Choosing the Right Database

Choosing the right Database

The reservation process of planning a family vacation has lured from the days of contacting a travel agency, calling an airline, speaking to a representative only to be placed on hold, or getting to your destination only to learn there are no vacancies at you hotel. What if we were able to search from the comfort of our home, locate a desired arrival and return flight, book and confirm a hotel room and rental car without having to search the internet from one website to another? Database technology is a means to collect and store information. Database technology has been embraced by major businesses in order to accommodate its consumers. But, database technology goes far beyond a vacation reservation.

In the workplace databases can be used to contain a variety of information ranging from employee data, store inventory to end user information. This information is vital for business owners in managing employee productivity and performance, sales and trends, merchandise orders and delivery status. An institution of learning may use a database for collecting student information, grades, attendance, and emergency information, educator's information, budgeting, athletics, and office staff information. The two most popular database vendors are Oracle and MySQL.

There are four different editions of its database that Oracle offers, there's the Express Edition, Standard Edition One, Standard Edition, and Enterprise Edition. Having these four options enables the individual or corporation to select which database will effectively manage their technical and business essentials ("Oracle", 1995, 2010). This allows for a small business that might want to start off using the "Express Edition" and eventually expanding to one of the other editions that tailor its growth. Oracles availability to function with multiple platforms is a plus, enabling it to run a variety of software. Cost might be a concern, if you are unfamiliar with either of Oracle database editions, then a professional programmer may be an option to customize your needs. MySQL installation process is faster in compassion to Oracle, yet functionally both perform greatly. MySQL is able to process sizeable data sets and is exceptional secure. Unfortunately, My SQL doesn't support transactions, relational constriction or sub-selects. These features are being looked at for the near future ("Find Web Hosting", 2002-2012).

If I were a small business owner I would look for functionality, how many records need to be stored, data integrity, accessibility, fail safe operations and cost effectiveness. These are basic, yet critical tools to adequately run a small business ("ITBuinessEdge", (2012).

References

Oracle.