What is a DBMS?

DBMS stands for Database Management System.

A database management system is an application that enables the creation and administration of databases. Database management system is a broad term that includes any system that performs that function.

The most common type of DBMS is an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). RDBMSs allow you to create relational databases – databases that have multiple tables that contain related data.

There are many types of DBMS. Types include:

• Relational
• Flat file
• Hierarchical
• Object oriented
• Object-relational
• Network
• NoSQL
  • Column database, or wide column store
  • Document-oriented database, or Document store
  • Graph database, or graph-oriented database
  • Key-value database, or key-value store
  • Multi-model (mixture of any of the above)

Although the most popular type of DBMS is based on the relational model, NoSQL databases are becoming more and more popular, especially where big data is concerned.

The most popular DBMSs on the market are currently Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server, all of which are relational DBMSs (although, Oracle is generally considered an object-relational database management system. However, NoSQL systems such as MongoDB, Cassandra, and Redis are included in the top-ten at the time of writing.