A DBMS reduces data redundancy by maintaining a single repository that can be defined, modified, and updated. Minimizing data redundancy improves database consistency, enhances storage, and promotes data integrity.
Promote Data Integrity Data integrity refers to the overall accuracy, consistency, and completeness of data stored in a database. A DBMS runs tests to check errors and validate data. This helps increase the stability and performance of the database. Maintaining data integrity helps ensure recoverability, searchability, and connectivity within a database.
Allow Sharing of Data Data sharing is a primary feature of a database management system (DBMS). However, to share data within or outside an organization, users must follow the correct authorization protocol. Different levels of authorizations need to be taken care of to make the data accessible.
Provide Data Security Data loss can lead to financial loss, reputation damage, brand erosion, and non-compliance of government and industry regulations. Database security is crucial as it prevents data from getting corrupted or lost due to programming errors. An efficient DBMS reinforces policies to allow secure management of databases, keep sensitive information safe, and enable compliance and security.
What Are the Four Types of Databases?
Organizations from different industries use databases to manage their critical processes and store sensitive information. As there are different types of databases, organizations can choose what best suits their specific requirements.
Hierarchical Database A hierarchical database refers to the data model that organizes data into a tree-like structure. In this type of database, the data is linked together and organized into fields. Each field contains a single value known as a record. These records are further organized into a parent-child relationship within a tree. In this type of hierarchy, a parent can have multiple child records, whereas a child record can only have one parent. This type of database is helpful as it improves navigation and is easy to understand. The most common examples of a hierarchical database are IBM Information Management System (IMS) and Windows Registry.
Network Model Database The network database represents data and its relationships in the most flexible way. A network database model is similar to a hierarchical database model as it organizes data into a tree-like structure with records defined in parent-child relationships. The only difference between the two models is in the network model, each child record can have multiple parent records. This type of database is useful in organizations that require modeling of complex relationships between different items. A network database can help manufacturing industries keep track of inventories and understand which parts are needed to manufacture a particular product.
Relational Database A relational database collects and organizes data in independent tables with defined relationships for easy access. The tables can be linked to one or more tables with similar data using primary and virtual keys. This type of database is the most widely accepted database model. Some common examples of database management systems designed to use the relational database model are Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL.
Object-Oriented Database An object-oriented database stores organizations’ information in objects rather than actions and logic. Simply adding a database capability to an object-oriented programming language such as Java, Ruby, or C++ makes it a database model. In this type of database, the data can be grouped and treated as a single object.
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