What is DBMS?
Database Management System (DBMS) is software for storing and retrieving users’ data
while considering appropriate security measures. It consists of a group of programs that
manipulate the database. The DBMS accepts the request for data from an application and
instructs the operating system to provide the specific data. In large systems, a DBMS helps
users and other third-party software store and retrieve data.
DBMS allows users to create their own databases as per their requirements. The term
“DBMS” includes the user of the database and other application programs. It provides an
interface between the data and the software application.
In this Database Management System tutorial, you will learn DBMS concepts like-
Example of a DBMS
Let us see a simple example of a university database. This database is maintaining
information concerning students, courses, and grades in a university environment. The
database is organized as five files:
The STUDENT file stores the data of each student
The COURSE file stores contain data on each course.
The SECTION stores information about sections in a particular course.
The GRADE file stores the grades which students receive in the various sections
The TUTOR file contains information about each professor.
To define DBMS:
We need to specify the structure of the records of each file by defining the different
types of data elements to be stored in each record.
We can also use a coding scheme to represent the values of a data item.
Basically, your Database will have 5 tables with a foreign key defined amongst the
various tables.
History of DBMS
Here, are the important landmarks from the history of DBMS:
1960 – Charles Bachman designed the first DBMS system
1970 – Codd introduced IBM’S Information Management System (IMS)
1976- Peter Chen coined and defined the Entity-relationship model, also known as
the ER model
1980 – Relational Model becomes a widely accepted database component
1985- Object-oriented DBMS develops.
1990s- Incorporation of object-orientation in relational DBMS.
1991- Microsoft ships MS access, a personal DBMS, and that displaces all other
personal DBMS products.
1995: First Internet database applications
1997: XML applied to database processing. Many vendors begin to integrate XML
into DBMS products.
Characteristics of DBMS
Here are the characteristics and properties of a Database Management System:
Provides security and removes redundancy
Self-describing nature of a database system
Insulation between programs and data abstraction
Support of multiple views of the data
Sharing of data and multiuser transaction processing
Database Management Software allows entities and relations among them to form
tables.
It follows the ACID concept (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability).
DBMS supports a multi-user environment that allows users to access and manipulate
data in parallel.
DBMS vs. Flat File
DBMS Flat File Management System
Multi-user access It does not support multi-user access
Design to fulfill the need of small and large
It is only limited to smaller DBMS systems.
businesses
Remove redundancy and Integrity. Redundancy and Integrity issues
Expensive. But in the long term Total Cost of
It’s cheaper
Ownership is cheap
Easy to implement complicated transactions No support for complicated transactions
Users of DBMS
Following are the various category of users of DBMS
Component Name Task
The Application programmers write programs in various
Application Programmers
programming languages to interact with databases.
Database Admin is responsible for managing the entire
Database Administrators
DBMS system. He/She is called Database admin or DBA.
The end users are the people who interact with the
database management system. They conduct various
End-Users
operations on databases like retrieving, updating,
deleting, etc.
Application of DBMS
Below are the popular database system applications:
Sector Use of DBMS
For customer information, account activities, payments,
Banking
deposits, loans, etc.
Airlines For reservations and schedule information.
For student information, course registrations, colleges, and
Universities
grades.
It helps to keep call records, monthly bills, maintain
Telecommunication
balances, etc.
For storing information about stock, sales, and purchases of
Finance
financial instruments like stocks and bonds.
Sales Use for storing customer, product & sales information.
It is used to manage the supply chain and track the
Manufacturing
production of items. Inventories status in warehouses.
For information about employees, salaries, payroll,
HR Management
deduction, generation of paychecks, etc.
Types of DBMS
Types of DBMS
The main Four Types of Database Management Systems are:
Hierarchical database
Network database
Relational database
Object-Oriented database
Hierarchical DBMS
In a Hierarchical database, model data is organized in a tree-like structure. Data is Stored
Hierarchically (top-down or bottom-up) format. Data is represented using a parent-child
relationship. In Hierarchical DBMS, parents may have many children, but children have
only one parent.
Network Model
The network database model allows each child to have multiple parents. It helps you to
address the need to model more complex relationships like the orders/parts many-to-many
relationship. In this model, entities are organized in a graph which can be accessed through
several paths.
Relational Model
Relational DBMS is the most widely used DBMS model because it is one of the easiest. This
model is based on normalizing data in the rows and columns of the tables. Relational model
stored in fixed structures and manipulated using SQL.
Object-Oriented Model
In the Object-oriented Model data is stored in the form of objects. The structure is called
classes which display data within it. It is one of the components of DBMS that defines a
database as a collection of objects that stores both data members’ values and operations.
Advantages of DBMS
DBMS offers a variety of techniques to store & retrieve data
DBMS serves as an efficient handler to balance the needs of multiple applications
using the same data
Uniform administration procedures for data
Application programmers are never exposed to details of data representation and
storage.
A DBMS uses various powerful functions to store and retrieve data efficiently.
Offers Data Integrity and Security
The DBMS implies integrity constraints to get a high level of protection against
prohibited access to data.
A DBMS schedules concurrent access to the data in such a manner that only one user
can access the same data at a time
Reduced Application Development Time
Disadvantage of DBMS
DBMS may offer plenty of advantages, but it has certain flaws-
The cost of Hardware and Software of a DBMS is quite high, which increases the
budget of your organization.
Most database management systems are often complex, so training users to use the
DBMS is required.
In some organizations, all data is integrated into a single database that can be
damaged because of electric failure or corruption in the storage media.
Using the same program at a time by multiple users sometimes leads to data loss.
DBMS can’t perform sophisticated calculations
