# Database management? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 19, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072 "2012-01-19T22:26:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/21 "2012-10-05T13:48:36Z")
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**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/22 "2012-10-05T16:00:23Z")
Hey, congrats! Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/23 "2012-10-05T18:14:43Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > I don’t understand why; they have very different functions. They might as well hate word processing programs too. In a perfect world, yes, they have very different functions. In this real world, a lot of people who need a database and don’t understand enough to know it start using a spreadsheet as a bad substitute. Then they get used to that particular spreadsheet. Then they ask people to help their spreadsheet do more… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/25 "2013-12-24T14:51:44Z")
Spam reported. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/26 "2013-12-24T21:08:59Z")
> [@janetkissho](#): > > A lot of people have about data management, people [here](http://www.slideshare.net/backofficepro) are very much knowledgeable and they answer people in seconds I really appreciate this. I’ve always heard that the people at [Backofficepro are incompetent liars.](http://www.slideshare.net/backofficepro). Just a 2nd opinion. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/27 "2013-12-25T10:43:14Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > The really bizarre thing I’ve seen is that you see some hugely underqualified DBA’s on the market because some non-technical executive assistant somewhere got tasked with managing some administrative Excel spreadsheet, which their clueless management kept calling a “database”. > [@chrisk](#): > > In this real world, a lot of people who need a database and don’t understand enough to know it start using a spreadsheet as a bad substitute. Then they get used to that particular spreadsheet. Then they ask people to help their spreadsheet do more… 😉 My anecdote is as a new postdoc, I was put in charge of the lab’s “databases”. They had research projects with lots of categorical data. The PI wanted all of the individual project database files combined into one master database. A postdoc in the lab was showing me the files on the server. I asked where the database files were. Right there, he said, pointing at the Excel icons. I say “Those are spreadsheets, where are the database files?” “Those are our databases.” OK. I don’t have much of a computer science background, but I’m thinking I can import all those spreadsheets into an Access database somehow. “Does our MS Office have Access?” “Of course we have access; you’re looking at the files on the server now, [rolling his eyes at me].” Hopefully not spam, but [Cousera.org](http://Cousera.org) has a free, self study “Introduction to Databases” course. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/28 "2013-12-25T18:11:06Z")
Many people treat MS Excel like a database and MS Access like a spreadsheet. There is some overlap. I suggest that Microsoft combine the two programs and call it MS Excess… ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/29 "2013-12-25T18:26:45Z")
Database management jobs usually have a more detailed description of the skills required. If you don’t understand the details then you are probably not qualified for that position. It can be a confusing term as companies use it to describe whatever “they” think it means. But IMHO nothing done in Excel will qualify you for a database job. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/30 "2013-12-25T20:20:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > . The Microsoft database product is Access. Not really… Microsoft’s _real_ database product is Microsoft SQL Server in one of its flavors. Access is like a toy database by comparison. But yeah; database manager is more of a description of someone who manages a database- the collection of data. They’re probably responsible for making sure that process and program safeguards are in place to make sure that data integrity is maintained, and that the tables are appropriately indexed and normalized to get the data in and out efficiently. They’re not usually responsible for making sure the actual server stays up, or that it has enough memory or disk space. Database administrators are the people who actually maintain the various servers and balance the resources between the various databases on each. If they’re concerned with the actual data or queries run on the databases, it’s likely because the queries or databases are poorly designed and eating excess resources at the expense of other databases on the same server. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/31 "2013-12-25T20:40:36Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > FWIW, I have learned more about this now. At work we’re in the process of acquiring a donor database management system (SalesForce, Raiser’sEdge, etc), so I’m excited because, as Development and Outreach Coordinator, I’m going to get database management experience. SalesForce isn’t a database management system. It’s a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Also a Database Administrator (DBA) tends to be involved more in building and maintaining stuff like user access, permissions, underlying maintenance and infrastructure of large enterprise databases like Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Apache HBase. > [@Spice Weasel](#): > > -Administrative experience? I once maintained over 800 active accounts for a consumer credit counseling agency. It was a bit more complicated than your standard customer service job (I know because I started out as a customer service rep.) Documentation was key, each client had an individual account with assigned tasks that had to be worked by a certain deadline, and we were all the time making and noting changes to the account - is that database management? Anything using Excel or Access is usually just “fucking around making lists” IMHO. 800 accounts is relatively small for a database (I routinely work with SQL Server databases of hundreds of thousands or several million records). But it’s really more about how you are using them. Are you creating data relationships (ie many to one, many to many)? Are you normalizing data (ie using lookup reference tables so as to avoid duplicate or redundant entries)? The main difference between making lists in Excel and managing a database is the ability to structure the underlying data. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/32 "2013-12-25T22:46:00Z")
