To know about concepts better and to understand concepts we mainly use visual representations. They help make development of effective information systems. Similarly for better understanding of database we can define a tree like structure or something similar. In the database we use data models. A database model is a type of data model that determines the logical structure of a database.
A Database model defines the logical design and structure of a database and defines how data will be stored, accessed and updated in a database management system(DBMS). Among the many database models, the Relational Model is the most widely used database model, there are other models too:
- Hierarchical Model : This type of model organizes data like a tree-like structure. The hierarchy starts from the Root data , and can be made to expand like a tree, which can add child node to the parent nodes. If you data structures, then you can relate it to the tree data structures. It establishes a one-to-many relations between two different types of data.
- Network Model : This type of data model organizes data like a graph. It is like an extension to the hierarchical model. This database model was used to map many-to-many data relationships. As the data is more related, accessing the data is also much easier. This was the most widely used data model before relational data model was introduced.
- Entity-Relationship Model : E-R Models are defined to represent the relationships into pictorial form to make it easier for different users to understand. In this database model, relationships are created by dividing object of interest into entity and its characteristics into attributes. Different entities are related using relationships.
- Relational Model : In these types of model the data is organized in two-dimensional tables .These relations are maintained by common relational fields. The basic structure of data in the relational model is tables. All the information related to a particular type is stored in rows of that table. Hence, tables are also known as relations in relational model.
