Components of Database

The database management system can be divided into five major components, which are shown in figure 1.0

1. User
2. Hardware
3. Software
4. Data
5. Procedures
6. Database Access Language

User- The one who really uses the database called user. Users can be administrator, developer or the end user.

Software- It is a general term for the various kinds of programs used to operate computers and related devices. It is the set of programs used to control and manage the overall database. This includes the package software system itself, the Operating System, the network software being used to share the data among users, and the application programs used to access data in the DBMS.

Hardware-  It consists of a set of physical electronic devices such as computers, I/O devices, storage devices, etc., this provides the interface between computers and the real world systems., hard disks, I/O channels for knowledge, and any other physical component involved before any data is successfully stored into the memory.

Data- Data is one of the important factor of database. A very huge amount of data will be stored in the database and it forms the main source for all other components to interact with each other.  

There are two types of data

1. User data - It contains the data which is responsible for the database, i.e.; based on the requirement, the data will be stored in the various tables of the database in the form of rows and columns.
2. Metadata- It is known as ‘data about data’, i.e.; it stores the information like how many tables,  their names, how many columns and their names, primary keys, foreign keys etc. basically these information can have data concerning every tables and their constraints within the information..

Procedures- Procedures refer to general instructions to use a database management system. This includes procedures to setup and install a DBMS, to login and logout of DBMS software, to manage databases, to take backups, generating reports etc.

Database Access Language- A data definition language (DDL) is a computer language used to create and modify the structure of database objects in a database. These database objects include views, schemas, tables, indexes, etc.  This term is also known as knowledge description language in some contexts, because it describes the fields and records in a database table.