Introduction

This chapter of our data journey is focused on Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and Structured Query Language (SQL). In the previous chapter, we stored and read data from a file. In this chapter, we will read structured data, design access to the data, and create query interfaces for databases.

For years, the RDBMS format has been the conventional way to store data. An RDBMS is one of the safest ways to store, manage, and retrieve data. It is backed by a solid mathematical foundation (relational algebra and calculus) and exposes an efficient and intuitive declarative language – SQL – for easy interaction. Almost every language has a rich set of libraries to interact with different RDBMS, and the tricks and methods of using them are well tested and well understood.

Scaling an RDBMS is a pretty well-understood task, and there is a group of well trained, experienced professionals to do this job (DBAs, or database administrators).

So, it...