The DBMS Market Circa 2015

Today's blog post is to call attention to a series of articles and product overviews I have been writing for the TechTarget SearchDataManagement portal on Database Management Systems (DBMS).

Firstly, I wrote a 7 part series of articles reviewing the DBMS technology circa 2015. This series spans relational, NoSQL and in-memory database technology and here are the links to each of the seven articles:

• Evaluating the Different Types of DBMS Products
• Key criteria for deciding if a relational DBMS meets your IT needs
• Key criteria for deciding if a NoSQL DBMS meets your IT needs
• How to determine if an in-memory DBMS is right for your company
• Which relational DBMS is best for your company?
• How to determine which NoSQL DBMS best fits your needs.
• Which in-memory DBMS best fits your company’s needs?
  
  

Now you may be asking, why would I provide links to these articles on a DB2 blog? Good question. The answer is that it behooves you to keep up to date on the latest breakthroughs and offerings in the world of data management. Sure, we all can agree that DB2 is great and should be used by everybody! But let's face it, our organizations are going to have data-related projects where DB2 is not the primary DBMS... so read through those articles and get up to speed on the new NoSQL and in-memory database offerings out there.

I have also been writing a series of DBMS product overview documents that briefly review and highlight the features and capabilities of many popular DBMSes. I won't share all of them with you here today (if you are interested, they will all be linked to, over time, on my web site at http://mullinsconsulting.com/articles.html.  I will, though, share the link for the TechTarget product overview I wrote of DB2: IBM DB2 relational DBMS overview.

That's all for today... thanks for reading!

Database Versus DBMS

What is a database? I bet most people reading this blog post think that they know the answer to that question. But many of them would be wrong. DB2 is not a database, it is a DBMS, or Database Management System. You can use DB2 to create a database, but DB2, in and of itself, is not a database. Same goes for Oracle (which is a DBMS and a company) and SQL Server (just a DBMS).

So what is a database? A database is an organized store of data wherein the data is accessible by named data elements (for example, fields, records, and files). It does not even have to be computerized to be a database. The phone book is a database (Why do they still send out phone books? Does anyone even use them any more? Now I’m way off topic, so let’s get back on track.)

A DBMS is software that enables end users or application programmers to share data. It provides a systematic method of creating, updating, retrieving and storing information in a database. DBMSs also are generally responsible for data integrity, data access control, and automated rollback, restart and recovery.

In layman’s terms, you can think of a database as a filing system. You can think of the filing cabinet itself along with the file folders and labels as the DBMS. A DBMS manages databases. You implement and access database instances using the capabilities of the DBMS.

So, DB2 and Oracle and SQL Server and MySQL are database management systems. Your payroll application uses the payroll database, which may be implemented using DB2 or Oracle or…

Why is that important? If we do not use precise terms when we write, speak, and work confusion can result. And confusion leads to over budget projects, improperly developed systems, and lost productivity. So precision must be important to us.