Architecture
A database is an organised collection of structured or semi-structured data stored electronically and managed by a database management system (DBMS) that enables efficient querying, insertion, update, and deletion of records.
Databases are the persistent storage layer of virtually every software application, ensuring that data survives beyond a single process or server session. Relational databases (SQL) organise data into tables with defined schemas and enforce relationships through foreign keys, making them ideal for transactional workloads that require data integrity and complex joins. Non-relational databases (NoSQL) sacrifice strict schema constraints in favour of flexibility and horizontal scalability, serving use cases like document storage, key-value caching, graph relationships, and time-series data. Database performance is shaped by schema design, indexing strategy, query optimisation, connection pooling, and replication topology — skills that become critical as data volumes and query concurrency grow.
Example
A hospital management system stores patient records in PostgreSQL with enforced relationships between patients, appointments, diagnoses, and billing — ensuring that deleting a patient record also cascades to remove associated appointments.
Related terms
SQL (Structured Query Language)
SQL is the standardised query language used to create, read, update, and delete data in relational databases, as well as to define schemas and control access permissions.
NoSQL
NoSQL refers to a broad category of database management systems that store and retrieve data using non-tabular models — including document, key-value, column-family, and graph formats — designed for flexible schemas and horizontal scalability.
ORM (Object-Relational Mapping)
An ORM is a programming library that automatically translates between the object-oriented data models used in application code and the relational tables and SQL queries used in a database, eliminating most manual SQL writing.
Backend
Backend refers to the server-side layer of an application that handles business logic, data processing, authentication, and communication with databases and third-party services — invisible to the end user but powering everything they experience.
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