The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables.

Data (plural of "datum") are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which information and then knowledge are derived. Raw data, i.e. unprocessed data, refers to a collection of numbers, characters, images or other outputs from devices that collect information to convert physical quantities into symbols.
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal ("real" or "concrete") concepts, first principles, or other methods.

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality (for example, the availability of rooms in hotels), in a way that supports processes requiring this information (for example, finding a hotel with vacancies). The term "database" refers both to the way its users view it, and to the logical and physical materialization of its data, content, in files, computer memory, and computer data storage. This definition is very general, and is independent of the technology used. However, not every collection of data is a database; the term database implies that the data is managed to some level of quality (measured in terms of accuracy, availability, usability, and resilience) and this in turn often implies the use of a general-purpose Database management system (DBMS). A general-purpose DBMS is typically a complex software system that meets many usage requirements, and the databases that it maintains are often large and complex. The utilization of databases is widely spread to a degree that virtually any technology and product nowadays relies on databases and DBMSs for its development and commercialization, or even may have such embedded in it. Also organizations and companies, from small to very large, heavily depend on databases for their operations.

The term database is correctly applied to the data and data structures, and not to the DBMS which is a software system used to manage the data. The structure of a database is generally too complex to be handled without its DBMS, and any attempt to do otherwise is very likely to result in database corruption. DBMSs are packaged as computer software products: well-known and highly utilized products include the Oracle DBMS, Access and SQL Server from Microsoft, DB2 from IBM and the Open source DBMS MySQL. Each such DBMS product currently supports many thousands of databases all over the world. The stored data in a database is not generally portable across different DBMS, but different

DBMSs can inter-operate to some degree (while each DBMS type controls a database of its own database type) to support together a single application using standards like SQL and ODBC. A successful general-purpose DBMS is designed in such a way that it can satisfy as many different applications and application designers as possible. A DBMS also needs to provide effective run-time execution to properly support (e.g., in terms of performance, availability, and security) as many end-users (the database's application users) as needed. Sometimes the combination of a database and its respective DBMS is referred to as a Database system (DBS).

A database management system (DBMS) is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and the use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators (DBAs) and other specialists. A DBMS provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcing data integrity, managing concurrency control, recovering the database after failures and restoring it from backup files, as well as maintaining database security.

a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently. Data structures are used in almost every program or software system. Data structures provide a means to manage huge amounts of data efficiently, such as large databases and internet indexing services. Usually, efficient data structures are a key to designing efficient algorithms. Some formal design methods and programming languages emphasize data structures, rather than algorithms, as the key organizing factor in software design .

Information in its most restricted technical sense is an ordered sequence of symbols that record or transmit a message. It can be recorded as signs, or conveyed as signals by waves. Information is any kind of event that affects the state of a dynamic system. As a concept, however, information has numerous meanings.[1] Moreover, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, representation, and especially entropy.

A data dictionary, or metadata repository, as defined in the IBM Dictionary of Computing, is a "centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin,

usage, and format."[1] The term may have one of several closely related meanings pertaining to databases and database management systems (DBMS): a document describing a database or collection of databases an integral component of a DBMS that is required to determine its structure a piece of middleware that extends or supplants the native data dictionary of a DBMS a Data Dictionary is a data structure that stores meta-data, i.e., data about data. The Software package for a stand-alone Data Dictionary or Data Repository may interact with the software modules of the DBMS,but it is mainly used by the Designers,Users and Administrators of a computer system for information resource management. These systems are used to maintain for information on system hardware and software configuration, documentation, application and users as well as other information relevant to system administration.

A database model is the theoretical foundation of a database and fundamentally determines in which manner data can be stored, organized, and manipulated in a database system. It thereby defines the infrastructure offered by a particular database system. The most popular example of a database model is the relational model. A database model is a theory or specification describing how a database is structured and used. Several such models have been suggested.

Common models include: Hierarchical model Network model Relational model Entity-relationship Object-relational model Object model A data model is not just a way of structuring data: it also defines a set of operations that can be performed on the data. The relational model, for example, defines operations such as select

(project) and join. Although these operations may not be explicit in a particular query language, they provide the foundation on which a query language is built. Models:Various techniques are used to model data structure. Most database systems are built around one particular data model, although it is possible for products to offer support for more than one model. For any logical model various physical implementations may be possible, and most products will offer the user some level of control in tuning the physical implementation, since the choices that are made have a significant effect on performance.

The flat (or table) model consists of a single, two-dimensional array of data elements, where all members of a given column are assumed to be similar values, and all members of a row are assumed to be related to one another. For instance, columns for name and password that might be used as a part of a system security database. Each row would have the specific password associated with an individual user. Columns of the table often have a type associated with them, defining them as character data, date or time information, integers, or floating point numbers. This may not strictly qualify as a data model, as defined above.

In a hierarchical model, data is organized into a tree-like structure, implying a single upward link in each record to describe the nesting, and a sort field to keep the records in a particular order in each same-level list. Hierarchical structures were widely used in the early mainframe database management systems, such as the Information Management System (IMS) by IBM, and now describe the structure of XML documents. This structure allows one 1:M relationship between two types of data. This structure is very efficient to describe many relationships in the real world; recipes, table of contents, ordering of paragraphs/verses, any nested and sorted information. However, the hierarchical structure is inefficient for certain database operations when a full path (as opposed to upward link and sort field) is not also included for each record.

Motherchild relationship: Child may only have one mother but a mother can have multiple children. Mothers and children are tied together by links called "pointers". A mother will have a list of pointers to each of her children.

ThE network model (defined by the CODASYL specification) organizes data using two fundamental constructs, called records and sets. Records contain fields (which may be organized hierarchically, as in the programming language COBOL). Sets (not to be confused with mathematical sets) define one-tomany relationships between records: one owner, many members. A record may be an owner in any number of sets, and a member in any number of sets. The network model is a variation on the hierarchical model, to the extent that it is built on the concept of multiple branches (lower-level structures) emanating from one or more nodes (higher-level structures), while the model differs from the hierarchical model in that branches can be connected to multiple nodes. The network model is able to represent redundancy in data more efficiently than in the hierarchical model. The operations of the network model are navigational in style: a program maintains a current position, and navigates from one record to another by following the relationships in which the record participates. Records can also be located by supplying key values. Although it is not an essential feature of the model, network databases generally implement the set relationships by means of pointers that directly address the location of a record on disk. This gives excellent retrieval performance, at the expense of operations such as database loading and reorganization.Most object databases use the navigational concept to provide fast navigation across networks of objects, generally using object identifiers as "smart" pointers to related objects. Objectivity/DB, for instance, implements named 1:1, 1:many, many:1 and many:many named relationships that can cross databases. Many object databases also support SQL, combining the strengths of both models.