MySQL Introduction

MySQL is a fast, easy-to-use RDBMS being used for many small and big businesses. MySQL is developed, marketed and supported by MySQL AB, which is a Swedish company.

 DB stands for Database, a repository for the information store.

• The data in a database is organized into tables, and each table is organized into rows and columns.
• Each row in a table is called a record. A record may contain several pieces (called fields) of information, and each column in a table is known as a field.

MS stands: for Management System, the software that allows you to insert, retrieve, modify, or delete records.

R stands: for Relational, indicates a particular kind of DBMS that is good at relating information stored in one table to information stored in another table by looking for elements common to each of them. Relational DBMS has the advantage of efficient storage, and retrieval mechanisms for data, and uses the normalization process during the design of RDBMS. The database normalization process is beyond the scope of this article, and several references are available.

MySQL Main Popularity Reason: 

• MySQL is released under an open-source license. So you have nothing to pay to use it.
• MySQL is a very powerful program in its own right. It handles a large subset of the functionality of the most expensive and powerful database packages.
• MySQL uses a standard form of the well-known SQL data language.
• MySQL works on many operating systems and with many languages including PHP, Python, Perl, C, C++, JAVA, etc.
• MySQL works very quickly and works well even with large data sets.
• MySQL is very friendly to PHP, the most appreciated language for web development.
• MySQL supports large databases, up to 50 million rows or more in a table. The default file size limit for a table is 4GB, but you can increase this (if your operating system can handle it) to a theoretical limit of 8 million terabytes (TB).
• MySQL is customizable. The open-source GPL license allows programmers to modify the MySQL software to fit their own specific environments.