ABSTRACT
With information technology (IT) applications that provide more sophisticated data management, our concepts about data and its management are becoming more complex and more precise. This chapter presents the terms and concepts associated with data and database management. It begins with a discussion of data constructs, relationships, and views of data organization. The analogy between an IT system and a transportation system can be extended to help understand data and their management. Users of a city's transportation system often have an image of how the transportation system operates. A database system uses storage techniques to provide speed and ease of access. The chapter presents the implications of database management for IT applications development and discusses the characteristics of data management software packages. Database management software distinguished the programs that input, processed, and reported data from the programs that specified database organization and data access methods. The data management has larger implications than those concerning database design and development.
