In this day and age, custom database design is really the way to go in most situations although it must be said universal database solutions have become much better. If the word "database" gives you a headache, let's cover the basics so you understand it.

Database design is the systematic construction of a structured database in response to a particular set of requested parameters. A database is not something entirely new and totally associated with computers. Databases had existed before the advent of computers and even before the Industrial Revolution. They were kept, painstakingly slow, on ledgers and even scrolls. Databases are simply collections of information and information has always been essential to humans in the management of any type of enterprise.

It is computers that have enabled people to make much greater use of databases than ever before in history. The computer gives us two edges over the now ancient and outmoded system of handwritten databases. First is capacity. The modern computer can store in a very small space the same amount of information that it would have formerly taken whole massive buildings and millions of ledgers. The second is speed. The computer can access and manipulate the data in any number of ways almost instantly.

This is the function of database design. It first creates the parameters for the database. This is the decision as to what information is actually necessary and in what form in will be stored. Then, it determines the methods that will be used to access, sort, and display the data to the ultimate user. In many ways, it resembles computer programming in that it must establish a systematic way of storing, manipulating, and ultimately displaying information

The process begins with the establishment of a database theory. This is actually the plan or design of the database. It is the part that involves database design most directly, of course, but database design is usually also concerned with the transformation of the database theory to a database reality. This database reality is called a database instance. It is the practical application of the database theory.

Although databases are often associated with business and business applications, they really are used in just about every aspect of modern life. The computer has become the vast storehouse of information and this has ushered in the "Information Age." It is very much a brave new world with unlimited and undreamed of information at our finger tips. It is database design that organizes this vast hoard of information and brings it to us in a format that allows us to use it.

Aazdak Alisimo writes about database design for DatabaseDesignCompanies.com.