Sep 26, 2020
Introduction to databases
Let us first consider what data is. Data is a collection of facts, such as numbers, words, measurements, observations, or just descriptions of things.
Now let’s see what a database is. A database is a systematic collection of data and it makes data management easy. for instance, your telephone directory is a database to store data of people.
Evolution of databases
In the early days, everything writes in papers and it’s stored in a cupboard or something. when we need to access data it is very dificult and very slow. Increased chances of physical records being lost or destroyed. we can solve these problems in the database. so people turn into the database and the computer allowed databases to be automated. But early computer databases followed a flat-file model. It consists of a single, two-dimensional array of data elements.
It is a simple consecutive list of Records. But it is a slow way to search and maintained the large volume of records. Now people needed the new faster databases.
In 1969 IBM used a hierarchical model for its information management system. This tree-like structure was parent nodes pointing to child nodes.
It was successfully used by NASA to manage drawing for the lunar lander.
After that, a more flexible Network model developed by Charles Bachmann. in this model child nodes could have multiple parents. But it was hard to manage all these pointers.
Ted Codd a computer scientist at IBM introduces his relational database model. It has no pointers and tables are connected only matching data fields. So we can easier to access, merge, and change the data set.
In 1973 Michael Stonebraker x’ team create the ingress relational database. Making it freely available for a modest fee several companies used it as the basis for successful commercial products.
In 1975 IBM provides a “system R ” database. It is an experimental relational database. iN 1977 Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Add oats start a software company, and in 1979 introduces their flagship product was Oracle which compatible with IBM “system R”. Their first version ran on many computers.Oracle quickly became profitable. In 1983 IBM finally released a full-fledged commercial relational database DB2. But Oracle was already selling to IBM’s customers.
Databases in real life
Working communicating shopping relaxing nearly everywhere we go data is gathered organized and made accessible. Online stores, health care providers, clubs, libraries, video stores, beauty salons, travel agencies, phone companies, government agencies like FBI, CIA, INS, IRS, and NASA — they all user databases. let see how we use the database in real life and discuss the areas in which databases are used.
1.Order management system database
The companies have at least one customer. They can collect customers' data from the database. Each customer has one or more addresses, one or more phone numbers, emails can store in the database. And so on salesperson can list a variety of products and each one has a different price and instruction. All these things we can store in a database and manage, copy, and merge it.
2.Health care provider database
Many doctors work for a hospital or medical center and each doctor has multiple pations. Most doctors work in at least one hospital. They work in different offices on different days. The database can store information about each doctor, such as name address, phone numbers, and specialization, and so on each patient can have two or more doctors. also, we can store patient health reports, personal details, and other details. The doctor can look at the patient’s report and determine what the disease is.
3.Scientific database
a database is very useful for molecular, cellular biology, genome research, and other fields. Most scientific tests based on the research. it contains large data set to get from the sample or population.
4.Social Media
Every social media platform stores user information in databases used to recommend friends, businesses, products, and topics to the end-user. . For example, MySQL is used in Facebook data centers.
Can we live without databases?
Imagine your life today without a database. It’s not conceivable. At least you won’t be able to read this article because the network depends on the database. You can do nothing but stone age work. Because everything you think depends on the database. for instance mobile network, electricity, banking service, internet, and other things. so we can't live without the database.
