Database management is a system to manage information that is essential to the company’s business operations. It involves storing data, distributing it to applications and users making edits as needed as well as monitoring changes in data and preventing data corruption due to unexpected failure. It is a component of the overall informational infrastructure of a business that aids in decision-making, corporate growth, and compliance with laws like the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
The first database systems were created in the 1960s by Charles Bachman, IBM and others. They evolved into information management systems (IMS) which allowed massive amounts of data to be stored and retrieved for a variety of reasons. From calculating inventory to supporting complex financial accounting functions and human resource functions.
A database is tables that arrange data according to a certain pattern, for example, one-to-many relationships. It uses primary keys to identify records, and allow cross-references between tables. Each table is comprised of a variety of fields, also known as attributes, that provide information about the data entities. Relational models, developed by E. F. “Ted” Codd in the 1970s at IBM and IBM, are the most used database type today. This design is based on normalizing the data, making it more easy to use. It is also easier to update data because it does not require the changing of several databases.
The majority of DBMSs support a variety of databases, offering internal and external levels of organization. The internal level deals with the cost, scalability, and other operational issues, like the physical layout of the database. The external level is the representation of the database on user interfaces and applications. It could include a mix of different external views (based on different data models) and can also include virtual tables that are computed from generic data in order to improve performance.