Three uses of databases in the business world?

Question

i just need some ideas of what businesses use databases for, if you guys could help me out. thanks!

Answer 1

1- Track inventories so we know what we have to sell and when to reorder merchandise.

2- Maintain payroll records for sometimes thousands of employees.

3-Track sales; by location, by day, by hour, by year.  Retail computer programs evaluate sales per hour (or even per 15-minutes) from previous years to "estimate" customer traffic for the upcoming days.  They use the information to schedule the proper amount of cashiers to handle the business for each quarter-hour of the day.  Walmart and Target both use this system and track thousands of stores and tens of thousands of schedules each week.

All this information is "stored" in the database computers at these companies.  The individual businesses then have secured access to the database whenever they need the information.  That eliminates having to store ALL that information in each individual location which would be very expensive and, in many cases, cost prohibitive.

Answer 2

Here are three, and explanations of why Databases are important and vital to them:

1. Library of Congress

Not even the digital age can prevent the world's largest library from ending up on this list.  The Library of Congress (LC) boasts more than 130 million items ranging from cook books to colonial newspapers to U.S. government proceedings. It is estimated that the text portion of the Library of Congress would comprise 20 terabytes of data. The LC expands at a rate of 10,000 items per day and takes up close to 530 miles of shelf space -- talk about a lengthy search for a book.

If you're researching a topic and cannot find the right information on the internet, the Library of Congress should be your destination of choice.  For users researching U.S. history, around 5 million pieces from the LC's collection can be found online at American Memory.

Unfortunately for us, the Library of Congress has no plans of digitizing the entirety of its contents and limits the people who can check out materials to Supreme Court Justices, members of Congress, their respective staff, and a select few other government officials; however, anyone with a valid Reader Identification Card (the LC's library card) can access the collection.

By the Numbers

    * 130 million items (books, photographs, maps, etc)

    * 29 million books

    * 10,000 new items added each day

    * 530 miles of shelves

    * 5 million digital documents

    * 20 terabytes of text data

2. Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in the business of collecting and distributing information on people, places and things, so it should come as no surprise that they end up on this list.  Although little is known about the overall size of the CIA's database, it is certain that the agency has amassed a great deal of information on both the public and private sectors via field work and digital intrusions.

Portions of the CIA database available to the public include the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, The World Fact Book, and various other intelligence related publications.  The FOIA library includes hundreds of thousands of official (and occasionally ultra-sensitive) U.S. government documents made available to the public electronically. The library grows at a rate of 100 articles per month and contains topics ranging from nuclear development in Pakistan to the type of beer available during the Korean War. The World Fact Book boasts general information on every country and territory in the world including maps, population numbers, military capabilities and more.

By the Numbers

    * 100 FOIA items added each month

    * Comprehensive statistics on more than 250 countries and entities

    * Unknown number of classified information

3. AT&T

Similar to Sprint, the United States' oldest telecommunications company AT&T maintains one of the world's largest databases.  Architecturally speaking, the largest AT&T database is the cream of the crop as it boasts titles including the largest volume of data in one unique database (312 terabytes) and the second largest number of rows in a unique database (1.9 trillion), which comprises AT&T's extensive calling records.

The 1.9 trillion calling records include data on the number called, the time and duration of the call and various other billing categories. AT&T is so meticulous with their records that they've maintained calling data from decades ago -- long before the technology to store hundreds of terabytes of data ever became available.  Chances are, if you're reading this have made a call via AT&T, the company still has all of your call's information.

By the Numbers

    * 323 terabytes of information

    * 1.9 trillion phone call records