In a small operation, the network admins or developers double up as database admins (DBAs). In larger businesses, there might be dozens of DBAs specializing in the many different facets from design and architecture, to maintenance, development, etc. No matter what part of IT you work in, you have to store data at one point or another, and it doesn't hurt for just about everybody to have some knowledge of databases and how they work.
The goal of this tutorial is to provide this basic introduction. We're going to explain the basics of what a database actually is, look at the history, understand relational databases, get into some fundamental concepts from columns and rows on up, touch on other types of databases, get versed on some additional concepts to understand, and wrap it all up with a quick review of the major commercial systems on the market today.
For the most part there are no pre-requisites to this tutorial other than basic computing knowledge.