Data of different types can be stored together in a database. A database is a structured data set that can be accessed by many potential authorized users via a computer system or network.
Below is a discussion of the example above.
Asset ID: Even though this variable looks to be numerical, the IDs are not meaningful, measured numbers. Rather they serve as identifiers for specific assets. You could calculate an average for Asset ID, for example, but the average wouldn't have any meaning.
Description: This variable contains descriptions of property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) assets. This variable allows us to group and categorize assets.
Cost: This variable is numerical and contains the initial cost of each asset.
Useful life: This variable is numerical and contains the useful life of each asset.
Beginning Depreciation: This variable is numerical and contains the accumulated depreciation at the beginning of the period.
Current Depreciation: This variable is numerical and contains current period depreciation expense.
Accumulated Depreciation: This variable is numerical adds together Beginning Depreciation and Current Depreciation.
Net Book Value: This variable is numerical and subtracts Accumulated Depreciation from Cost.
In topic 2, we talked about how customer review data on Amazon's website for the Tide Pods product contained data.
It is likely that Amazon stores this data in a simplified product table, which is a structured table of raw data, like the one below.
Coupling the table of raw data with the customer-facing image illustrates two things.
It shows how data can be transformed from a raw data table into a useful customer view.
It illustrates how the customer view is more difficult to use for data analysis.