Relational database management system is defined as:
an electronic database comprising multiple files of related information, usually stored in tables of rows (records) and columns (fields), and allowing a link to be established between separate files that have a matching field, so that the two files can be queried simultaneously by the user.
A more practical explanation of a relational database management system might be as follows:
Picture an excel file with multiple columns and rows where each column contains the same type of information and each row contains all the different types of information for a given “record”. A record might be a customer or a specific invoice. Now imagine that there are separate excel files configured in this way. One has rows of customer records and the second has rows of invoices. The two excel sheets are related by the fact that one of the columns in the customer file contains a unique value or identifier for each customer. Then in the second invoice file, each invoice or row has one of the customer “ID”s in a specific column. In this way, a list of invoices for a specific customer can be created by sorting the invoice file by the customer id and extracting those that match the customer.
A relational database management system includes software that makes this type of operation fast and easy.
While this provides a glimpse of how a relational database management system can be useful to your business, Part 2 of this article shows you 3 specific ways a relational database management system can help you grow your business. In part two of our article on how a relational database management system is a key ingredient for growing your business. Relational database management system Read Part 2 Here.