Learn online DBMS “Introduction of Database Management System” Lesson 1

Introduction

Data is a collection of raw facts which have not been processed to reveal its meaning. For example, test marks of every student in a school.

Information is produced by processing data as shown in Figure1.

For example, given the data of the test marks of all the students in a class, the average marks of all the students and the maximum and minimum marks in the class can be usedto determine the performance of the class which is information as shown in Figure 2.

Database has been used extensively in our day-to-day life. Be it business, engineering, medicine, education, library etc, to name a few. For example, you may consider the name, class, roll number, marks in every subject of every student in a school. To record this information about every student in a school, the school might have maintained a register, or stored it on a hard drive using a computer system and software such as Microsoft access or excel. Such collection of related data has been recorded, organized and made available for searching is called as a Database.
A database has the following properties:

1. A database is a representation of some aspect of the real world also called as miniworld. Whenever there are changes in this miniworld they are also reflected in the database.
2. It is logical, coherent and consistent.
3. It is designed, built and populated with data for specific purpose.
4. It can be of any size and complexity.
5. It can be maintained manually or it may be computerized.