Database management system (DBMS)

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A database management system (or DBMS) is essentially nothing more than a computerized data-keeping system. Users of the system are given facilities to perform several kinds of operations on such a system for either manipulation of the data in the database or the management of the database structure itself. Database Management Systems (DBMSs) are categorized according to their data structures or types.

Mainframe sites tend to use a hierarchical model when the data structure (not data values) of the data needed for an application is relatively static. For example, a Bill of Material (BOM) database structure always has a high level assembly part number, and several levels of components with subcomponents. The structure usually has a component forecast, cost, and pricing data, and so on. The structure of the data for a BOM application rarely changes, and new data elements (not values) are rarely identified. An application normally starts at the top with the assembly part number, and goes down to the detail components.

Hierarchical and relational database systems have common benefits. RDBMS has the additional, significant advantage over the hierarchical DB of being non-navigational. By navigational, we mean that in a hierarchical database, the application programmer must know the structure of the database. The program must contain specific logic to navigate from the root segment to the desired child segments containing the desired attributes or elements. The program must still access the intervening segments, even though they are not needed.

The remainder of this section discusses the relational database structure.

Relational databases include the following structures:

Database

A database is a logical grouping of data. It contains a set of related table spaces and index spaces. Typically, a database contains all the data that is associated with one application or with a group of related applications. You could have a payroll database or an inventory database, for example.

Table

Indexes

An index is an ordered set of pointers to rows of a table. Unlike the rows of a table that are not in a specific order, an index must always be maintained in order by DB2®. An index is used for two purposes:

• For performance, to retrieve data values more quickly
• For uniqueness.