Database

This article is principally about managing and structuring the collections of data held on computers. For a fuller discussion of DBMS software

A database is a structured collection of records or data. A computer database relies upon software to organize the storage of data. The software models the database structure in what are known as database model. The model in most common use today is the relation model. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of relationships (see below for explanation of the various database models).

Database management systems (DBMS) are the software used to organize and maintain the database. These are categorized according to the database model that they support. The model tends to determine the query languages that are available to access the database. A great deal of the internal engineering of a DBMS, however, is independent of the data model, and is concerned with managing factors such as performance, concurrency, integrity, and recovery from hardware failure. In these areas there are large differences between products.