Re: Database Management Systems (elements and purpose of)

Thicky wrote:
> I really am a thicky and I cannot seem to find any relevant or helpful
> information that will let me answer this question.
>
> I am looking for some information or links to documents that will
> describe the purpose of a database management system and the elements
> within it.
>
> Any assistance is greatly apprieciated

Hi Thicky, welcome :-)

Excellent question. (Assignment? Good teacher!) Dan provided a (link to a) very adequate answer. I 'll put in some personal notes.

Database. Base your operations on data. It is an idea, a way of looking at how to do things. Take care of your data (collection of -to your purpose- meaningful facts), take away, isolate the management of your data from applications, and your mission is in better health. You own your data, your applications only get to manipulate that part of them you allow them to manipulate. Another application? No problem - your data is properly managed by people who care about them - well, they need tools. Here's where DBMS comes in.

So you need to categorize and (meta-)manage your data: a catalog. You need to limit which changes are possible to your data: referential integrity rules etc., constraints. You need to secure your operations from hardware failures and tsunamis: backup & restore, disaster recovery comes in.

So you need to resolve ambiguities and contradictory interpretations of the data you (want to) have: methodologies (e.g. DSDM) come in.

So you need to manage changes to your insights: Change management (google CM) comes in.

Other elements which spring to mind are: some sophisticated query and reporting tools (to present your data in a neat way (Crystal reports, Business Objects)), but don't overdo that and fall into the trap which is sometimes called 'information warehouse' or OLAP. Ha!

HTH P.S.

Some things a DBMS is NOT:

A persistence mechanism.
A filestore.
A physical thing.

Hope this still helps :-) Received on Thu Apr 07 2005 - 00:54:29 CEST