Progress
Database Design
Guide


What Is a Database?

A database is a collection of data that you can search through in a systematic way to maintain and retrieve information. A database can be computerized or noncomputerized. Some noncomputerized databases that you’re familiar with are a telephone book, a filing cabinet, and a library card catalog system. To retrieve information from each of these databases, you proceed accordingly:

To summarize, if you want to locate information quickly and effortlessly in each of these noncomputerized databases, you must store every piece of data—name, customer folder, or catalog card—in some sort of order. Even then, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to locate the data, depending on the size of your database and the complexity of the query.


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