Most application systems either manage or read data
from one or more computer databases. A database could be a set of flat files
stored on
computer tape or disk or it could consist of database tables that are managed by a
Database Management System (DBMS).
A Data Base Management System is special
software that manages the organization, storage, access, security and
integrity of data in a structured database. The most widely used data base
management systems today are Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, ASE and MySQL.
Some Data Base Management Systems can be accessed
directly using programming languages such as COBOL while others provide
their own programming language for interacting with the database. Many DBMS
applications also provide reporting and query tools to view data in the
database.
There are different types of DBMSs: relational, network
and hierarchical. The most widely commonly used type of DBMS
today is the Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS).
