THE USE OF DATABASES IN WEBSITE

Web Design Articles | February 24, 2009

There are lots of sites on the Internet, Movie Database, Monster.com, Amazon.com etc who offer ways to search, sort, and view massive amounts of data.

Each of these sites work on a relational database. Since these sites have to handle a tremendous number of hits, they use big, expensive RDBMSes (Relational Database Management System). The names for the RDBMSes they user is familiar to anyone who follows the Nasdaq: Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Informix. These are pretty high end and huge databases.

The use of content management systems to allow website owners to maintain their own websites also requires the technology of relational databases.What is a Database?

In database parlance, the phone book is a table which contains a record for each subscriber. Each subscriber record contains three fields: Name, Address, and Phone number. The records are sorted alphabetically by the name fields, which is called the key fields.

Database Programs:

To create and maintain a computer database, you need a database program, often called a database management system, or DBMS. Just as databases programs, too, range in complexity.

Other database programs, called relational database programs or RDBMS, are designed to handle multi-file databases. FileMaker Pro is a relational database that’s easy to use and fairly inexpensive.

Database program tools:

A database program gives you the tools to:

Design the structure of your database.
Create data entry forms so you can get information into the database.
Validate the data entered and check for inconsistencies.
Sort and manipulate the data in the database.
Query the database (that is, ask questions about the data).

Using a database:

If mentions of programming languages make you feel you’re getting out of your depth, don’t worry! Most of the database programs you’re likely to encounter can be used at a variety of levels.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neil Dennis is a partner of Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester and Bournemouth. Strawberrysoup specialise in creative web design, content managed websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and graphic design