Introducing Databases A database is an organized collection of information. A relational database is a collection of related information that has been organized into structures known as tables | Introducing Databases A database is an organized collection of information. A relational database is a collection of related information that has been organized into structures known as tables. Each table contains rows that are further organized into columns. You should already be familiar with information being represented in the form of a table with columns. For example Table shows the details of some products sold by the Northwind Company. Table lists the product ID name quantity per unit and unit price for the first 10 products this information comes from the Products table of the Northwind database. Table SOME ROWS FROM THE PRODUCTS TABLE PRODUCT ID NAME QUANTITY PER UNIT Unit Price 1 Chai 10 boxes x 20 bags 18 2 Chang 24-12oz bottles 19 3 Aniseed Syrup 12-550ml bottles 10 4 Chef Anton s Cajun Seasoning 48-6oz jars 22 5 Chef Anton s Gumbo Mix 36 boxes 6 Grandma s Boysenberry Spread 12-8ozjars 25 7 Uncle Bob s Organic Dried Pears 12-1lb pkgs. 30 8 Northwoods Cranberry Sauce 12-12ozjars 40 9 Mishi Kobe Niku 18-500g pkgs. 97 10 Ikura 12-200ml jars 31 You can store the information in a database on paper in a filing cabinet or in electronic format stored in the memory and file system of a computer. The system used to manage the information in the database is the database management system. In the case of an electronic database the database management system is the software that manages the information in the computer s memory and files. One example of such software is SQL Server this is the relational database management system or RDBMS used in this book . Other examples of RDBMS software include Oracle and DB2. Note You must be careful to differentiate between a database and a database management system. A database is an organized collection of information and a database management system is the software that stores and provides the tools to manipulate the stored information. This distinction is blurred these days so the term database is often .
