Database management is a system of managing the information that is used to support a company’s business operations. It involves storing data, distributing it to users and applications and then modifying it if necessary and monitoring changes to the data and preventing it from being corrupted by unexpected failure. It is a component of the entire informational infrastructure of a company that supports decision making and corporate growth as well as compliance with laws such as 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 enabled the storage and retrieve massive amounts of data for a wide range of uses, from calculating inventory to supporting complicated financial accounting and human resources functions.
A database is a set of tables that organizes data according to the specific scheme, for example one-to-many relationships. It uses primary keys to identify records and allow cross-references between tables. Each table has a variety of fields, also known as attributes, that provide information about the data entities. Relational models, developed by E. F. “TedCodd Codd in the 1970s at IBM as a database, are the most used database type in the present. This model is based upon normalizing the data, making it more easy to use. It also makes it easier to update data, avoiding the necessity of changing various databases.
Most DBMSs are able to support different types of databases, offering internal and external levels of organization. The internal level addresses costs, scalability, and other operational concerns, such as the layout of the physical storage. The external level is the representation of the database in user interfaces and applications. It can include a combination of various external views (based on the various data models) and may include virtual tables that are computed from generic data to improve performance.