What is Database Management?

Having a large organization naturally means having a large database. This database is accessible to different users within the organization. For this reason, a database management system is needed.

A Database Management System is an application that manages the creation and access of databases. Database management enables a structured way of storing and accessing data for different users and softwares. It requests data from a specific application and tells the computer's operating system to appropriately transfer that data. Having a Database Management System makes it easy for an organization to change its information systems easily as the organization itself grows and its requirements for storing data change. The existing system of managing the organization's database will remain the same even when new categories are added.

There are different existing database applications ranging from small systems that are used on personal computers to the huge ones that are used on mainframe computers. Examples of these database applications are:

• Library systems that are computerized
• Ticket reservation system used by airlines
• Inventory systems that are computerized
• Automated teller machines

An organization may just use one Database Management application for its daily data gathering and transfer processes.

Should the organization need a more detailed database management, they can use another application on a different computer so that it can handle the more specific task that the database management process requires. Systems analysts and database administrators man these important tasks.

Database Management Systems use different models in organizing data internally. The data managing language used affects the way one can extract information from the system. Here are some of the commonly used data modeling languages:

1. Hierarchical Model. The data is organized in a tree-like structure and uses parent-child relationships. For example, a general category for a datum will be considered a parent and its more specific components will be its children. Naturally, a parent, or the general category, can have many children but the specific categories can only have one parent.
2. Network Model. Data is organized in a more flexible way as compared to the hierarchical model. This model allows a child category to have many parent categories thus forming a lattice structure.
3. Relational Model. The database is described as a collection of predicates. Constraints are described on the possible values and combination of values. Data and queries are presented in a declarative manner. The user inputs the data needed and the information related to it. The database management software then takes care of storing the data and making sure that it is retrieved in the manner that you instructed it to.
4. Object Model. This database language can handle graphics, pictures, and voice and text data better than the other languages. It is popular among web content programmers as it is designed to work well with object-oriented applications like Java.

Today, Database Management Systems have evolved as organizations felt the need for more flexible solutions. An example of its offshoot is Data Warehousing wherein large businesses and corporations use a specialized data management system for their huge amounts of data.