What Are Databases? Organized by Dr. Farrokh Alemi PhD Narrated by Ibtissam Elboukhari In this section we will discuss what databases are and why we use them. All PowerPoints provided are organized by Dr. Farrokh Alemi and narrated by Ibtissam Elboukhari.

Collection of data with defined structure and purpose What is database? Collection of data with defined structure and purpose A database is a collection of data with defined structure and Purpose. Data are numbers, text, images, and videos. Data are a representation of information. Information is knowledge that is derived from study, experience, or instruction. Information is any kind of knowledge that is exchangeable amongst people, about things, facts, concepts, etc. Data in a database can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. Data can be seen in multiple formats such as electronic, printed, graphic audio, statistical and in combinations. The manipulation of data is information which can be defined as interpreted data.

Components A database consists of one or more tables. Each table has its own unique name and consists of columns and rows. A column is referred to as a field or variable. The rows are records. In this example, one table in the database is shown. The columns, “position title”, “Education requirements”, “functional area”, “Max Pay” and “Min Pay” are fields. Each row consists of a record. The first row is about executive assistants. They get paid 60,000 maximum pay. The individual cell values in the table are called data. Data can be numbers or text. It can be dates, integer, decimal or a web URL. Data can be a picture or a link to a picture.

Components If you’re familiar with spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel, you’re probably already familiar with storing data in tabular form. Each sheet in Excel is a separate table. Each column is a field. Each row is description of fields for one record. Here the first row is about John Smith. He is 21 years old at the time the information was inputted. He was born in 1990 in Fairfax.

What is dbms? DBMS is abbreviation for Database Management System. A DBMS is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and the use of a database. Examples include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Informix, Microsoft Access, Microsoft FoxPro, MySQL, Borland dBase and so on.

A Database system environment Users or programmers use the database system to manipulate the data. The database system is a collection of data and systems.

A Database system environment The application or query is a programming code that instructs the software to manipulate the data,

A Database system environment The software processes the programming instructions. It accesses the data and manipulates it.

A Database system environment When it is done it stores the result of the query back in the database. A database is usually shown as a cylinder, to emphasis its role in storing data.

A Database system environment To make sure the data are meaningful, the database usually has meta data, which provide information about the meaning of field names in various tables and their relationship to each other.

Make Sense Out of Data In short, the database system allows the user to manipulate data and make information out of messy collection of inter-related data.