Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Organizations and individuals may use many different databases depending on the nature of the
work involved. For example, a library database might consist of several related, but separate
databases, including book titles and author names, book description, books on order, books
checked out, and similar sets of information.
Database Management System
A database management system is used to access and manipulate data in a database. On a basic
level, it's a software system that enables users to edit, link, and update files as needs dictate. It is a
very customizable approach to managing databases and suits a lot of companies because of that
reason alone. With this managed approach, a company would need to spend human resources and
consulting time to make sure they have support if the software has a bug. This is another good reason
to look at some of the newer systems like iCloud. That being said, while it is not as customizable as
the other systems, you can create an application that manages some of this for you. That's why you
are reading this topic, right?
At the core of every good database is organization. As we saw earlier, in order to track and analyze
data effectively, each record requires a unique identifier or a “key.” The key must be completely
unique to a particular record just as each individual has a unique social security number assigned to
them (see Figure 1-4 ).
Figure 1-4. Each circle in this figure represents a field in the table and the SS# is established as the key value
In fact, social security numbers are often used as keys in large databases. You might think that the
name field would be a good choice for a key in a mailing list; however, this would not be a good
choice because people might have the same name. A key must be identified or assigned to each
record for computerized information processing to function correctly. An existing field may be used if
the entries are entirely unique, such as a social security number or telephone number. In most cases,
a new field will be developed to hold a key, such as a customer number or product number.
 
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