Databases are organized collections of data stored on, and accessible from, computer systems. In this era of big data, databases are especially important because of the vast amounts of information organizations need to sort and analyze. In the business world in particular, the ability to leverage data effectively to generate actionable insights is a major competitive advantage, making databases a critical resource.
Once a database design is created, data can be stored in it and managed with the use of a relational database management system (DBMS) such as MySQL, Microsoft Access, or Oracle. For a quick exploration of a database, a data scientist can use a query language like SQL (Structured Query Language) to retrieve the data needed for the analysis, and then use a programming language like Python or R to process it and present the findings through data visualization.
Long-term decision-making requires the ability to query multiple databases. Business intelligence software like Pentaho or Tableau have the needed extract, transform, load (ETL) capabilities to merge data from many different sources in a data warehousing process that can give executives greater insight into corporate performance over time.