The use of an operational database will help an e-business enterprise store detailed data needed to support their process and operations. The kinds of databases found in this setting are human resource databases, customer databases, and inventory databases, etc. If the enterprise is looking to have information distribution, then a distributed database would be more for their liking. This allows the enterprise to replicate and distribute copies or parts of their databases to other network servers around the world. Not only can this information reside on servers, but also on the World Wide Web, corporate intranets, and extranets. .
The database management system is a set of computer programs that controls the creation, maintenance, and use of the databases in a particular organization and its end users. There are four major uses of the DBMS and they are: database development, database interrogation, database management, and application development. These four parts are crucial to e-business information system development. It allows users or database administrators to sort data contents, develop relationships, create a business structure, and allow for content modification. The DBMS has the capability to let end users receive reports and quick responses to requests for information.
Data entered from printed questionnaires is best done via scanning the data optically. For example, the University of Phoenix uses optical scanning with the hundreds of student surveys that are filled during orientation. Students fill out information and answer questions by "bubbling" in their choices on a special sheet that is later hand fed into a high-speed scanner that records the data on a computer.
Entering data from telephone surveys can be done via voice recognition or manual data entry from an operator. The operator will ask particular questions prompted via a computer terminal and enter the appropriate data from the responses received during the survey.