Importance of Database System
Databases in Business
Databases have become essential to most modern businesses--to the point that most companies cannot remain competitive if they don't computerize at least some of their operations. Obvious productivity boosts result from using databases for inventory management, payroll, order fulfillment, and other clerical tasks. Perhaps less obvious are the sometimes startling ideas that bubble up when the new database analysis technique called data mining is used. discovery is a type of database utility designed to analyze data and report back with useful information. Data mining is one type of knowledge discovery where a program searches a database, discovering hidden information.
Using statistics, artificial intelligence, modeling techniques, and other tools, data mining can predict trends or relationships that likely would never be noticed by a human analyst-even a really skilled, hardworking analyst.
Data mining can provide a company with suggestions about improving efficiency, predict trends, and otherwise offer wise and useful ideas. Notice that data mining doesn't just provide facts; it provides actual ideas--and there is a difference.
For example, data mining can give you answers to questions you didn't ask. Traditional data analysis requires that you first ask a question, such as "give me a list of o' ali overdue accounts. " SQL can get answers to practically any specific question you want to ask of a database.
Data mining, however, works differently. It searches a database all by itself, discovering "gems" of information and bringing them to your attention. For example, data mining might tell you that 78 percent of the people who bought your tea kettle returned to your Web site within two weeks to buy a tea strainer. With information like this, you can store these items together in the warehouse, saving your company some money. And you can modify your catalog to suggest to your tea kettle customers that they might want to purchase the strainer at the same time, saving your customers shipping and handling costs.
Organizations accumulate huge amounts of data, and usually within that giant collection of information are relationships that--once revealed via data mining can be used to improve efficiency, Traditionally, you had to know what to look for before, you could begin an analysis of a database. You had to know what questions to ask of the data. Data mining discover subtle, sophisticated, and sometimes essential information that nobody would have noticed. It can alert you, for example, that your customers in California are increasingly purchasing from a competitor.
What's more, it can tell you why they're abandoning your product line, and what you can do about it. And it can make these recommendations early on before the problem becomes impossible to solve.
Databases on the internet
Many ordinary Web sites, and nearly every commercial site, run on top ofa database. Any site that provides a search feature is offering you access to their database, And, of course, whenever you view a catalog or place an online order, you're interacting with a database.
Amazon and eBay are perhaps the most famous online database-driven sites. Beyond commerce, the Internet also offers all Linds of other databases: collections of art, movie reviews, science articles, genealogy records, world geography, and as specific as photos of aardvark feeding habits. Without a doubt, the is the world's greatest research tool. It is filled with millions of databases--on every topic under the sun - just waiting for you to mine them, a larger sense, the entire Internet itself can be considered one hinge database, Or perhaps a more accurate term would be super: database, database databases. True, it's not structured into tables, eco. us, and fields, but you can use Google or other search engines and nearly always find the information you're looking for. Search engines work by sending out crawlers, or spiders" (to the "web," get it?). These little robot agents" continually look for new Web pages and send their Internet addresses back to the search engine's database. you're interested in finding out how large or fresh each search engine's database is, you can find that information at HTTP: // searchenginewatch.com/reports.
And what a whopping collection of data the Internet offers. For example, Google is reported to contain an index of over 3.3 billion documents. No wonder you can find out all you need to know about aardvarks.
Databases for Individuals
Personal databases are useful for managing various aspects of your life. They're good, for example, if you like collecting things. If you enjoy cooking, you'll find definite benefits from entering all your recipes into a cookbook application. True, the initial data-entry process is tedious, You have to type everything into the pro- tram's database, which certainly gives you an appreciation of how tough a job data entry can be. But once you've finished, you'll be able to "import" recipes from Internet cooking sites--just copy and paste them right into your personal database.
After you've built your personal database, you can then reap the benefits of computerization:
- Search your collection by a variety of criteria (by particular ingredients, or combinations of ingredients; calorie content; ethnic cuisine; appliance used such as crockpot; category such as desserts; preparation time; and so on).
- Print out a list of ingredients to take to the supermarket. Easily adjust a recipe that feeds four to make it feed eight-with a click of the mouse.
You'll get similar benefits from building databases for other kinds of collections: coins, books, CDs, or whatever your hobby is. And don't forget that today's can include photos as well as text--so you can make your personal more useful. Microsoft is the clear leader for personal databases-it's easy to use comes bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office. However, Access isn't really usable for large-scale, enterprise databases because host only, in the worst case, 10 users simultaneously, and the biggest database.
Databases at Work
No matter what kind of work you do, you're almost certain to use a computer in some aspect of your job. And if you use a computer, you'll also be using databases often. Databases replace or supplement, many traditional information storage systems.
Everything from file cabinets tu dictionaries is disappearing from today's workplace. After all, why thumb through a dictionary when it's so much easier to type in a word at Webster's online site at http: // www.m-w.com/ netdict.htm. As soon as a dictionary appears on the Internet, it's no longer just a dictionary, a book full of words-it's a database of words.
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