Microsoft Access 2013 Tutorials
Database 101 / What a Database Is
Subtitles of the Movie (Microsoft Access 2013 / Database 101 / What a Database Is)
Now let's answer the simple question, what is a database? And what I'm going to do here over the next few movies, maybe seven, maybe eight movies is go over some basic terminologies about databases. And if you look at the outline of the course this whole section is called Database 101. For those of you who are new to databases I just want to answer some basic questions in these short videos make sure you understand these terms and what's going on here. So what is a database? Well it is nothing more than a collection of related data. So a contact list in Word is actually a database. A list of sales prospects scribbled down on a napkin is a database. If its four names, numbers, addresses that's related data, that's a database. The phone book is a database. A complete inventory system in a program like Access is an easily identifiable database. We tend to think that way. Now a database is simply an organizational system that holds data in a structured manor. Now watch the terminology here. A Database Management System manages that data. A Database Management System or a DBMS is really what Access is and it provides the ability to first of all create the database and then to add, delete and update database data or the data that's in the tables of that database. And then it also gives us different ways to view that data. And so that's what a database actually is. Any database you create can be one of two forms or really one of two architecture types. And we'll talk a little bit more about some differences between database types a little bit later on in the course. But for now let's look at these two forms. The first one is a flat database or you'll hear it called a flat file database. This is where there's either just one or there's very few tables holding all the data. Now the little contact list in a Word document, that would be a flat database. Okay. If I created a database, put one table, loaded all my data into that one table that would be a flat database. The problem with flat databases is very quickly they can require you to store duplicate data and really just inefficiently store data. And it doesn't take long in the real world for data to get kind of complex and have kind of some different if, ands and buts about when we want to store data on different aspects of a user or a record. And when that stuff starts happening we find ourselves storing a lot of duplicate data. Storing data very inefficiently, storing blank spaces and you just don't want to fill your attic up with blank boxes or the boxes that have you know three or four or five copies of all the same thing. So a flat database certainly has it's place but it doesn't take very long to outgrow it. Now a relational database on the other hand stores the data in multiple tables. This really prevents duplicate data. It prevents inefficient storage. You don't store blank spaces. It makes the database very efficient, makes it faster but it does make it a little more difficult to program your inserts, your updates and your deletes. And it makes it a little more difficult to query and to get your reports out of it. Okay. The tables have relationships. We have a lot of multiple tables, we have to build these relationships between the tables to keep the data connected so that the data has meaning when we grab it from all the different tables and put it back together. So that's really a good overall answer to the question what is a database? And then I kind of threw a little in there extra on you about the database can be in one of two different forms. And as we move through here we'll talk about database types, organizations and some other things. Okay. So but for now that's a very good concise description of what a database is.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Microsoft Access 2013 |
| Author: | Mark Long |
| SKU: | 34405 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-090-9 |
| Release Date: | 2013-02-01 |
| Duration: | 7 hrs / 89 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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