Software and database engineering

A database is an organized collection of data. A relational database, more restrictively, is a collection of schemas, tables, queries, reports, views, and other elements. Database designers typically organize the data to model aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring information, such as (for example) modelling the availability of rooms in hotels in a way that supports finding a hotel with vacancies.

Engineering is the creative application of science, mathematical methods, and empirical evidence to the innovation, design, construction, operation and maintenance of structures, machines, materials, devices, systems, processes, and organizations. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering.

Computer software, or simply software, is a part of a computer system that consists of data or computer instructions, in contrast to the physical hardware from which the system is built. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.