Amateur confused by databases

[soukiedupont]

Hey guys,
I am a complete newbie and I am investigating putting up a website for a certain business community. I registered with a hosting company where I was only supposed to choose a template and input my content. They said they had blogging and forum software.
A friend of mine asked me what I was going to do about the database, and I am completely stumped!!!

So my question is this:
1) Can someone explain to me, in layman's terms, why I need a database attached to the site, what it does exactly?
2) what kind of database do I need for a forum and contact form and mailing list management?
3) where do I get it and what should I ask a provider for?

Would appreciate any help.

 

[Barrucadu]

1) Can someone explain to me, in layman's terms, why I need a database attached to the site, what it does exactly?

A database is needed to store forum posts, people in a mailing list, etc. It can be done with files instead of a database, but thats much slower (for larger applications).

2) what kind of database do I need for a forum and contact form and mailing list management?

Any database supported by the software itself. I would go with MySQL

3) where do I get it and what should I ask a provider for?

If you bought hosting, it'll probably come with MySQL hosting (possibly as an extra), ask your host.