The document discusses database management systems (DBMS) and their components. It describes how a DBMS is used to define, manipulate, retrieve and manage structured data in a database. It contrasts databases with file systems, noting that databases are used to efficiently store related data with defined formats while file systems store unstructured data. The document then covers database languages including data definition languages (DDL) to define schemas, data manipulation languages (DML) to insert, update and delete data, and data control languages (DCL) to manage permissions and transactions. It provides examples of DBMS applications and describes entity relationship models for structuring data.