As many of you probably know, a flat file is just raw data stored in a plain text file, with each line representing a single record and each field separated by a delimiter. It has no relationship; it is just data. This file can be stored in a spreadsheet or word processing file.
A table is a structured arrangement of data organized into rows and columns, where each row represents a record, and each column represents a field within the record. Tables are used to store and systematically organize data, making it easy to retrieve and manipulate the data as needed.
A database is a collection of organized tables that can be stored and accessed electronically. A database helps to manipulate large amounts of structured data. You can store a wide range of data type in a database, from text, numbers, images, and videos. A database is managed using a database management system (DBMS). Databases were starting to develop back in the late 70s. The first relational database management systems (DBMS) was developed by E.F. Codd.
A relational database model allows to establish a relation between tables through a field key or field that is common between tables. For example, you can have a table of data with sales orders by customers and another sales order by region or state. You can establish a relationship between both tables by a common field within these tables, like customer ID or product ID. Once you establish a link between the tables you can find more interesting information that can help you analyze results, like regions with more sells, customers who bought the most, or what state is generating more profit than others. Database management systems handle relationships between tables.
Popular database management systems
- MySQL
- Oracle Database
- Microsoft SQL Server
- PostgreSQL
- SQLite
- MongoDB
- Cassandra
- Redis
- MariaDB
- Firebird.
Besides database management systems, you also have data visualization software. Data visualization is the graphical representation of data and information. The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information effectively and clearly through charts, graphs, maps, infographics, videos, and images in general. These visualization tools allow you to explore and analyze data.
Popular data visualization software
- Tableau
- QlikView
- Microsoft Power BI
- Google Data Studio
- SAP Lumira
- TIBCO
- Spotfire
- Looker
- D3.js
- Highcharts Plotly
In today’s world, the amount of data generated daily is insane; millions of transactions per second make it impossible to handle this volume of information or big data without the help of databases and data visualization tools. Also, AI or Artificial Intelligence is becoming more relevant when talking about analyzing data, identifying patterns, and recommending optimizing business and industrial processes.
AI algorithms can help to extract data, identify patterns, and make predictions based on the data stored in databases. It is amazing how data technology has been evolving in the past 50 years and has touched all aspects of different businesses and industries.
