The Role of the Dbms in Supporting Business Needs

The Role of the DBMS in Supporting Business Needs

By definition, when company growth is exponential, so then is all of the data associated with that growth. Everything from customer names, addresses, telephone numbers to HR documents and company quarterly reports. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. To deal with this explosion of growth (and the diverse nature of data), organizations must employ sophisticated techniques for information management. Namely, the database management system, or DBMS.

Incorporating or utilizing a database reduces many (if not all) of the endless problems that arose from previous methods of storing and accessing data (way back in the day when most of a company's secure records were filed away on plain white paper and placed inside free-standing, metal file cabinets. Data (stored digitally) are arranged so that information can be queried by an administrator or other authorized persons.

When you consider how quickly most digital records or reports can be retrieved (or added, updated, deleted, etc.), the amount of money saved in increased productivity is almost immeasurable. Consider, also the following advantages to how a database system can (and will) streamline a company's day-to-day operation (Rainer Jr. & Cegielski, "Data and Knowledge Management," 2011):

* Data redundancy: The same data are stored in many places.

* Data Isolation: Applications cannot access data associated with other applications.

* Data Inconsistency: Various copies of the data do not agree.

* Data security: Because data are essential to organizations, databases have extremely high security measures in place to deter mistakes and attacks.

* Data integrity: Data meet certain constraints, such as no alphabetic characters in a Social Security Number field.

Adding to the benefits listed above is the fact that once all of the data are archived and organized, company analysts can make informed decisions about how to best utilize the knowledge now before them.

One of the most popular Database systems in use today is MySQL (owned by Oracle Corporation). For starters, the database is a free, open-source product. Also, it is ubiquitous. Web developers and database administrators across the globe seem to agree on ease-of-use and how it integrates almost seamlessly with a number of programming languages and other web-based technologies. In fact, according to one online article, "because of its stability, many internet powerhouses such as Yahoo! use MySQL as their back-end database." (Hobach, 2008). And let's not forget scalability! As your company grows (or shrinks) in size, so can the data you manage!

Still, despite all of the excitement around the benefits and values of using a DBMS to facilitate a company's processes, problems can (and will) arise. And the problems are not exclusive to any single one data structure. A very real problem that almost every medium to large company faces today is the mismanagement of the data they