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Relational Databases

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Relational Databases
Jason A. Mizener
Professor Merkel
Intro to Information Technology
17 August 2014

Relational Databases As technology as grown throughout the years, so has the information it utilizes. Early on databases were organized through the hierarchical model, which was the earliest representation of the parent-child structure (each parent can have multiple children, but each child can only have one parent). Shortly thereafter the network database model was incorporated to more effectively represent complex data relationships. Large amounts of data became better organized, which improved database performance. Additionally, the parent-child structure was improved to where children could now have multiple parents. Despite these advances, databases continued to grow increasingly cumbersome and complex, and further advances were necessary to keep everything manageable.
The relational database, designed in 1970 by E. F. Codd, represented a major breakthrough in database technology for both designers and users alike. The relational model is very simple, yet very effective in concept. As strange as it may be to think, the relational database pioneered the concept of using tables to hold and organize data. An Excel spreadsheet is probably the most obvious example of a relational database that the end user can relate to today. Essentially, a relational database is the logical view, rather than the physical view, of information. (Carlos Coronel, 2013)
Logical vs Physical Design A relational database is considered to be a logical view of information, but it created through physical database design. To reach the final, physical, database that the end user experiences, it must be first designed on the logical level. A logical data model is necessary for the creation of any database, sort of like a blueprint. Like a blueprint, a good

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