Database management is a method of managing the information that supports a company’s business operations. It involves storing data, distributing it to application programs and users, modifying it as necessary and monitoring changes to the data and preventing it from becoming damaged due to unexpected failure. It is a component of the entire informational infrastructure of a business that supports decision making in corporate growth, as well as compliance with laws such as the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
The first database systems were developed in the 1960s by Charles Bachman, IBM millwoodef.com and others. They evolved into the information management systems (IMS) that allowed for the storage and retrieve large amounts of data for a variety of purposes, ranging from calculating inventory to supporting complicated human resources and financial accounting functions.
A database consists of a set of tables that organize data according to a particular pattern, for example, one-to-many relationships. It utilizes primary key to identify records and allows cross-references among tables. Each table has a set of attributes or fields that represent facts about data entities. The most widely used type of database currently is a relational model, designed by E. F. “Ted” Codd at IBM in the 1970s. The design is based on normalizing the data, making it easier to use. It is also simpler to update data since it does not require changing several databases.
Most DBMSs support multiple types of databases by providing different internal and external levels of organization. The internal level is concerned with costs, scalability, and other operational concerns such as the layout of the database’s physical storage. The external level is the way the database is presented in user interfaces and other applications. It could comprise a combination of various external views (based on the different data models) and may include virtual tables that are computed from generic data to improve performance.