What is MySQL? – An Introduction To Database Management Systems

Database Management is the most important part when you have humungous data around you. MySQL is one of the most famous Relational Database to store & handle your data. In this What is MySQL blog, you will be going through the following topics:

• What are Data & Database?
• Database Management System & Types of DBMS
• Structured Query Language (SQL)
• MySQL & its features
• MySQL Data Types

What are Data & Database?

Suppose a company needs to store the names of hundreds of employees working in the company in such a way that all the employees can be individually identified. Then, the company collects the data of all those employees. Now, when I say data, I mean that the company collects distinct pieces of information about an object. So, that object could be a real-world entity such as people, or any object such as a mouse, laptop etc.

Now, when you have such a large amount of data, you obviously need a place to store it, which is a Database.

So, you can consider the database as a big container, wherein you can store all the data. But do you think you can use your data without a proper management of the database?

It’s an obvious No!

So, let’s know what exactly is Database Management System and its various types.

Database Management System & Types of DBMS

A Database Management System (DBMS) is a software application that interacts with the user, applications and the database itself to capture and analyze data. The data stored in the database can be modified, retrieved and deleted, and can be of any type like strings, numbers, images etc.

Types of DBMS

There are mainly 4 types of DBMS, which are Hierarchical, Relational, Network, and Object-Oriented DBMS.

• Hierarchical DBMS:  As the name suggests, this type of DBMS has a style of predecessor-successor type of relationship. So, it has a structure similar to that of a tree, wherein the nodes represent records and the branches of the tree represent fields.
• Relational DBMS (RDBMS): This type of DBMS, uses a structure that allows the users to identify and access data in relation to another piece of data in the database.
• Network DBMS: This type of DBMS supports many to many relations wherein multiple member records can be linked.
• Object-oriented DBMS: This type of DBMS uses small individual software called objects. Each object contains a piece of data, and the instructions for the actions to be done with the data.

Now, that I have told you about DBMS, it’s time that we understand what is SQL?

Structured Query Language (SQL)

SQL is the core of a relational database which is used for accessing and managing the database. By using SQL, you can add, update or delete rows of data, retrieve subsets of information, modify databases and perform many actions. The different subsets of SQL are as follows:

• DDL (Data Definition Language) – It allows you to perform various operations on the database such as CREATE, ALTER and DELETE objects.
• DML (Data Manipulation Language) – It allows you to access and manipulate data. It helps you to insert, update, delete and retrieve data from the database.
• DCL (Data Control Language) – It allows you to control access to the database. Example – Grant or Revoke access permissions.
• TCL (Transaction Control Language) – It allows you to deal with the transaction of the database. Example – Commit, Rollback, Savepoint, Set Transaction.

Alright! So, now that you know SQL, it’s time I introduce to MySQL.

What is MySQL & its Features

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system that works on many platforms. It provides multi-user access to support many storage engines and is backed by Oracle. So, you can buy a commercial license version from Oracle to get premium support services.

The features of MySQL are as follows:

Fig 1: Features of MySQL – What is MySQL?

• Ease of Management – The software very easily gets downloaded and also uses an event scheduler to schedule the tasks automatically.
• Robust Transactional Support – Holds the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) property, and also allows distributed multi-version support. 
• Comprehensive Application Development – MySQL has plugin libraries to embed the database into any application. It also supports stored procedures, triggers, functions, views and many more for application development. You can refer to the RDS Tutorial, to understand Amazon’s RDBMS. 
• High Performance – Provides fast load utilities with distinct memory caches and table index partitioning.
• Low Total Cost Of Ownership – This reduces licensing costs and hardware expenditures.
• Open Source & 24 * 7 Support –  This RDBMS can be used on any platform and offers 24*7 support for open source and enterprise edition.
• Secure Data Protection – MySQL supports powerful mechanisms to ensure that only authorized users have access to the databases.
• High Availability – MySQL can run high-speed master/slave replication configurations and it offers cluster servers.
• Scalability & Flexibility – With MySQL you can run deeply embedded applications and create data warehouses holding a humongous amount of data.

Now, that you guys know what is MySQL, let me tell you various data types supported by MySQL.

MySQL Data Types

Fig 2: MySQL Data Types – What is MySQL?

• Numeric – This data type includes integers of various sizes, floating-point(real) of various precisions and formatted numbers.
• Character-string – These data types either have a fixed, or a varying number of characters. This data type also has a variable-length string called CHARACTER LARGE OBJECT (CLOB) which is used to specify columns that have large text values.
• Bit-string – These data types are either of a fixed length or varying length of bits. There is also a variable-length bit string data type called BINARY LARGE OBJECT(BLOB), which is available to specify columns that have large binary values, such as images.
• Boolean – This data type has TRUE or FALSE values. Since SQL, has NULL values, a three-valued logic is used, which is UNKNOWN.
• Date & Time – The DATE data type has: YEAR, MONTH, and DAY in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Similarly, the TIME data type has the components HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND in the form HH:MM: SS. These formats can change based on the requirement.
• Timestamp & Interval – The TIMESTAMP data type includes a minimum of six positions, for decimal fractions of seconds and an optional WITH TIME ZONE qualifier in addition to the DATE and TIME fields. The INTERVAL data type mentions a relative value that can be used to increment or decrement an absolute value of a date, time, or timestamp.
  

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this What is MySQL blog. In continuation of this blog, a MySQL Tutorial will be coming up wherein we will be getting started with all the SQL commands, but before that you can refer to this SQL Interview Questions blog, to know the top questions asked in interviews. Stay tuned!

If you wish to learn more about MySQL and get to know this open source relational database, then check out our MySQL DBA Certification Training which comes with instructor-led live training and real-life project experience. This training will help you understand MySQL in depth and help you achieve mastery over the subject.

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section of ” What is MySQL?” and I will get back to you.