Data refers to the collection of related data, combined to be stored, at a central place, which is the basis for any activity in the organisation. It is that component for whose management, the DBMS works. This components is very essential and important, as it is the core of any organisation and its activity.
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Software is component includes, both the system software and all other Supporting Application Software, which are used to work on the database. This component is the set of instructions required to manage, maintain and work with data.
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Hardware includes, the CPU and all other peripheral devices like monitor, keyboard, printer, mouse etc., which are essential for keying in data and giving output, as well the hard disk for storing the data.
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Users: This component include all types of users, who derive the benefit of getting the work done by the DBMS, so that they have the required data and information with them for Decision Making.
Features of Data Base Management System
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Database Management System, is a tool which helps a user to work efficiently with a database. This eases, the working with database as it provides various tools functions, pressures, built-ins which help a user. Some of the striking features of DBMS are as follows:
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Productivity Tool: The DBMS acts as productivity tool of a programmer, it gives the programmer the capacity to work with database enhancing his productivity. As DBMS takes cares of database management, the programmer now need not bother about the handling of database, can now in-turn use his time for other Productive Activities, thereby enhancing his own productivity.
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User Interface: DBMS provides a programmer with a good user interface, which enables him to interact with database very easily. The DBMS itself can be taken as an interface between the programmer and the database. The interface gives flexibility and provides a good working environment for the programmer and the user.
Database Support and Structure
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DBMS provides powerful database support and has a structure, which is an powerful as its support. The data is fit into the structure, so that it does not pose any threats and problems to the data organisation. Various models have been formulated for Designing Database Structure, which enhances its power.
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Easy to work with DBMS provides interfaces, which are quite easy to work. One need not do much of programming as it comes with good database constructs, which do the tasks on behalf of the programmer. There are now GUI environments available for most of the DBMS, where a drag and drop using a mouse or a mouse click will do the required task, as menus are available, which reduce the coding work of the user. The language syntax is very easy, it is usually simple English like which can be learnt and remembered easily.
Advanced Data Manipulations
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The data manipulation capacity of DBMS is sophisticated and it involves advanced Data Manipulation Operations, which are done very easily. All data manipulations like adding, deleting, inserting, updating etc. of records/data is provided for. Apart from these various mechanisms are available which take care about the security aspect of data.
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Use of 4 GL Tools
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Most of the DBMS use 4-GL (4th Generation Language) tools which are easy, flexible, powerful and effective in providing data management facilities. Use of these tools make them still more better and beneficial, and they update according to current requirements.
Data Independence
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This is one of the excellent features offered by DBMS. This makes the data to stand on its own, depending on anything may it be hardware or the access strategy. The data Independence is further classified into
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Physical Data Independence, Logical Data Independence
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This data independence is adopted as it is undesirable to allow data dependence for the following reasons:
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Data needs of different applications are different. Applications may need different view of same data, if the data is dependent it will not work.
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DBA should have freedom to change storage structure or strategy to be adopted while storing the data.
Physical data Independence
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It is that property of data, which makes it independent of the storage structure and devices. This makes the data independent of hardware, so that we can port data from one system to the other, without any problem.
Logical data Independence
It is the immunity of the applications/data towards the access strategy. This means that whatever might be the access strategy, the data should pose no threats to be accessed and it should give the same values. This makes data independent of Logic of Accessing the Data, so that one can anytime change the access strategy without any harm to the data.
