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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 931–932Cite as

Database

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Definition

A database is a structured and persistent collection of information about some aspect of the real world organized and stored in a way that facilitates efficient retrieval and modification. The structure of a database is determined by an abstract data model. Primarily, it is this structure that differentiates a database from a data file. The most popular data model is relational that represents data as a set of tables. The database includes instances of entities and the relationships among them. For example, a database for a school may contain instances of students, professors, courses, which students take which courses, which professors teach which courses, etc.

Historical Background

The term “database” was introduced in the 1960s, and the field has grown steadily since then. As of this writing, the database market is over US$50 billion and growing. In the early days, the term was used interchangeably with “data bank” and “data base,” but now the general convention is to use...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Elmasri R, Navathe S. Fundamentals of database systems, 7th ed. Pearson; 2016.

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  2. Silberschatz A, Korth HF, Sudarshan S. Database system concepts, 6th ed. McGraw-Hill; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Ramakrishnan R, Gehrke J. Database management systems, 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Authors
  1. M. Tamer Özsu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Tamer Özsu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computer Science, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Ramez Elmasri

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© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

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Özsu, M.T. (2018). Database. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_80734

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