Advantages

• • An organized and comprehensiveness of recording the result of the firms activities.

• • A receiver of data to be used in meeting the information requirement of the MIS users.
• • Reduced data redundancy.
• • Reduced updating errors and increased consistency.
• • Greater data integrity and independence from applications programs.
• • Improved data access to users through use of host and query languages.
• • Improved data security.
• • Reduced data entry, storage, and retrieval costs.
• • Facilitated development of new applications program.
• • Standard can be enforced: Standardized stored data format is particularly desirable as an old data to interchange
or migration (change) between the system.
• • Conflicting requirement can be handled.
• Disadvantages :

• • It increases opportunity for person or groups outside the organization to gain access to information about the
firms operation.
• • It increases opportunity for fully training person within the organization to misuse the data resources
intentionally.
• • The data approach is a costly due to higher H/W and S/W requirements.
• • Database systems are complex (due to data independence), difficult, and time-consuming to design.
• • It is not maintain for all organizations .It is only efficient for particularly large organizations.
• • Damage to database affects virtually all applications programs.
• • Extensive conversion costs in moving form a file-based system to a database system.
• • Initial training required for all programmers and users.
COMPONENTS OF DATABASE APPROACH
• The database management system can be divided into five major
components, they are:
1.Hardware
2.Software
3.Data
4.Procedures
5.Database Access Language
• Hardware
• When we say Hardware, we mean computer, hard disks, I/O channels for data,
and any other physical component involved before any data is successfully
stored into the memory.
• When we run Oracle or MySQL on our personal computer, then our computer's
Hard Disk, our Keyboard using which we type in all the commands, our
computer's RAM, ROM all become a part of the DBMS hardware.

• Software
• This is the main component, as this is the program which controls everything.
• The DBMS software is more like a wrapper around the physical database, which
provides us with an easy-to-use interface to store, access and update data.
• The DBMS software is capable of understanding the Database Access Language
and intrepret it into actual database commands to execute them on the DB.
• Data
• Data is that resource, for which DBMS was designed.
• The motive behind the creation of DBMS was to store and utilise data.
• In a typical Database, the user saved Data is present and meta data is stored.
• Metadata is data about the data.
• This is information stored by the DBMS to better understand the data stored in it.
• For example: When I store my Name in a database, the DBMS will store when the
name was stored in the database, what is the size of the name, is it stored as related
data to some other data, or is it independent, all this information is metadata.

• Procedures
• Procedures refer to general instructions to use a database management system.
• This includes procedures to setup and install a DBMS,
• To login and logout of DBMS software, to manage databases, to take backups,
generating reports etc.
• Database Access Language
• Database Access Language is a simple language designed to write
commands to access, insert, update and delete data stored in any
database.
• A user can write commands in the Database Access Language and
submit it to the DBMS for execution, which is then translated and
executed by the DBMS.
• User can create new databases, tables, insert data, fetch stored data,
update data and delete the data using the access language.
• Users
• Database Administrators: Database Administrator or DBA is the one
who manages the complete database management system.
• DBA takes care of the security of the DBMS, it's availability, managing
the license keys, managing user accounts and access etc.
• Application Programmer or Software Developer: This user group is
involved in developing and desiging the parts of DBMS.
• End User: These days all the modern applications, web or mobile, store
user data.
• Applications are programmed in such a way that they collect user data
and store the data on DBMS systems running on their server.
• End users are the one who store, retrieve, update and delete data.
• CHARACTERISTICS OF DATABASE
• Database is a collection of related data and data is a collection of facts
and figures that can be processed to produce information.
• Mostly data represents recordable facts. Data aids in producing
information, which is based on facts. For example, if we have data about
marks obtained by all students, we can then conclude about toppers and
average marks.
• A database management system stores data in such a way that it
becomes easier to retrieve, manipulate, and produce information.
• Characteristics

• Traditionally, data was organized in file formats. DBMS was a new concept then, and all the research was done to
make it overcome the deficiencies in traditional style of data management.
• A modern DBMS has the following characteristics
• Real-world entity − A modern DBMS is more realistic and uses real-world entities to design its architecture.
• It uses the behavior and attributes too.
• For example, a school database may use students as an entity and their age as an attribute.
• Relation-based tables − DBMS allows entities and relations among them to form tables.
• A user can understand the architecture of a database just by looking at the table names.
• Isolation of data and application − A database system is entirely different than its data.
• A database is an active entity, whereas data is said to be passive, on which the database works and organizes.
• DBMS also stores metadata, which is data about data, to ease its own process.
• Less redundancy − DBMS follows the ru
• les of normalization, which splits a relation when any of its attributes is having redundancy in values. Normalization
is a mathematically rich and scientific process that reduces data redundancy.
• Consistency − Consistency is a state where every relation in a database remains consistent.
• There exist methods and techniques, which can detect attempt of leaving database in inconsistent state.
• A DBMS can provide greater consistency as compared to earlier forms of data storing applications like file-
processing systems.
• Query Language − DBMS is equipped with query language, which makes it more
efficient to retrieve and manipulate data.
• A user can apply as many and as different filtering options as required to retrieve a
set of data
• . Traditionally it was not possible where file-processing system was used.
• ACID Properties − DBMS follows the concepts of Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation,
and Durability (normally shortened as ACID).
• These concepts are applied on transactions, which manipulate data in a database.
• ACID properties help the database stay healthy in multi-transactional environments
and in case of failure.
• Multiuser and Concurrent Access − DBMS supports multi-user environment and
allows them to access and manipulate data in parallel.
• Though there are restrictions on transactions when users attempt to handle the
same data item, but users are always unaware of them.
• Multiple views − DBMS offers multiple views for different users.
• A user who is in the Sales department will have a different view of database than a
person working in the Production department.
• This feature enables the users to have a concentrate view of the database according
to their requirements.
• Security − Features like multiple views offer security to some extent
where users are unable to access data of other users and departments.
• DBMS offers methods to impose constraints while entering data into the
database and retrieving the same at a later stage.
• DBMS offers many different levels of security features, which enables
multiple users to have different views with different features.
• For example, a user in the Sales department cannot see the data that
belongs to the Purchase department.
• Additionally, it can also be managed how much data of the Sales
department should be displayed to the user.
• Since a DBMS is not saved on the disk as traditional file systems, it is
very hard for miscreants to break the code
• A typical DBMS has users with different rights and permissions who use it for different
purposes. Some users retrieve data and some back it up.
• The users of a DBMS can be broadly categorized as follows
• Administrators − Administrators maintain the DBMS and are responsible for
administrating the database.
• They are responsible to look after its usage and by whom it should be used.
• They create access profiles for users and apply limitations to maintain isolation and
force security.
• Administrators also look after DBMS resources like system license, required tools, and
other software and hardware related maintenance.
• Designers − Designers are the group of people who actually work on the designing
part of the database.
• They keep a close watch on what data should be kept and in what format.
• They identify and design the whole set of entities, relations, constraints, and views.
• End Users − End users are those who actually reap the benefits of having a DBMS.
• End users can range from simple viewers who pay attention to the logs or market
rates to sophisticated users such as business analysts.