Databases role in the modern world

Over a period of time, humankind have been struggling in the society to adjust and cope up with the modern day challenges. In order to survive, a person must have the capability of generate unique and innovative idea, understand accessed previous data, formulate rational decisions and create significant changes in the pool of knowledge. In order to these, a person must have the ability to manage a vast collection of data and must be able to sort out the available resources readily available.

Day-by-day, we keep on surfing to different types of information to be able to understand realities in life so that we could answer problems and make our life even easier. This type of practice to save data and access data in many forms started since the ancient times and continued to prosper even up to this day. We have already evolved from using stones, papers, up to know in the modern world where we used computers with the aid of databases.

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A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can be easily accessed, managed and updated (

In addition, according to Robert J. Robbins, a database is a persistent, logically coherent collection of inherently meaningful data, relevant to some aspects of the real world.

Moreover, a database (DB), in the most general sense, is an organized collection of data. More specifically, a database is an electronic system that allows data to be easily accessed, manipulated and updated. In other words, a database is used by an organization as a method of storing, managing and retrieving information.

Modern databases are managed using a database management system (DBMS) (Technopedia.com).

Technopedia explains Database (DB). Software programmers are well acquainted with database concepts through relational databases like Oracle, SQL SERVER and MySQL, etc. Typically, a database structure stores data in a tabular format.

Moreover, Database architecture may be external, internal or conceptual. The external level specifies the way in which every end-user type comprehends the organization of its corresponding relevant data in the database. The internal level deals with the performance, scalability, cost and other operational matters. The conceptual level perfectly unifies the different external views into a defined and wholly global view. It consists of every end-user required generic data.

Databases are used to support internal operations of organizations and to underpin online interactions with customers and suppliers.

Databases are used to hold administrative information and more specialized data, such as engineering data or economic models. Examples include computerized library systems, flight reservation systems, computerized parts inventory systems, and many content management systems that store websites as collections of webpages in a database.

Databases can make your organization much more efficient and give management valuable insights. They help make sense of your information. They can help you make your products and services more valuable. They can help you sell more.

For example, if you own an online store, you could use a database for your website to keep track of customer data, purchases, prices, and other information. This can be transferred directly into your accounting system saving you the time to collect the data, find the corresponding spreadsheet, and input the data yourself.

In example, Jenny would like to put up a coffee shop along a busy street in the city. Database could be used as an inventory check of available materials, ingredients and resources which are still available or out of stock. She could also use it to determine the best seller or frequently ordered type of coffee and use this data in order to come up with a promo or strategy to increase the sales of the shop.

Also, DB provides the following functions: Concurrency: concurrent access (meaning 'at the same time') to the same database by multiple users; Security: security rules to determine access rights of users; Backup and recovery: processes to back-up the data regularly and recover data if a problem occurs; Integrity: database structure and rules improve the integrity of the data; and Data descriptions: a data dictionary provides a description of the data.

On the other hand, the advantages of DB are: Reduced data redundancy, Reduced updating errors and increased consistency, Greater data integrity and independence from applications programs, Improved data access to users through use of host and query languages, Improved data security, Reduced data entry, storage, and retrieval cost, Facilitated development of new applications program.

The disadvantages of DB are: Database systems are complex, difficult, and time-consuming to design Substantial hardware and software start-up costs, Damage to database affects virtually all applications programs, Extensive conversion costs in moving form a file-based system to a database system and Initial training required for all programmers and users.

According to Chirantan Basu in his article Disadvantages of databases, Business databases may reside on desktop hard drives, corporate servers or remote servers. Small businesses can use external business databases for industry and competitive information and internal databases for storing sales and other data. Although databases allow businesses to store and access data efficiently, they also have certain disadvantages.

The first disadvantage is Complexity. Databases are complex hardware and software systems. In addition to the storage media, databases have software modules for accessing, manipulating and displaying the data. Database design and development is a complex undertaking, requiring experienced designers and significant financial resources. Therefore, small and large businesses typically acquire commercial databases and customize them to fit corporate requirements. Businesses should consider scalable database architectures to accommodate future growth.

