Database management is the system for managing information that supports the company’s business operations. It involves storing data, disseminating it to users and applications and editing it when needed and monitoring changes to data and making sure that data integrity is not compromised due to unexpected failure. It is part of the overall informational infrastructure of a company that assists in decision making, corporate growth, and compliance with laws like the GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act.
The first database systems were invented in the 1960s by Charles Bachman, IBM and others. They developed into information management systems (IMS), which allowed huge amounts of data to be stored and retrieved for a variety of purposes. From calculating inventory to aiding complicated financial accounting functions, and human resource functions.
A database is a set of tables which organize data in accordance with a certain scheme, like one-to-many relationships. It makes use of primary keys to identify records, and also allows cross-references among tables. Each table is comprised of a set of fields, referred to as attributes, which provide information about data entities. Relational models, developed by E. F. “TedCodd Codd in the 1970s at IBM as a database, are the most popular database type currently. This model is based on normalizing the data, making it easier to use. It is also simpler to update data because it doesn’t require the modification of various databases.
The majority of DBMSs support a variety of databases by offering different internal and external levels of organization. The internal level is focused on costs, scalability and other operational issues, like the physical layout of the database. The external level focuses on how the database is represented in user interfaces and other applications. It could comprise a combination of different external views (based on the various data models) and could also include virtual tables which are generated from generic data to improve performance.
