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What is a database?

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About this lesson

We will discuss what a database is, the different types of databases and what they are used for

Exercise files

Download this lesson’s exercise file.

What is a database?
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Quick reference

What is a database?

Welcome to the course! Let's learn about SQL and Databases!

When to use

Databases are used constantly throughout our modern lives.

Instructions

Databases are made of tables, which are made of columns and rows of data. Databases are used to store, manage, and update your data in an easily accessible way.

In today's data-driven world, there is not much of our modern lives that isn't run by databases. Every time you post to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, that data is all stored in a database somewhere.

There are hundreds of types of databases, but once you know one - you can muddle your way through many of them. In this course we are using Microsoft SQL Server, but you will be able to apply what you learn to many other databases.

Hints & tips

  • Databases are made of tables.
  • Tables are made of columns and rows of data.
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  • 00:05 All right, welcome to the course.
  • 00:06 My name is John Elder and I'll be your instructor today.
  • 00:09 In this course, I'm going to teach you all about SQL and databases,
  • 00:12 specifically with Microsoft SQL Server 2016.
  • 00:15 And in this video,
  • 00:17 I wanna take just a couple of minutes to kinda touch on what is a database?
  • 00:21 What are they used for and why do we care?
  • 00:23 So I've got Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio open and
  • 00:26 we'll get into all this much later, we'll download this and install it ourselves.
  • 00:30 But right now, we can sort of use it to look at,
  • 00:33 I've got just a basic database table.
  • 00:35 And it's just made up, as you can see, of columns and
  • 00:39 rows that go left to right, and it's just full of information.
  • 00:44 And these days, I mean, if you think about it,
  • 00:47 there's not much of our modern life that isn't run by databases.
  • 00:51 Every website you go to pretty much is run by a database.
  • 00:54 If you go to Facebook, for instance, that's all a big database.
  • 00:57 You're getting information from the database.
  • 00:59 Every time you post on Facebook, you're adding information to a database.
  • 01:03 Twitter, just a big database, so every tweet is an item in a database somewhere.
  • 01:08 Instagram, all those pictures you upload,
  • 01:10 they all get stuck in a database somewhere.
  • 01:12 Every website, Pandora,
  • 01:13 Spotify, that music is being fed to you from a database somewhere.
  • 01:17 Everywhere there's data online, they're using a database.
  • 01:20 Now there are tons of different databases out there.
  • 01:23 There's lots of different databases to use.
  • 01:25 And in this course, like I said, we're gonna be working with Microsoft SQL Server
  • 01:30 2016, which is just Microsoft's version.
  • 01:33 It's right up there at the top of the list of the most popular databases used in
  • 01:37 the world.
  • 01:37 But there's lots of different databases.
  • 01:40 Right here, we see a list right here.
  • 01:41 MySQL, Postgres, Mongo, Maria, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle,
  • 01:46 Sybase, all of these different, and this is a very small list.
  • 01:48 I mean, there's hundreds of different types of databases.
  • 01:51 MySQL is a popular one that websites use, MySQL is free.
  • 01:56 Postgre is a very popular one.
  • 01:58 I teach a lot of Ruby on Rails and I use a lot of Ruby on Rails and
  • 02:01 we use Postgre a lot with Ruby on Rails, cuz it just sorta goes with it.
  • 02:05 So depending on what you're doing, depending on what you're building,
  • 02:08 that's sorta gonna determine the type of database that you're gonna use.
  • 02:12 Some databases are more powerful than others.
  • 02:15 Some are very lightweight.
  • 02:16 There's one called SQLite that I've used quite a bit in the past.
  • 02:20 It's just a very, very simple database.
  • 02:22 So as you gain more experience, as you build different things,
  • 02:25 you'll sort of learn which types of databases to use.
  • 02:29 In this course, we're gonna be focusing on Microsoft SQL Server.
  • 02:32 And really, once you learn one of them,
  • 02:34 I don't wanna say you know all the rest of them.
  • 02:36 But you know enough to where you can sort of stumble around with a different
  • 02:40 version.
  • 02:40 So once you learn Microsoft SQL Server, using MySQL, for instance,
  • 02:44 is gonna be a piece of cake.
  • 02:45 The concepts are all the same from database to database.
  • 02:49 And we'll learn that as we go along here.
  • 02:50 They all have columns, they all have rows, they all use SQL structured query
  • 02:54 language, we'll talk about in the next video, to interact within them.
  • 02:57 So that's just a very quick intro to databases.
  • 03:01 I'm sure you sort of understand what a database is already,
  • 03:03 or else you wouldn't be here.
  • 03:05 So in the next video, we'll look at a quick overview of SQL.
  • 03:08 And then we'll jump in and start learning this stuff.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

An Overview of SQL
03m:53s
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