Database management is a system of coordinating the information that supports a company’s business operations. It includes data storage, distributing it to application programs and users and then modifying it if necessary and monitoring changes to the data and preventing it from getting damaged by unexpected failure. It is part of the overall informational infrastructure of a company that aids in decision-making and corporate growth as well as 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 developed into information management systems (IMS) which allowed the storage and retrieve huge amounts of data for a variety of purposes, ranging from calculating inventory to supporting complex human resources and financial accounting functions.
A database is a collection of tables which organize data according to the specific scheme, for example one-to-many relationships. It makes use of primary keys to identify records and allow cross-references between tables. Each table has a set of fields called attributes that provide information about data entities. Relational models, which were developed by E. F. “Ted” Codd in the 1970s at IBM and IBM, are among the most popular database type in the present. The design is based on normalizing the data, making it simpler to use. It also makes it www.sdn-geneve.ch simpler to update data without the need to modify several databases.
The majority of DBMSs are able to support multiple types of databases through different levels of external and internal organization. The internal level is focused on costs, scalability and other operational issues, like the physical layout of the database. The external level is the way the database is represented in user interfaces and other applications. It could include a mix of different external views based on different data models and may also include virtual tables that are computed using generic data to enhance the performance.