Characteristics of a Good DBMS

1. Should be able to store all kinds of data that exists in this real world. Since we need to work with all kinds of data and requirements, database should be strong enough to store all kinds of data that is present around us.
2. Should be able to relate the entities / tables in the database by means of a relation. i.e.; any two tables should be related. Let us say, an employee works for a department. This implies that Employee is related to a particular department. We should be able to define such a relationship between any two entities in the database. There should not be any table lying without any mapping.
3. Data and application should be isolated. Because database is a system which gives the platform to store the data, and the data is the one which allows the database to work. Hence there should be clear differentiation between them.
4. There should not be any duplication of data in the database. Data should be stored in such a way that it should not be repeated in multiple tables. If repeated, it would be unnecessary waste of DB space and maintaining such data becomes chaos.
5. DBMS has a strong query language. Once the database is designed, this helps the user to retrieve and manipulate the data. If a particular user wants to see any specific data, he can apply as many filtering conditions that he wants and pull the data that he needs.
6. Multiple users should be able to access the same database, without affecting the other user. i.e.; if teachers want to update a student’s marks in Results table at the same time, then they should be allowed to update the marks for their subjects, without modifying other subject marks. A good database should support this feature.
7. It supports multiple views to the user, depending on his role. In a school database, Students will able to see only their reports and their access would be read only. At the same time teachers will have access to all the students with the modification rights. But the database is the same. Hence a single database provides different views to different users.
8. Database should also provide security, i.e.; when there are multiple users are accessing the database, each user will have their own levels of rights to see the database.  Some of them will   be allowed to see whole database, and some will have only partial rights. For example, instructor who is teaching Physics will have access to see and update marks of his subject. He will not have access for other subjects. But the HOD will have full access on all the subjects.
9. Database should also support ACID property. i.e.; while performing any transactions like insert, update and delete, database makes sure that the real purpose of the data is not lost. For example, if a student’s address is updated, then it should make sure that there is no duplicate data is created nor there is any data mismatch for that student.

As we now know what is a database, who would be the users of database? Of course the developers will be using this database to design and develop.  Who else? There would be an administrator, who keeps watching the database for its usages, who is accessing it, giving access to other users, limiting the security for the users, and any other maintenance work of the database. And there is one more end users. These end users are the real group of people who really uses the database and takes the advantages of database. In School database, teachers, students are the end users, who really uses the database in their daily needs.

Where all are these database used? Everywhere!! Now a day, database is used in each and every place. We can see the use of database in supermarkets, stock exchange, college, library, ATMs, offices, banks, hospitals etc.

Summary:

Characteristics

Traditionally, data was organized in file formats. DBMS was a new concept then, and all the research was done to make it overcome the deficiencies in traditional style of data management. A modern DBMS has the following characteristics −

• Real-world entity − A modern DBMS is more realistic and uses real-world entities to design its architecture. It uses the behavior and attributes too. For example, a school database may use students as an entity and their age as an attribute.
• Relation-based tables − DBMS allows entities and relations among them to form tables. A user can understand the architecture of a database just by looking at the table names.
• Isolation of data and application − A database system is entirely different than its data. A database is an active entity, whereas data is said to be passive, on which the database works and organizes. DBMS also stores metadata, which is data about data, to ease its own process.
• Less redundancy − DBMS follows the rules of normalization, which splits a relation when any of its attributes is having redundancy in values. Normalization is a mathematically rich and scientific process that reduces data redundancy.
• Consistency − Consistency is a state where every relation in a database remains consistent. There exist methods and techniques, which can detect attempt of leaving database in inconsistent state. A DBMS can provide greater consistency as compared to earlier forms of data storing applications like file-processing systems.
• Query Language − DBMS is equipped with query language, which makes it more efficient to retrieve and manipulate data. A user can apply as many and as different filtering options as required to retrieve a set of data. Traditionally it was not possible where file-processing system was used.
• ACID Properties − DBMS follows the concepts of Atomicity,Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (normally shortened as ACID). These concepts are applied on transactions, which manipulate data in a database. ACID properties help the database stay healthy in multi-transactional environments and in case of failure.
• Multiuser and Concurrent Access − DBMS supports multi-user environment and allows them to access and manipulate data in parallel. Though there are restrictions on transactions when users attempt to handle the same data item, but users are always unaware of them.
• Multiple views − DBMS offers multiple views for different users. A user who is in the Sales department will have a different view of database than a person working in the Production department. This feature enables the users to have a concentrate view of the database according to their requirements.
• Security − Features like multiple views offer security to some extent where users are unable to access data of other users and departments. DBMS offers methods to impose constraints while entering data into the database and retrieving the same at a later stage. DBMS offers many different levels of security features, which enables multiple users to have different views with different features. For example, a user in the Sales department cannot see the data that belongs to the Purchase department. Additionally, it can also be managed how much data of the Sales department should be displayed to the user. Since a DBMS is not saved on the disk as traditional file systems, it is very hard for miscreants to break the code.

Various Objectives of Database Management System

Mass Storage

DBMS can store a lot of data in it. So for all the big firms, DBMS is really ideal technology to use. It can store thousands of records in it and one can fetch all that data whenever it is needed.

Removes Duplicity

If you have lots of data then data duplicity will occur for sure at any instance. DBMS guarantee it that there will be no data duplicity among all the records. While storing new records, DBMS makes sure that same data was not inserted before.

Multiple Users Access

No one handles the whole database alone. There are lots of users who are able to access database. So this situation may happen that two or more users are accessing database. They can change whatever they want, at that time DBMS makes it sure that they can work concurrently.

Data Protection

Information such as bank details, employee’s salary details and sale purchase details should always be kept secured. Also all the companies need their data secured from unauthorized use. DBMS gives a master level security to their data. No one can alter or modify the information without the privilege of using that data.

Data Back up and recovery

Sometimes database failure occurs so there is no option like one can say that all the data has been lost. There should be a backup of database so that on database failure it can be recovered. DBMS has the ability to backup and recover all the data in database.

Everyone can work on DBMS

There is no need to be a master of programming language if you want to work on DBMS. Any accountant who is having less technical knowledge can work on DBMS. All the definitions and descriptions are given in it so that even a non-technical background w=person can work on it.

Integrity

Integrity means your data is authentic and consistent. DBMS has various validity checks that make your data completely accurate and consistence.

Platform Independent

One can run dbms at any platform. No particular platform is required to work on database management system.

So it was all about Various Objectives of Database Management System. If you have any question regarding this topic then please comment below.