Operational

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

management systems (also referred to as OLTP On Line Transaction Processing databases), are used to update data in real-time. These types of databases allow users to do more than simply view archived data. Operational databases allow you to modify that data (add, change or delete data), doing it in

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

. OLTP databases provide transactions as main abstraction to guarantee data consistency that guarantee the so-called

ACID properties In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

. Basically, the consistency of the data is guaranteed in the case of failures and/or concurrent access to the data. Since the early 90s, the operational database software market has been largely taken over by SQL engines. Today, the operational

DBMS In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

market (formerly OLTP) is evolving dramatically, with new, innovative entrants and incumbents supporting the growing use of unstructured data and

NoSQL A NoSQL (originally referring to "non- SQL" or "non-relational") database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases. Such databases have existed ...

DBMS engines, as well as

XML database An XML database is a data persistence software system that allows data to be specified, and sometimes stored, in XML format. This data can be queried, transformed, exported and returned to a calling system. XML databases are a flavor of document- ...

s and NewSQL databases. NoSQL databases typically have focused on scalability and have renounced to data consistency by not providing transactions as OLTP system do. Operational databases are increasingly supporting distributed database architecture that can leverage distribution to provide high availability and fault tolerance through replication and

scale out Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...

ability. The growing role of operational databases in the IT industry is moving fast from legacy databases to real-time operational databases capable to handle distributed web and mobile demand and to address

Big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

challenges. Recognizing this,

Gartner Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...

started to publish the

Magic Quadrant Magic Quadrant (MQ) is a series of market research reports published by IT consulting firm Gartner that rely on proprietary qualitative data analysis methods to demonstrate market trends, such as direction, maturity and participants. Their anal ...

for Operational Database Management Systems in October 2013.

List of operational databases

Notable operational databases include:

Use in business

Operational databases are used to store, manage and track real-time business information. For example, a company might have an operational database used to track warehouse/stock quantities. As customers order products from an online web store, an operational database can be used to keep track of how many items have been sold and when the company will need to reorder stock. An operational database stores information about the activities of an

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

, for example

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information. CRM systems compile data from a ra ...

transactions or financial operations, in a computer

. Operational databases allow a business to enter, gather, and retrieve large quantities of specific information, such as company legal data, financial data, call data records, personal employee information, sales data, customer data, data on assets and many other information. An important feature of storing information in an operational database is the ability to share information across the company and over the Internet. Operational databases can be used to manage mission-critical business data, to monitor activities, to audit suspicious transactions, or to review the history of dealings with a particular customer. They can also be part of the actual process of making and fulfilling a purchase, for example in

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

Data warehouse terminology

data warehousing In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integra ...

, the term is even more specific: the operational database is the one which is accessed by an

operational system An operational system is a term used in data warehousing to refer to a system that is used to process the day-to-day transactions of an organization. These systems are designed in a manner that processing of day-to-day transactions is performed ef ...

(for example a customer-facing website or the application used by the customer service department) to carry out regular operations of an organization. Operational databases usually use an online transaction processing database which is optimized for faster transaction processing (

create, read, update and delete In computer programming, create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) are the four basic operations of persistent storage. CRUD is also sometimes used to describe user interface conventions that facilitate viewing, searching, and changing information ...

operations). An operational database is the source for a data warehouse.

References

{{Reflist, 33em * O’Brien, Jason., and Marakas, Gorila., (2008). Management Information Technology Systems. Computer Software (pp. 185). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Data warehousing Data management Business intelligence Types of databases

List of operational databases

Use in business

Data warehouse terminology

See also

References