What is data?

A collection of small pieces of information is termed as data. “Data” is derived from the Latin word 'datum' which means “a piece of information”. Data is the plural of the word datum. Anything can be data such as images, words, numbers.

For scientists, mathematicians and statisticians there are two main types of data:

• Qualitative - it describes things
• Quantitative - numbers, statistics, measurements, etc.

What is a database?

A database is an organized collection of structured information, or data, typically stored electronically in a computer system. Word 'Data' originated from the word 'datum' that means 'single piece of information.' Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage.

• Database is a collection of data.
• Database supports storage and manipulation of data.
• Database makes data management easy.

History of Database

• Concept of structured data existed much before the invention of computer systems.
• First computer database was built in the early 1960s.
• The Relational Database Model was introduced in 1970 by an IBM scientist Edgar F. Codd which was based on a logical schema.
• Object Oriented Databases were introduced in the 1980s.

Relational databases are meant to be run on a single machine. Also, they were proposed and architected before the internet revolution. So they can’t handle massive data which is a necessity in this internet era. So new concepts are added to the databases to handle large chunks of data efficiently.

Types of Databases

• Relational Databases
• Object-oriented Databases
• Distributed Databases
• NoSQL Databases
• Cloud Databases