Databases can be seen as an important extension of the range of access methods. Both the overhead involved in installation and maintenance of the data resources as well as the access path lengths are greater with databases than with other access methods.
They do, however, offer the following additional benefits.
the way in which data and access paths are organized can be defined by the user and adapted to suit his/her data resources
unfinished transactions can be reset
with the aid of logging, the state of the data resources can always be reconstructed to the state applicable shortly before a crash.
access rights can be defined and monitored
the amount of redundant data can be reduced as a result of the possibility of creating complex relationships between records
Queries for multiple keys with the option of logical links permit savings on application program parts.