Module 1 - Introduction to Database Management

Vocabulary flashcards for database management systems concepts.

Redundancy

The duplication of data, or the storing of the same data in more than one place.

Database

A collection of data organized in a manner that allows access, retrieval, and use of that data.

Data Redundancy

The duplication of data, or the storing of the same data in more than one place.

Relationship

An association between entities.

Relational Database

A collection of related tables of data.

Table

A person, place, event, item, or other transaction for which you want to store and process data. Also called an entity.

Attribute

A characteristic or property of an entity; also called a column or a field.

Field

A characteristic or property of an entity; also called an attribute or a column.

Entity

A person, place, event, item, or other transaction for which you want to store and process data. Also called a table.

Column

A characteristic or property of an entity; also called an attribute or a field.

Row

A collection of related fields. Also called a record or tuple.

Data File

A file that stores data about a single entity in one table or list.

One-to-Many Relationship

A relationship between two entities in which each occurrence of the first entity is related to many occurrences of the second entity, and each occurrence of the second entity is related to at most one occurrence of the first entity.

Many-to-Many Relationship

A relationship between three entities in which each occurrence of each entity can be related to many occurrences of each of the other entities.

Record

A collection of related fields that describe one item in a table; can be thought of as a row in a table. Also called a row or tuple.

Flat File

A file that stores data in lists that have no relationship to other lists.

Database Design

The process of creating the entities, attributes, and relationships between tables of data.

Forms

A screen object used to maintain and view data from a database.

Entity-Relationship (E-R) Diagram

A graphic model for database design in which entities are represented as rectangles and relationships are represented as either arrows or diamonds connected to the entities they relate. Also called an ERD.

Software Stack

A group of programs and technologies that commonly work together to build a digital solution. Also called a solution stack or technology stack.

Database Management System (DBMS)

A program through which users interact with the data stored in a database.

Reports

A database object that creates a professional printout of data.

Database Administrator

The person or group in charge of a database. Also called database administration (DBA).

Orphan Records

A record in the “many” (child) table that has no match in the “one” (parent) table in a one-to-many relationship.

Database Administration (DBA)

The person or group in charge of a database. Also called the database administrator.

Integrity Constraints

A rule that must be followed by data in a database.

Referential Integrity

A relational database concept that sets rules called integrity constraints on table relationships primarily to prevent the creation of orphan records.

Integrity

A database has integrity if the data in it satisfies all established integrity constraints.

Encryption

Converting the data in a database to a format that is indecipherable by anyone other than an authorized user.

Data Independence

A quality that allows you to change the structure of a database without requiring you to make major changes to the programs that access the database.

Big Data

The large volume of data produced by every digital process, system, sensor, mobile device, and even social media exchange.

Data Security

Protection of data from threats including the prevention of unauthorized access to the database, encryption of data as it travels through a network, protection against data corruption, and protection against all other electronic and physical attacks to the data.

Unstructured Data

Data not organized or easily interpreted by traditional databases or data models, which may involve a lot of text and metadata.

Structured Data

Data that is traditional in its retrieval and storage in database management systems.

Metadata

Descriptive data stored with input sources.

NoSQL

A database management system such as MongoDB that uses a document model made up of collections and documents to store data.

Algorithm

A defined set of steps to solve a problem.

Data Analysts

A job title for a person who uses tools and algorithms to mine a database for answers, information, trends, and insights in internal organization data.