Page 8 - DCAP402_DCAO204_DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM_MANAGING DATABASE

Harjinder Kaur, Lovely Professional University Unit 1: Database Fundamentals

Unit 1: Database Fundamentals Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

1.1 Database Management Systems (DBMS)
1.2 Database System Applications
1.3 Characteristics of the Database Approach

1.4 Advantages of DBMS
1.5 Disadvantages of DBMS
1.6 Database Architecture
1.7 Summary
1.8 Keywords

1.9 Self Assessment
1.10 Review Questions
1.11 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
 Define database management system
 Explain database system applications
 State the characteristics and the database approach

 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of database
 Discuss the database architecture

Introduction

The information storage and retrieval has become very important in our day-to-day life. The
old era of manual system is no longer used in most of the places. For example, to book your
airline tickets or to deposit your money in the bank the database systems may be used. The
database system makes most of the operations automated. A very good example for this is the
billing system used for the items purchased in a super market. Obviously this is done with the
help of a database application package. Inventory systems used in a drug store or in a
manufacturing industry are some more examples of database. We can add similar kind of
examples to this list.
Apart from these traditional database systems, more sophisticated database systems are used in
the Internet where a large amount of information is stored and retrieved with efficient search
engines. For instance, http://www.google.com is a famous web site that enables users to search
for their favorite information on the net. In a database we can store starting from text data to
very complex data like audio, video, etc.

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