Database Architecture Overview

A database management system is a critical system for any information management system.

What is a database management system? Simply put, a database management system is a software system that can effectively manage large amounts of data and allow multiple users to simultaneously and efficiently access and use data.

Database management systems have evolved through file-based databases, network databases, hierarchical databases, and the currently widely used relational databases (RDBMS).

In 1970, IBM researcher E. F. Codd published a paper titled "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks" in the journal "Communication of the ACM," introducing the concept of the relational model and establishing the theoretical foundation for it. Codd believed that database systems should present data organized into tables called "relations" to users. Behind this, there should be a complex data structure that allows fast responses to various queries. Unlike earlier database systems, using a relational database does not require concern about storage structures; queries can be expressed in a high-level language (which later became SQL), greatly improving development efficiency. By 1990, relational databases had become the standard. However, the database field continues to evolve, and new data management challenges and methods are constantly emerging. The database field remains a vast area with much room for development.