The topic of this chapter is pretty self-explanatory (see this post's title), so let's just jump right in, shall we?
The term "database management system" is used throughout the chapter to describe the implementation of a database model, or DBMS as it is referred to in the book. The book introduces the DBMS MySQL, which I've heard of but never actually used before. For those of you that don't know what it is, MySQL is an open source database platform that's firmly base in math. It's pretty straightforward to get up and running (using a server such as LAMP, WAMP or MAMP) and maintaining it. The chapter goes through the process of creating a database and connecting a program to the database.
There are various database design principles discussed throughout this chapter along with explanations of the basic functions you need to know to use MySQL. It's definitely written as a way for the reader to get his or her feet wet with the platform. I like the code samples provided that show you how the different functions work. It talks about creating tables, searching through them, and working in general with the database.
There are other things, like backup and recovery, that are topics for different sections. That topic in particular is important for everyone to remember. This is mainly due to the fact that your database could contain A LOT of data that would be, let's be honest, a pain in the you-know-what to reenter that information one-by-one if something caused it to disappear and lost for all of time. If you prefer to handle things like that instead of backing them up properly, then it's possible you've lost your mind because you've got to be crazy to want to reenter tons of data one at a time by hand....ok, time to get back on track. Where was I? Oh yes. The book explains how the server you're running MySQL on (like LAMP) has direct backup and restore capabilities that it provides in its user interface. All in all, the chapter's very informative and useful.
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