What is Database Management System (DBMS)?

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Database Management System (DBMS) is a collection of programs which enables its users to access database, manipulate data, reporting / representation of  data .

It also helps to control access to the  database.

Database Management Systems are not a new concept and as such had been first implemented in 1960s.

Charles Bachmen\’s Integrated Data Store (IDS) is said to be the first DBMS in history.

With time database technologies evolved a lot while usage and expected functionalities of databases have been increased immensely.

 

Types of DBMS

Let\’s see how the DBMS family got evolved with the time.

There are 4 major types of DBMS. Let\’s look into them in detail.

Navigational DBMS >>> Relational DBMS >>>SQL DBMS >>>Object Oriented DBMS
  • Hierarchical – this type of DBMS employs the \”parent-child\” relationship of storing data. This type of DBMS is rarely used nowadays. Its structure is like a tree with nodes representing records and branches representing fields. The windows registry used in Windows XP is an example of a hierarchical database. Configuration settings are stored as tree structures with nodes.
  • Network DBMS – this type of DBMS supports many-to many relations. This usually results in complex database structures.  RDM Server is an example of a database management system that implements the network model.
  • Relational DBMS – this type of DBMS defines database relationships in form of tables, also known as relations. Unlike network DBMS, RDBMS does not support many to many relationships.Relational DBMS usually have pre-defined data types that they can support. This is the most popular DBMS type in the market. Examples of relational database management systems include MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server database.
  • Object Oriented Relation DBMS – this type supports storage of new data types. The data to be stored is in form of objects. The objects to be stored in the database have attributes (i.e. gender, ager) and methods that define what to do with the data. PostgreSQL is an example of an object oriented relational DBMS.
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