“In the 21st century, the database is the marketplace” – Stan Rapp
90 per cent of the world's data has been created in the last two years alone, with an incredible 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being created every day. The volume of data is expected to double every two years, which is a staggering figure. The importance of effectively managing, manipulating, and securing these information assets has never been greater. With easy access to technological innovations, users are advancing as well, seeking genuine support for their decision-making processes.
What are Data and Databases?
Data is information that has been translated into a form that is efficient for movement or processing in computing. In other words, data can be the facts about any entity under evaluation.
A database is a systematic collection of data that is typically stored in electronic form and is designed to easily store, access, and manipulate data where multiple users and applications access the storage at the same time.
Why the database is needed
The following are some of the reasons why a database is important:
- Manages large amounts of data
Daily, a database stores and manages a large amount of data. This would be impossible to achieve with any other tool because they simply won’t work.
- Accurate
A database is fairly accurate because it includes numerous constraints, checks, and other safeguards. This means that in most cases, the information in a database is guaranteed to be correct.
- Data integrity
Data integrity in databases makes sure that the data is accurate and consistent in a database by using various constraints for data.
- Easy to update data
It is simple to update data in a database using the various Data Manipulation languages (DML) that are available. SQL is one of these languages.
- Security of data
Databases use a variety of methods to ensure data security. Before accessing a database, users must log in and various access specifiers must be met. These restrict database access to only authorised users.
Database Management System
Database Management Systems (DBMS) are computer programs that store, retrieve, and process data queries. A database management system (DBMS) serves as an interface between a user and a database, allowing them to create, read, update, and delete data. The data, the database engine, and the database structure are all managed by DBMS, which allows users and other programs to alter and extract data. Data security, data integrity, concurrency, and consistent data management approaches are all aided by this.
Types of databases
Database technology has changed and evolved over the years. SQL, NoSQL, and NewSQL have been the most relevant and used in recent years and are projected to remain so in the near future.
- SQL
Relational databases are built on the relational model, an easy-to-understand method of expressing structured data in tabular format and are maintained with a single language called SQL- Structured Query Language. Some of the top companies using SQL are Cognizant, Dell, Microsoft, etc.
The languages most widely used by IT professionals daily to interact with relational databases include MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, SQLite, etc
- NoSQL
NoSQL is NOT a Structured Query Language, uses documents with data types of descriptions and values to store data.
- NewSQL
NewSQL is a database language that combines and expands on the concepts and principles of Structured Query Language (SQL) and NoSQL. NewSQL improves functionality and services by combining the reliability of SQL with the speed and performance of NoSQL.
What iMocha has to offer about database technologies
With the continual challenges of hiring qualified candidates and hiring swiftly, finding the appropriate candidate with the correct competence can be difficult at times and time consuming (as vacant positions cost money). Hence, iMocha’s content and ready assessment across different database profiles can be helpful to simplify your hiring process.
Popular database technologies offered by iMocha include:
- MySQL
The world's most popular open-source database The MySQL software delivers a fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software. Some of the benefits include open source and easy to use, cross-platform support, robust, secure, etc.
Travis CI, Datadog, Slick, Amazon DynamoDB, and JSON are some of the popular tools that integrate with MySQL. Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and many other companies use MySQL in their tech stacks.
- MSSQL
It is an enterprise-level database system that is very popular for Windows web servers. It can store any type of data. It will let you quickly store and retrieve information and multiple website visitors can use it at one time. MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle, and Gitea are some of the popular tools that integrate with MSSQL. Alibaba Travels, Walmart, Groww and many other companies use MSSQL in their tech stacks.
- PostgreSQL
It is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types, and functions.
Datadog, Slick, Amazon DynamoDB, JSON, and Sequelize are some of the popular tools that integrate with PostgreSQL. Instagram, Reddit, Spotify, and many other companies use PostgreSQL in their tech stacks.
- Oracle Express
It is a database commonly used for running online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing (DW), and mixed (OLTP & DW) database workloads. Oracle Database has extended the relational model to an object-relational model, making it possible to store complex business models in a relational database.
Slick, Oracle PL/SQL, AWS Glue, DataGrip, and Entity Framework are some of the popular tools that integrate with Oracle. JPMorgan Chase, Netflix, eBay, LinkedIn, and many other companies use the Oracle database in their tech stacks.
- SQLite
SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. It reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.
Slick, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, Sequelize, and Strapi are some of the popular tools that integrate with Oracle. Google, Facebook, DropBox, and many other companies use SQLite in their tech stacks.
- MongoDB
MongoDB, a NoSQL database, designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema.
Datadog, Meteor, Mongoose, JSON, and Let's Encrypt are some of the popular tools that integrate with MongoDB. Cisco, Sage, Adobe, and many other companies use SQLite in their tech stacks.
iMocha's extensive database content and ready-to-use assessments for almost all database job roles will help in evaluating the candidate's proficiency in the competency using various question types such as MCQs, coding-based questions, and AI-LogicBox questions (Pseudo coding question type) and, ultimately, in identifying job-fit candidates. We deliver a thorough data-driven report of the candidate's section-by-section performance after the assessment is submitted, which will assist hiring managers and recruiters in making faster and more informed hiring decisions.
Conclusion
Databases, in any form, will remain at the centre of modern internet applications, allowing for the reliable and efficient processing and storing of massive volumes of data. The combination of big data and blockchain technology has the greatest potential for generating and capturing data, as well as validating and analysing it using advanced statistical models and data mining.