These can be one-to-many relationships or many-to-many relationships. The difference between databases and spreadsheets is that while spreadsheets can contain records (often a row in a spreadsheet) and data fields (which is just a particular type of data - often a column header in a spreadsheet), databases can also contain relationships between records. In situations such as this, you are better off using a database rather than a spreadsheet. You could use a spreadsheet with one order per row, but you may have to type in customer name and address repetitively for many orders. You could use a spreadsheet with one customer per row, but one customer might order many products. Imagine you want to record the products that customers order from your company. There is limited support for Microsoft Access databases. If you have an existing database already created, you can connect to it either with the first screen you see in Base or by clicking File, New, Database then Connect to existing Database. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other software to store and retrieve data in a structured way.Ĭonnecting to Databases DBMSes may use any of a variety of database models, such as the network model or relational model. The model in most common use today is the relational model.Ī database management system (DBMS) is computer software that manages databases. The structure is achieved by organizing the data according to a database model. A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system.

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