Database Management System (DBMS)

Database Management System (DBMS)

The database management system (DBMS) is the system software for creating and managing databases. DBMS provides a systematic way for users and programmers to create, retrieve, update and manage data.

A DBMS build it possible for end users to read, create, update and delete data in a database. DBMS essentially acts as an interface between the database and end users or application programs, ensuring that the data is constantly organized and easily accessible.

DBMS oversees three essential things: data, database engine that allows access, lock and modify data - and database schema, which defines the logical structure of the database. These three fundamental elements help in providing concurrency, security, data integrity and similar administration processes. Specific database administration tasks supported by DBMS include change management, performance monitoring / tuning and backup and recovery. Many database management systems are also responsible for automatic rollback, restarting and retrieval as well as logging and auditing of the activity.

DBMS is probably the most useful to provide a centralized view of data that can be accessed in many ways by many users, in a controlled way. A DBMS can limit that what the end user sees, as well as the end user can see the data, provides several views of a single data schema. Software programs and End users are free to aware where the data is physically located or which type of storage media resides because DBMS handles all requests.

DBMS can provide both logical and physical data independence. This means that it protects users and applications from the need to know where the data is stored or should be worried about the change in the physical structure of the data (storage and hardware). Unless the programs use the Application Programming Interface (API) for the databases provided by the DBMS, developers will not have to modify the program simply because changes to the database have been made.

With the relational DBMS (RDBMSs), this API is SQL, which is a standard programming language for defining, protecting and accessing data in RDBMS.

Popular types of DBMSes

Popular database models and their management systems include:

Relational Databases Management System (RDMS) - Suitable for most use cases, but RDBMS Tier-1 products can be quite expensive.

NoSQL DBMS - Well-suited for loosely defined data structures that may develop over time.

In-Memory Database Management System (IMDBMS) - Provides fast response time and better performance.

Columnar Database Management System (CDBMS) - Well suited for data warehouses that have a large number of identical data items.

Cloud-based data management system - The cloud service provider is responsible for providing and maintaining DBMS.

Advantages of a DBMS

Using DBMS to store and manage data comes in handy, but overhead too. The greatest advantages of using DBMS is that it allows users and application programmers to use and use similar data when managing data integrity. Data is maintained and protected when it can be shared using DBMS. DBMS provides a central store of data that can be accessed by many users in a controlled way.

Provides central storage and management of data within DBMS:

• Data abstraction and independence
• Data security
• A locking mechanism for concurrent access
• An efficient handler to balance the needs of many applications using the same data
• Ability to recover faster with crashes and errors including restart and recovery
• Strong data integrity capabilities
• Activity logging and auditing
• Easy access using a standard Application Programming Interface (API)
• Similar Administration Procedures for Data

Another advantage of DBMS is that it can be used to implement a logical, structured organization on data. A DBMS saves the economy of scale for large amounts of data processing because it is optimized for this type of operation.

A DBMS can also provide many ideas for a single database schema. A view defines which data the user sees and how the user sees that data. DBMS gives a level of deliberation between the reasonable schema, which characterizes the logical structure and physical schema of the database, which portrays the records, indexes and other physical mechanisms utilized by the database. When a DBMS is used, the system can be modified more easily when changing business requirements. New categories of data can be added to the database without interrupting the existing system, and how data is structured and stored, its applications can be kept insulated.

Of course, to provide these benefits a DBMS should do extra work, to bring an overhead with it. A DBMS will utilize more memory and CPU than a straightforward file storage system. And, of course, different types of DBMSs will require different types and level of system resources.