o a computer system provide users access to software programs that the system comprises. The electronic connection may be hard-wired or wireless, accessible via phone, depending on design of the IS hardware. The structure of the software programs themselves determines what kind of data (financial, graphical, textual) can be accessed. Data may be "input" or entered into the system, and can be stored, retrieved, revised, or otherwise manipulated by users authorized to do so.
Database management systems may be integrated with the technology array of an information management system, and database software may be used as a tool of IS management. But database technology is very much a software application. A database is a group of related pieces of information put into a storage unit (FileMaker, 1992). Once that information, or data, is in that unit, it can be sorted or modified by users. At least one database management software manufacturer likens a database to a file folder:
You keep related information--for example, all the information about sales contacts--in a file. In a contacts file, the information you keep about one sales contact is called a record. So a fi
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