What Is System Catalog?
A system catalog is a hot glue that holds your database together. It's the framework, the nuts and bolts; it's what makes everything work. When building a new database, you need to know who's in charge of what—and a system catalog is where all that information lives. You'll find a system catalog in every database you build, and all the information in this catalog specifies what goes where. Does it mean you want to know who owns which table or view or which tables are related to one another? Or what kind of data is stored in each column? You can find out by looking at the system catalog. An excellent way to think of these things is like a map: The system catalog tells us where things are and how they relate. When we change our database (which we inevitably do), we update our map! The system catalog is a part of the database where all the metadata about the database resides. So, the system catalog is a critical database component and must be protected. In case of a disaster or any other unplanned system shutdown, it is necessary to have a way to restart the system catalog. Continuing the system catalog is not a one-click operation but requires a significant amount of time. Therefore, must store the system catalog on non-volatile media. The system catalog collects objects visible to the database administrator and all other database users. It allows them to see the specific privileges they have been granted, but they won't need to find out about anything else happening inside the database. The system catalog is the database's book of rules. It informs the database server—and other database users—how to behave, what to do, and how to respond.
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