Essay: What are databases used for?

Data bases are used to organise the data that is provided, it is a computer based application where data is organised and stored, whether it be the room availability in a hotel or the income of a business or a company. Data bases are vital when it comes to storing information and results, this makes it easier and more manageable for mostly businesses as it can store vast amount of information into a table which requires minimum effort to handle. This makes it easier for businesses to organise their information about their income, their customers’ information such as their details and purchase history, it can help with providing with record of the last year’s profit and purchases. It can help and organise the items and products that have been sold and which are the most favourable within its customer based purchases.
Data bases are widely used all over the world to manage and organise information, in schools they are used to manage the library books availability and the information that they have on the students attending the schools, contact details, which class they are attending and what their history is within the school. It is also used to store information on grades and the work that the students have done.
Data bases that are used by larger companies are much more sophisticated than small businesses however they have the same principle about input, processing and output of information and data. Data bases are widely used in the world by different organisations, it is mostly used for its relational database as it uses key fields to link different data in tables which then are related to each other with easy access, this is mostly used to generate project plans and estimating future costs. Operational databases are used to store information of daily activity such as purchases, financial information and transactions that have been carried out, this data can easily be changed and managed by the company as its requirements can changed due to orders or other information changes. Database Warehouses are used to store data over several years as it allows the company or organisation to compare its previous data with the new data provided, it can easily be accessed and managed, however it does not need editing as it already has been done previously. This kind of a data base requires a specific software which is also provided in the project quality plan at the beginning of the business, this is usually the SRS which stands for software requirements specification. Distributed Databases is used by chain organisations which is the main data base of the organisation, each branch have their own data base which they store data on and then later on update it into the main database which then is managed by the main office. End-User databases are small databases which include information such as the spreadsheets, word files and other smaller application which form one main database and this is the End-User database. It is normally used by small workstations.
Oracle is one of the main database products that is used within organisations, it is also referred to as Oracle RDBMS (relational database management system). Another database product that is the Microsoft SQL (structured query language) server which is also a relational data base system management. These data bases essentially do the same thing which is input, process and output of data. One of the difference with these two data bases are their language, the Oracle uses PL/SQL which is the Procedural Language or the Structured Query Language whereas M-SQL uses Transact SQL which is a different SQL to the Oracle SQL and this was originally produced by Sybase and then used by Microsoft. The main difference with the language is how they input information, the Oracle can store group procedures into a set of packages, this cannot be done by the SQL used by Microsoft, however Microsoft SQL seems to be more complex and powerful than the Oracle PL/SQL which is more simple and easier to handle. These two databases are equally favourable within the organisations as different organisation requires different type of data handling data base even with the small differences that they both have, they are really powerful RDBMS options used.