> [@JerrySTL](#): > > Many people treat MS Excel like a database and MS Access like a spreadsheet. There is some overlap. > > I suggest that Microsoft combine the two programs and call it MS Excess… I see that all the time and it is hard to explain to people that, yes, you can achieve roughly the same results for smaller datasets and less complex requirements using either Excel or Access but the underlying concepts are completely different and which one you choose will almost always have serious implications down the road. Excel is a spreadsheet and Access is relational database but that is a difficult thing for most casual users to grasp. I don’t get all the putdowns for MS Access. I am both an expert SQL Server and Oracle developer and a fairly proficient DBA in both as well. I know relational databases like the back of my hand and yet I started out using Access for ad-hoc database work and then moved up to more complex Access projects before the projects I needed to work on simply got too big and complex for it to handle well. However, I still use Access all the time for minor projects. It is the best tool if you just want to import a subset of data from a larger database and work with it in some quick and dirty way. It is also good for developing smaller, permanent database applications that only have a handful of users or less. The real problem with Access is that it is much more powerful than most desktop applications and that causes people to attempt to build enterprise level applications in it that should be built in SQL Server or Oracle. That costs a lot of money though and requires significantly more expertise even if the underlying ideas are the same. I wouldn’t blame that on Access itself though. People commonly end up with poorly thought out database applications built in Access that they shouldn’t have built to begin with. Performance usually sucks as they grow and grow, they don’t have a good backup and recovery strategy and data integrity gets iffy at best because of the very limited security model. The good news is that it is easy for someone like me to move a set of data from Excel or Access to an enterprise level database like SQL Server if the original design can’t meet the growing demands. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072/33 "2013-12-26T18:17:37Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I see that all the time and it is hard to explain to people that, yes, you can achieve roughly the same results for smaller datasets and less complex requirements using either Excel or Access but the underlying concepts are completely different and which one you choose will almost always have serious implications down the road. Excel is a spreadsheet and Access is relational database but that is a difficult thing for most casual users to grasp. > > I don’t get all the putdowns for MS Access. I am both an expert SQL Server and Oracle developer and a fairly proficient DBA in both as well. I know relational databases like the back of my hand and yet I started out using Access for ad-hoc database work and then moved up to more complex Access projects before the projects I needed to work on simply got too big and complex for it to handle well. > > However, I still use Access all the time for minor projects. It is the best tool if you just want to import a subset of data from a larger database and work with it in some quick and dirty way. It is also good for developing smaller, permanent database applications that only have a handful of users or less. > > The real problem with Access is that it is much more powerful than most desktop applications and that causes people to attempt to build enterprise level applications in it that should be built in SQL Server or Oracle. That costs a lot of money though and requires significantly more expertise even if the underlying ideas are the same. > > I wouldn’t blame that on Access itself though. People commonly end up with poorly thought out database applications built in Access that they shouldn’t have built to begin with. Performance usually sucks as they grow and grow, they don’t have a good backup and recovery strategy and data integrity gets iffy at best because of the very limited security model. > > The good news is that it is easy for someone like me to move a set of data from Excel or Access to an enterprise level database like SQL Server if the original design can’t meet the growing demands. MS Access has been very, very good to me. I started using Access 1.0 in the early '90s when I was an aircraft mechanic to track parts and repairs. I switched career paths in 1997 when I found that I could make a living with Access. I got so good at it that I became a Microsoft VIP for Access for 4 years. Then I had the opportunity to become an Oracle DBA and here I am today. Access is often the right tool for the job. Using SQL Server or Oracle for many tasks is like using a sledge hammer to drive in a finishing nail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/database-management/610072.md?page=1)