Your business is defined by the data you keep. Customers, vendors, general ledger balances, inventory figures… The list goes on. Before databases were commonplace, this information might be kept on paper, in a filing cabinet or drawer. Today, Famous uses the latest in database technology to provide you greater flexibility in accessing your data than ever before. Specifically, Famous uses something called a "Relational Database Management System" (RDBMS) to store all of your mission-critical information.  These various technical factors provide a strong foundation on which to build Famous Version 6. They assure our customers of the highest levels of performance and flexibility.

• RDBMS
  While the specifics of a RDBMS are outside the scope of this presentation, there are several key points and benefits to point out. The Famous database is a central repository of information. This makes it easier to back up and/or recover, since all the data is in one place. Having a central repository also allows the use of On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP), a feature that is important for the integrity of your data. Utilized extensively by Famous, this concept is described below.
• Oracle
  Famous is built upon the Oracle Workgroup Server database, which has been specially tuned for maximum performance on Windows NT. Oracle is widely regarded as the premiere RDBMS, offering a host of features found in no other products. Trusted to handle the transactions of some of the world’s largest enterprises, Oracle provides the best foundation for Famous.
• OLTP
  The Famous database also has the ability to treat a series of actions as one transaction. For example, in order to add to a customer invoice, several places in the database might need to be updated. These might include the heading and detail lines of the invoice, inventory relief, and General Ledger activity. By grouping all updates together into one unit, Famous maintains the integrity of your data. If one action fails to complete, all previous actions can be "rolled back", as if they never took place. If Famous didn’t have this ability, the result would be inconsistent data. Perhaps the invoice data is added but inventory is not relieved, and the General Ledger activity is not posted. Technically, this would be referred to as a loss of data integrity, meaning that it is inconsistent or incorrect. The use of transactions eliminates this problem.
• Furthermore, transactions are processed immediately, rather than being stored in a queue and then processed as a batch. This is known as Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), and ensures you real-time access to the most current data.
• ODBC
  Another benefit of a RDBMS is the ability to freely access your data through a number of interfaces, known as "drivers". Microsoft has developed an interface known as ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) which is almost universally supported. In addition, Famous uses special "native" drivers for maximum performance when interacting with Oracle.