If we look up the definition of a database we get the following answers:
1. An organized body of related information.
2. A Database is a structured collection of records or data that is store in a computer system. The structure is achieve by organizing the data
So what we see from these definitions is that a Database is just data. Now this data can be text, pictures, articles, music, or voice. It doesn’t have to just be text. The other important thing is that the tables and records are related.
Over the years many types of database have been designed but nowadays the most common type is the relational database. The relational database has tables of similar information and these tables are related together.
An example of a relational database is in an order system. Tables might include customers, orders, order items and products. The customers table will have the customer’s name, telephone number and shipping address. The order table will include the customer plus have the order number and the order date. The order item will be the products that they are buying together with the cost and other information.
The customer table is related to the order using a customer ID and the order is related to the items on the order using an order ID.
In this way we can do queries for example what products a customer has bought and if we look from the products side we can see which customers bought that product. This is where the relational part is very useful.
A database is essential for a business to run smoothly but databases can also be found as a back end to many programs that we buy. For example, a program for emailing customers or collecting email addresses will have a database as its foundation.
The advantage of a Database over a spreadsheet like excel is that all information can be related together so we can query any record against another record. Also each record is only entered once, in one table, so we don’t have the problem of data not being updated correctly.
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