C H A P T E R  2

Understanding Relational Databases

Now that you have gotten to know the tools you’ll use in this book, I’ll step back a bit and briefly introduce the important fundamental concepts of the database world.

In this chapter, I’ll cover the following:

  • What is a database?
  • Choosing between a spreadsheet and a database
  • Why use a database?
  • Benefits of using a relational database management system
  • Comparing desktop and server RDBMS systems
  • The database life cycle
  • Mapping cardinalities
  • Understanding keys
  • Understanding data integrity
  • Normalization concepts
  • Drawbacks of normalization

What Is a Database?

In very simple terms, a database is a collection of structured information. Databases are designed specifically to manage large bodies ...

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