In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the data. The DBMS additionally encompasses the core facilities provided to administer the database. The sum total of the database, the DBMS and the associated applications can be referred to as a database system. Often the term "database" is also used loosely to refer to any of the DBMS, the database system or an application associated with the database.
MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database organizes data into one or more data tables in which data may be related to each other; these relations help structure the data. SQL is a language that programmers use to create, modify and extract data from the relational database, as well as control user access to the database. In addition to relational databases and SQL, an RDBMS like MySQL works with an operating system to implement a relational database in a computer's storage system, manages users, allows for network access and facilitates testing database integrity and creation of backups.
PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transactions with atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability (ACID) properties, automatically updatable views, materialized views, triggers, foreign keys, and stored procedures. It is supported on all major operating systems, including Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, macOS, and Windows, and handles a range of workloads from single machines to data warehouses or web services with many concurrent users.
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a domain-specific language used to manage data, especially in a relational database management system (RDBMS). It is particularly useful in handling structured data, i.e., data incorporating relations among entities and variables.
An object–relational database (ORD), or object–relational database management system (ORDBMS), is a database management system (DBMS) similar to a relational database, but with an object-oriented database model: objects, classes and inheritance are directly supported in database schemas and in the query language. In addition, just as with pure relational systems, it supports extension of the data model with custom data types and methods.
In the context of SQL, data definition or data description language (DDL) is a syntax for creating and modifying database objects such as tables, indices, and users. DDL statements are similar to a computer programming language for defining data structures, especially database schemas. Common examples of DDL statements include CREATE, ALTER, and DROP.
Dataphor is an open-source truly-relational database management system (RDBMS) and its accompanying user interface technologies, which together are designed to provide highly declarative software application development. The Dataphor Server has its own storage engine or it can be a virtual, or federated, DBMS, meaning that it can utilize other database engines for storage.
A physical data model is a representation of a data design as implemented, or intended to be implemented, in a database management system. In the lifecycle of a project it typically derives from a logical data model, though it may be reverse-engineered from a given database implementation. A complete physical data model will include all the database artifacts required to create relationships between tables or to achieve performance goals, such as indexes, constraint definitions, linking tables, partitioned tables or clusters. Analysts can usually use a physical data model to calculate storage estimates; it may include specific storage allocation details for a given database system.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of relational database management systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
An entity–attribute–value model (EAV) is a data model optimized for the space-efficient storage of sparse—or ad-hoc—property or data values, intended for situations where runtime usage patterns are arbitrary, subject to user variation, or otherwise unforeseeable using a fixed design. The use-case targets applications which offer a large or rich system of defined property types, which are in turn appropriate to a wide set of entities, but where typically only a small, specific selection of these are instantiated for a given entity. Therefore, this type of data model relates to the mathematical notion of a sparse matrix. EAV is also known as object–attribute–value model, vertical database model, and open schema.
MySQL Workbench is a visual database design tool that integrates SQL development, administration, database design, creation and maintenance into a single integrated development environment for the MySQL database system. It is the successor to DBDesigner 4 from fabFORCE.net, and replaces the previous package of software, MySQL GUI Tools Bundle.
In relational databases, the information schema is an ANSI-standard set of read-only views that provide information about all of the tables, views, columns, and procedures in a database. It can be used as a source of the information that some databases make available through non-standard commands, such as:
=> SELECT count(table_name) FROM information_schema.tables; count ------- 99 => SELECT column_name, data_type, column_default, is_nullable FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='alpha'; column_name | data_type | column_default | is_nullable -------------+-----------+----------------+------------- foo | integer | | YES bar | character | | YES => SELECT * FROM information_schema.information_schema_catalog_name; catalog_name -------------- johnd
The SQuirreL SQL Client is a database administration tool. It uses JDBC to allow users to explore and interact with databases via a JDBC driver. It provides an editor that offers code completion and syntax highlighting for standard SQL. It also provides a plugin architecture that allows plugin writers to modify much of the application's behavior to provide database-specific functionality or features that are database-independent. As this desktop application is written entirely in Java with Swing UI components, it should run on any platform that has a JVM.
Federated is a storage engine for the MySQL MariaDB relational database management system that allows creation of a table that is a local representation of a foreign (remote) table. It uses the MySQL client library API as a data transport, treating remote tables as if they were located on the local server. Each Federated table that is defined there is one .frm. The actual data can exist on a local or remote MySQL instance.
Navicat is a series of graphical database management and development software produced by CyberTech Ltd. for MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, MongoDB, Oracle, SQLite, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server. It has an Explorer-like graphical user interface and supports multiple database connections for local and remote databases. Its design is made to meet the needs of a variety of audiences, from database administrators and programmers to various businesses/companies that serve clients and share information with partners.
Adminer is a tool for managing content in databases. It natively supports MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL, Oracle, Elasticsearch and MongoDB. Adminer is distributed under Apache license in a form of a single PHP file. Its author is Jakub Vrána who started to develop this tool as a light-weight alternative to phpMyAdmin, in July 2007. Adminer got some attention in 2008 when it made it to the CCA finals at SourceForge. Also, first webhosting providers started to include Adminer as MySQL managing tool into their portfolio of services. In 2012 Adminer got coverage on Linux.com for the second time. The project's priorities, according to its author, are : safety, user-friendliness, performance, functionality, and size.
DatabaseSpy is a multi-database query, design, and database comparison tool from Altova, the creator of XMLSpy. DatabaseSpy connects to many major relational databases, facilitating SQL querying, database structure design, database content editing, and database comparison and conversion.
Database Workbench is a software application for development and administration of multiple relational databases using SQL, with interoperationality between different database systems, developed by Upscene Productions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to MySQL:
DBeaver is a SQL client software application and a database administration tool. For relational databases it uses the JDBC application programming interface (API) to interact with databases via a JDBC driver. For other databases (NoSQL) it uses proprietary database drivers. It provides an editor that supports code completion and syntax highlighting. It provides a plug-in architecture that allows users to modify much of the application's behavior to provide database-specific functionality or features that are database-independent. This is a desktop application written in Java and based on Eclipse platform.
