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Benefits of Database Management 2022

January 26th, 2022 11 min read

How you manage your data affects your company’s entire workflow. If you use a file system, there can be several rooms for error. The ideal system to store your data is one where you can customize, organize, and protect your data with. There are integrity constraints with a simple file management system. Your data quality will also be at risk without protection. 

We will go over the advantages of database management systems. This includes the kinds of database man, the database structures, the different data structure needs, and the overall benefits of these systems. 

What is Database Management?

Database management, in the simplest terms, is organizing your data. This can be the lists of patients and their personal information. It can be your contacts, their information, templates you set aside for their correspondence. You can structure cloud applications in a database, as well as storage. 

Your database needs will help you decide the type of database system you want and the type of software you may want to manage it. A database management system (DBMS) is what organizes and structures your imputed information. A service for managing a DBMS is not a DBMS. The DBMS is the actual database with your data, the service for the DBMS manages the database. 

A service for a DBMS manages your DBMS so you don’t have to perform maintenance and automate tasks.You can also use other services to enhance your database system in other ways like visualization and interface.  

A good example of a DBMS is SQL Server. SQL Server is a database where you can organize and structure your data. Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a cloud service that can manage your SQL Server database for you.

For most DBMS, you will need to use database language like SQL (structured query language), to interact with your database and perform tasks. You will also need SQL skills for most managed services for DBMS. Don’t worry, there are services that give you a UI so you don’t have to code, just not as many.

Some of those DBMS options include Microsoft Access or Oracle, which provides an interface that lets you click, drag and drop to perform tasks, instead of coding requests. Microsoft Access can be an on-premise solution, or available with Microsoft online. Oracle has the same cloud or on-premises storage options.

What Are The Different Types Of Database Management Systems?

There are different types of database management systems, and you’ll notice other sources define them differently. This is because you can define them from so many different angles. One common way to separate them is whether they are hierarchical, relational, network, and object-oriented databases. 

Types of Database Systems/Structures Hierarchal RelationalNetworkObject-orientedNoSQL
DefinitionDatabase structured like a family tree. A database structured based on related information.Any non relational database. There are several other kinds of databases under this umbrella that don’t fit in the other categories. 
Structure languageSQLSQLSQLNoSQLNoSQL

We can go further and sort them by code, because the hierarchical, relational, network, are SQL databases while object-oriented systems are NoSQL databases. SQL relational databases are made of data that needs to be connected in some kind of way so you can access that information easily. SQL databases are also called relational database management systems or (RDBMS).

NoSQL databases are structured in a non-relational way, and quite a few other databases fall into this category. NoSQL databases can include object-oriented databases, column-oriented databases, graph-oriented databases, and more. The point of a NoSQL DBMS is you don’t want the structure to limit the different types of data you are storing. 

This is all important to know when you are looking for database management options, because they can be classified as either SQL or NoSQL. Knowing which one suits you will also make it easier to find the right software you need.

The next sections are about the benefits of DBMS in general, and won’t be about defining or talking about how to choose software or what software there is. If you want to learn more, we have a great article about how to choose database management software. Below we also have a tutorial from a Simplilearn playlist all about DBMS.

What Are The Benefits Of Database Management?

Some of the benefits of organizing and structuring data in a DBMS can be less obvious, like security and protection. Many of these benefits tend to lean towards cloud based DBMS, but you can still find these capabilities for on-premises as well. This isn’t the full list either, anyone that has used DBMS for a while can think of even more benefits, or may categorize them differently.

Data Security

Data security is fairly open-ended. It can be the ability to encrypt files like Microsoft Access. Security can also be the ability to restrict data access to that file so you don’t have to encrypt or do both. Security is whatever protects your data, and each database will offer different capabilities. The type of data and protection really falls on your company’s security policies.

One kind of database security is database administrator accounts and authorized user accounts. These accounts can have special sign-on procedures with encryption to protect private data while logging in. This is perfect for HIPAA compliant offices, or anyone with sensitive information to protect. The database will also likely have secure data sharing for employees and end users. 

Data Protection

Data protection is any kind of feature in a place to protect your data. This can include data backup and disaster recovery. Many cloud databases will backup your database in different locations so that in case your data is stolen, ransomed, or corrupted, you will have that extra copy. 

For on-premises databases, the responsibility of backing up can sometimes fall on you. If your team needs on-premise only databases because you don’t want anything on a cloud platform, then making sure this feature is there is integral. 

Disaster recovery is also important for recovering data that becomes corrupted from a freak storm or server crash. This can be a feature of on-premise and cloud-based services. It’s especially important in case disaster strikes while you are working on important projects. 

These protection features are important for companies that will rely heavily on a DBMS. It could be your contacts, your research, presentations, documents, anything important you plan to store in a database.

Data Integrity

Data integrity is the result of data protection and security succeeding. It can also be the result of minimizing data inconsistency. What integrity means in this case is the data itself is accurate and consistent. It hasn’t been tampered with, lost, or inaccurately entered. DBMS can be designed for data consistency and filter out human errors, and make it easier for you to find inconsistencies.

With data integrity features in DBMS you minimize further errors. Any medical office would need completely accurate patient information, and any research would benefit from correctly spelled concepts.

Data Speed

When your data is organized and structured, it can be easier and faster to access answers to questions. With relational databases you can query the exact information you want. You can also find related information to what you’re looking for and answer even more needs. Users can essentially filter and search a DBMS, and in turn find everything you need faster. 

This kind of feature is ideal for company research teams, advertising teams pulling company reports for presentations, sorting contact lists etc. Anyone can benefit from faster access to information.

Data Redundancy

DBMS can be designed to help filter out or reduce redundancies in your data. Redundant data would be duplicates. This can be fixed with single database systems in DBMS or centralized DBMS. Traditional file management systems would mainly require you to filter out duplicates yourself.

Anyone that needs to pull forms, reports, and mailing lists can benefit this. That way you won’t have pages with duplicate information. This feature can also minimize your database size and increase your speed by filtering out duplicates. 

Through the benefits of a DBMS, you can find that workflows are faster and more efficient. Decision making will be improved. When your database is more organized it will be easier to access information needed to make better decisions. If you can’t access everything related to a topic, you may not think of that pertinent information.

More Resources

For more information on DBMS systems, you can see our product list. For services for DBMS systems, we also have a product list. There you can sift through and check the reviews for the different software. 

If any of you have used some of the platforms in the article, please consider leaving a review to help other buyers make informed decisions. 

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