Functions of DBMS

What is DBMS?

DBMS means Database Management System, which is a tool used to create, delete or update the database in a very fast and efficient way. It is basically a software which is used by the database engineers to create or manipulate the database. For example, MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB etc. It can be based on a relational or non-relational model.

DBMS provides several functionalities, which are discussed below:

Data Storage Management

One of the most important tasks for DBMS is to create a database for complex data and manage the data. It gives relief to the user by creating a structure for the complex data sets so that users can access it and manipulate them very easily. Modern database systems not only provide storage for the data but they store and manage the metadata (data of data) like data procedural rules, validation rules etc. DBMS also provides performance tuning, which makes accessing data faster and easier.

Security Management

Security is another aspect which is handled by the Database Management Systems. Database systems provide a high level of security measures using various security algorithms to keep the data safe and ensure the data privacy. There are certain security rules that ensure what data can be accessed from the database and which user can access it. It also makes sure what operations (read, write, delete) can be performed on the specific data. It is very important for the organizations where multi-user databases are required.

Backup and Recovery Management

To keep the data safe and ensure the integrity, the database system provides the features for backup and recovery management. If the system fails due to some reason then it recovers the data and keeps the data safe.

Database Access Language and Application Programming Interface

DBMS provides a database access language which is also called a query language. Query languages are non-procedural languages used to access the database and manipulate the data. SQL is an example of a query language. The majority of DBMS vendors provide the support of various query languages to access the data.

Data Dictionary Management

Data dictionary management is also useful functionality provided by the Database Management System. In the data dictionary, it stores the data and its related information about its relationship. So, a data dictionary keeps the data structures and their relationships with other data, so that a programmer is not responsible for storing the relationship in the database through complex coding. DBMS provides the data abstraction and removes the dependency of the data from the system.

Data Transformation and Presentation

DBMS provides the functionality of data transformation, which means programmers need not worry about the logical and physical representation of the data. DBMS stores the data in the determined data structure.

For example, if a user asks for the date from a database and he receives it as 14 December 2022, but in the database, it is stored in different columns of month, date and year.

Multi User Access Control

Multi User Access control is another feature which is provided by the modern Database Systems. So, more than one user can access the database at the same time without any problem. This feature makes sure the integrity of the data present in the database. It also follows the ACID property, so the database will be consistent while multiple users are accessing it concurrently. It is very useful for the database of organizations where multiple database engineers are working concurrently.

Data Integrity Management

Database systems provide data integrity management by maximizing the data consistency and minimizing the data redundancy. The data dictionary is the feature database system used to store the relationships of the data to keep the data integrity. Data integrity is needed where a transaction based database system is present.

Database Communication Interface

When a user requests data from the database, it uses some environments like browsers (Chrome or Firefox etc.) to get the data.

An end user can access data in the following ways:

• If he asks for the data through any form and sends the request.
• He can get the data if DBMS publishes the data on any website without asking him.
• He can get the data through a third party distribution network.