Imagine storing information before computers existed. Maybe you are thinking about a dusty room in the basement or a room filled with filing cabinets in a newspaper building. Requesting information would have involved a team searching through files, microfilm or books. When this team wasn’t searching, they would be trying to keep indexes up-to-date. There would have been a constant fear of lost files, fire or flooding. Not to mention, how do you deal with the information being needed in another office.
All that changed when computer-based databases were invented.
A database is a structured store for data. In relational databases, the data is located in linked tables. Databases aim to make processing and searching data easier and quicker. This software tool also comes with the advantage that they can be set to read-only, so anyone in the business with permission can view them from their location. A centralised database can be used across the globe and backed-up.
Benefits
The benefits to a database include:
Centralised
Quick to search
Easy to regulate and constrain input
Can be backed-up
Access can be limited
Relational and Object Oriented Databases
Most of the well known databases are classified as Relational (RDBMS), but another common type is Object Oriented (OODBMS). Object Oriented is a Database Management System (DBMS) that stores data as objects and classes. For example, in a RDBMS, if a customer has two addresses you would have a Customer table linked to an Address table with two entries in. Whereas in an OODBMS, you would have a Customer object which contained two addresses.
It is pretty clear why databases became so popular once we had computers to store them on. Of course, a deep understanding of databases is important when your entire business runs off them. Here on the DB Backbone website we aim to share as much knowledge as you need. If you have an area you are particularly interested in, please leave a comment below.
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