Uses of the Oracle DBMS
The Oracle Corporation sells computer database management systems (DBMS), which are programs allowing the efficient organization, storage and retrieval of data. Databases have become popular because they preserve data integrity and improve its accessibility; a skilled programmer can quickly perform sophisticated analyses on the stored information. The Oracle DBMS follows the relational database model that stores all data in tables. The tables have records composed of individual data fields.
Other People Are Reading
-
Web Retail
-
The Oracle DBMS serves many online retailers, organizing their customer and sales data. A Web database contains customer, order header, order detail and product tables. The customer table, for example, consists of the customer’s name, billing and shipping addresses, credit card and other information. The order header table has an order date, customer ID code and a unique order ID. Order details have an item number, price, and order and ship dates. The product table has a stock keeping unit (SKU) code, description and price. When the customer places an order, the database software looks up his customer record and adds an order header record. As he adds items to his Web shopping basket, the database adds order detail records. The Web store owner runs reports on the database, totaling sales for the month, by state or for any criterion for which the database has information.
Bills of Material
-
The engineering department of a hypothetical manufacturing company designs machines and uses an Oracle database to organize its bills of material (BOM). The BOM lists all the parts that make up a machine. A BOM database contains tables for users, parts and machines. The machines table has a machine code and a record for every part number in the machine. When the engineering department finishes and approves a bill of materials, they notify the manufacturing department manager, who uses the information to build the machine.
-
Mobile User Support
-
Among other features, Oracle has a database product they call Mobile Server. It synchronizes data between an organization’s Oracle home office database and Oracle-based programs on mobile devices such as smartphones. Sales staff in the field can, for example, give timely price and quantity quotes for the products they sell, check the status of orders and submit their traveling expenses.
Data Warehouse
-
Many organizations keep archives of their information in databases called data warehouses. Instead of a database that keeps records of active transactions, a data warehouse stores closed transactions for the purpose of reporting and analysis. An Oracle DBMS can automatically copy closed records from either another Oracle database or a database from another vendor. Having a separate data warehouse database prevents analysis work from interfering with ongoing order processing or from accidentally altering live customer records. Using the information in a data warehouse, managers can examine sales trends, create income and cost reports and learn more about their customers.
-
References
- Photo Credit Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