The second is Cost. Databases require significant upfront and ongoing financial resources. Developing or customizing database management systems may involve frequent changes to system requirements, which lead to schedule slippages and cost overruns. A small business can reduce database management costs by taking advantage of cloud computing technology, which involves storing data on next-generation databases hosted by large infrastructure companies. Cloud computing reduces the need for large capital investments in information technology, thus allowing small businesses to allocate limited financial resources to other operational requirements.

The third issue is on Security. Companies need to know that their database systems can securely store data, including sensitive employee and customer information. Media reports of computer viruses and spam are common, as are reports of systematic hacking of corporate networks. Cloud computing can increase the security risks because the data are stored at third-party data centers, which can be located in foreign jurisdictions subject to different privacy and data integrity laws.

The last disadvantage is on Compatibility. There is a risk that a database management system might not be compatible with a company's operational requirements. For example, if a small business wants to store detailed customer information or email traffic, it may find that its existing database cannot support the additional data fields or the new queries and reports. This is why scalable applications and cloud-based systems might be a more cost-effective solution for a small business because it can add functionality and resources as its needs evolve. Some database vendors offer scalability in the form of plug-in modules. For example, a company can first implement a database management system for its accounting operations and then add in the other operations later.

One of the major challenges for the IT companies today is how to manage large growing volumes of data and how to produce a quality driven software product ensuring optimal utilization of resources with minimum cost. The database management system is a software system i.e. a set of programs that provides its users with processes for defining, building, manipulating and sharing databases amongst the users and applications. A cloud data base management system is a database management system for management of cloud data and provides delivery of computing as services rather than as product. In this paper we have proposed an architecture for management of data in cloud termed as "Cloud Database Management System Architecture". The cloud database management system provides an approach for management of cloud data. The cloud data are spread over the internet and are stored to a remote server managed by a third party. Hence, the cloud data management is a major issue which needs to be catered to. A well-defined architecture is thus required to manage the cloud data, available at a remote location. In this work an architectural model for cloud database management system has been developed .This architecture is based on the three schema architecture for data base management system and three level object oriented database management system architecture. (Cloud Database Management System Architecture. Available from: /270791476_Cloud_Database_Management_System_Architecture [accessed Dec 17 2018])

Further, Database is an organized collection of data, and is the heart and soul of any information system. Cloud infrastructure consists of huge volumes of data which might be shared amongst multiple tenants .Thus, data management in particular is an essential aspect for storage in cloud. The data are distributed in cloud across multiple locations and might contain certain privilege and authentic information. Therefore it's very important to ensure that data consistency, scalability and security are maintained. In order to address these issues and several other critical issues regarding data, a data base management system for cloud data is imperative. In cloud two primary DBMS architectures are used shared nothing and shared disk. Shared nothing is a distributed computing architecture in which each node is self-sufficient and is independent of any other node i.e. each node in shared nothing architecture has its own memory and disk storage and does not share it with any other node. There is no point of contention in the nodes. Shared disk architecture is a computing architecture in which each node has its own memory but they share disk storage space. It actually partitions the data such that each database server processes and maintains its own piece of database. In this paper we will first discuss shared nothing and shared disk architectures, their limitations and then propose our cloud data base management system architecture.

As they say, anything in this world has always have its own positive and negative impact depending on how you are going to use or apply in the betterment of every human activity. Despite of the above-mentioned disadvantages of the use of databases in the modern world it will never outweigh the advantages of this could bring on the organization, business, industry and other fields of specialization. Some weaknesses of these DBs must be viewed as mere challenges to improve the quality of existing DBs. we should not stop making possibilities within our hands in order to handle bigger and bigger volume of data that keep on growing from time to time.

Overall, Database is very important in the processing of data that we have especially now where we have a lot of things to generate, store and retrieve. We must be very careful of the data that we have to use and store. Security is one of the priority concerns that we must think with what we have. We must increase our ability to deal with the data that we have and ensure that it must be well-managed and useful to everyone even though we have a lot of constraints.