Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system produced by Microsoft. It supports a superset of Structured Query Language SQL, the most common database language. It is commonly used by businesses for small to medium sized databases.

Basically the SQL Server will store all of your company's data. Once your data is stored correctly other applications can access it for numerous work related activities including reports, workflow, sales, accounting etc.

I have created a backup of of our database that I use to test new SQL scripts, triggers and stored procedures to ensure that the results are as expected before running them on the live database.

I manage the database via Enterprise Manager on the Server, but for read only access I use Excel via an ODBC datasource connection to execute queries etc and return the results to Excel.