What is DBMS?
Before understanding about DBMS, we must first understand what database is and how it relates to DBMS.
What is a Database?
A database is an organized collection of structured data. This makes it easier to access and manage the data. The purpose of database is to help organize and store large volumes of data. This will improve access to data.
For example, a school can have various details of students, such as name, studentID, gender, age, level, and so on. All these details can be stored in a database with the name “Student” in a structured format such as tables, hierarchy, etc.
What is a DBMS?
Database Management System (DBMS) is a software used to store, retrieve, create, and manage data in a database. A DBMS is a database management system through the interface between the end user and the database. Refer below.
Database management systems are also intended to facilitate an overview of databases. It provides a variety of administrative actions such as change management, performance monitoring. and backup recovery.
Types of DBMS
There are various types of databases used for storing different varieties of data:
- Hierarchical database: a style of predecessor-successor type of relationship. It to be similar to a tree, where the nodes of the tree represent records and the branches of the tree represent fields.
- Network database: supports many to many relations where multiple user records can be linked.
- Relational database: has a structure which allows the users to identify and access data in relation to another piece of data in the database. It stores data in the form of tables.
- Object-Oriented database: uses small individual software called objects. Each object contains a piece of data and the instructions for the actions to be done with the data.
Some of the popular DBMS software are Microsoft Access, Oracle, My SQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MariaDB, etc. All these software are based on different types of DBMS available in the market. Therefore, it is completely the users choice, on which type of database will suit their data, and prove beneficial to generate meaningful insights.
What does DBMS do?
A DBMS acts as an interface between a database and a user or program, allowing users to retrieve updates and manage how data is organized and customized. It serves to convert the commands used to manipulate the data within the database into a format that is easy to understand and control the database to work properly and efficiently.
Advantages of DBMS
- Multiple techniques: DBMS offers a variety of techniques to store & retrieve data.
- Redundancy: It can control data redundancy because it stores all the data in one single database file and that recorded data is placed in the database.
- Data sharing: In DBMS, the authorized users of an organization can share the data among multiple users.
- Backup: It has automatic backup and recovery systems to create an automatic backup of data.
- Easily Maintenance: It can be easily maintained because of its nature of a centralized database system.
Disadvantages of DBMS
- Cost: Few of the DBMS available in the market are licensed. So, you have to pay to us that DBMS in your organization.
- Complexity: It creates additional complexity and requirements.
- Size: It is large in size and need time to setup.
Microsoft Access vs. Oracle vs. MySQL Comparison
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is a database management system that can store large amounts of data. Users can use the Microsoft Access to manage databases, search for data, and display them in beautiful forms or easily printed as a report.
How Does MS Access Work?
Microsoft access uses a relational data system by looking at the data in the form of a table. Identify relationships between data groups and take advantage of those relationships.
Pros:
Microsoft Access is used in databases for a wide variety of businesses. It supports concurrent Usage, supports custom development, and can be applied to other systems. Microsoft Access can import/export data to various systems such as Excel, SQL Server, Text File, etc.
Cons:
Because of Microsoft Access is a database system in file format. Which has the extension .accdb or .mdb (in version 2003)
- Multi-user applications need to share information, which requires appropriate authentication.
- The maximum file size supported is 2 GB.
- If the file is corrupted, it may make all machines inoperable. So, it is necessary to backup and maintain it properly.
Oracle
Oracle is a relational database management system that makes users able to use the database more conveniently such as searching for information within the database that is easy and convenient. Users do not need to know the internal structure of the database to be able to access the database.
How Does Oracle Work?
To communicate with Oracle Database, we need to use SQL language to define and manipulate databases.Working with Database in Relational Database means that database engine will store data as a group of related data, a database can contain one or more tables, and each table can contain multiple columns and rows.
Pros:
- Easy to search for more information.
- Rollback Segment technology is used in Oracle. It can handle data in the event of a system failure.
- Oracle has a section called Timestamp that deals with Concurrency Control, which handles multiple transactions at the same time.
Cons:
- Installation takes a very long time because of the large function.
- The cost of Oracle can be prohibitive, especially for smaller organizations.
- The system can require significant resources once installed, so hardware upgrades may be required to even implement Oracle.
MySQL
MySQL is an open source relational database management system based on SQL. MySQL is designed and optimized for web applications and can run on any platform. MySQL works as a database server and allows multiple users to manage and create multiple databases.
How Does MySQL Work?
MySQL is a relational database that stores data in separate tables. The database structures are organized into physical files optimized for speed. The logical model, with objects such as databases, tables, views, rows, and columns, offers a flexible programming environment.
Pros:
- It’s available for free.
- It offers a lot of functionality even for a free database engine.
- There are a variety of user interfaces that can be implemented.
- It can be made to work with other databases, including DB2 and Oracle.
Cons:
- You may spend a lot of time and effort to get MySQL to do things that other systems do automatically, like create incremental backups.
- There is no built-in support for XML or OLAP.
- Support is available for the free version, but you’ll need to pay for it.
Reference:
