MySQL is a relational database. So what’s a relational database? A supermarket stock system may hold details on 1000′s of food items. But instead of one huge database, it’s sensible to break it down into food groups. You could have a cereals database, a cheese database, a daily specials database and so on.
In the specials database we might make a reference to an item, say, in the cereals database, because we don’t want to repeat the data in two different databases. So, the databases are smaller and more manageable, don’t repeat any data and the data items are related, hence a relational database.
For example, an online bookstore could have a million books in it’s database (anyone we know..?) and each book might store a number of relevant characteristics; title, author, category, description and price. It would also have an ID so a particular book can be indexed and searched easily.
Another good example of a database can be seen on blogs. All blog posts are held in a MySQL database. Each post has a title, tag, category, content and ID. The database can be easily searched if you want to find a particular post.
The advantages of using a database for storing data are speed, portability and flexibility. For lots of data, MySQL will speed up access. MySQL is portable and can be used with all different types of blogging or software systems. MySQL is flexible and can interface with different programming languages. Blogs generally use MySQL and PHP programming language. These two make a fast, powerful and flexible combination.
But best of all, MySQL is free. It’s been around since the 1970′s and was created at the IBM research centre. Later on it was introduced into an Oracle product and is now an Industry standard. MySQL AB owns the copyright but licences it for free to almost everyone.
I have only scratched the surface on MySQL and relational databases. If you want to learn more I can recommend the book teach yourself MySQL in 24 hours. It’s written in a refreshingly, easy to read style for a technical book.
