Relational databases have long been associated with big enterprises, but lately they’ve been finding their way to an audience of different users. Now, most large-scale web sites use databases for at least some portion of their content. User registration information, inventory records, and event calendars are all managed through a database. Databases are applications running on the server that provides quick and efficient access to large amounts of organized data. In addition to storing information, databases can establish a relationship among various pieces of data, provide powerful sorting, searching, and merging capabilities. Databases can also help manage access to data by supporting multiple users with different capabilities and levels of access. A database management system, or DBMS, gives the user access to their data and helps them transform the data into information. Such database management systems include dBase, Paradox, IMS, and Oracle. These systems allow users to create, update, and extract information from their databases. Compared to a manual filing system, the biggest advantages to a computerized database system are speed, accuracy, and accessibility. A database is a structured collection of data. Data refers to the characteristics of people, things, and events. Oracle stores each item in its own field. The name of a field usually reflects its contents. Each DBMS has its own rules for naming the data fields. A field has little meaning unless it is seen within the context of other fields. In Oracle, the fields relating to a particular person, thing, or event are bundled together to form a single, complete unit of data, called a record. Each record is made up of a number of fields. No two fields in a record can have the same field name. During an Oracle database design project, the analysis of your business needs identifies all the fields or attributes of interest. Relational s...
