It can be hard to explain different IT concepts to other people. How does services, servers, databases or the like look like? Within often large and complicated systems comes the possibility of being in a completely different place when discussing with your colleagues. I know I’ve had problems describing bugs to non-testers, I’ve had problems with not understanding the lingo on a new project, and I’ve had problems when discussing large and abstract systems with my team members.One thing I want to be better at, is visualizing the systems or concepts that I want to discuss. I like drawing, but I know a lot of people who don’t, and some who are downright scared of it. So these posts are a small visual library of different IT concepts. They take their starting point in test-related concepts, but anyone involved in IT can benefit from them.
A database
I’ve only recently gotten to know databases. How they work, SQL and the different scripts you can use. I love it. I think it’s so much fun going into different databases when testing, viewing, comparing, joining and editing them. Even though the amount of trouble you can cause in there is immense.
However, for the life of me, I do not understand why the icon is a cylinder. It makes no sense in my world, I can’t see how it relates to anything, and I can’t see the connection between the tables of data I’m used to seeing on my computer screen, and a.. cylinder. So I asked a developer on my team, and he informed me that, like the floppy-disc-save-icon, it’s a historical relic.Back in the days, data was stored on large storage systems consisting of cylinder-shaped discs. Sometimes, each disc could even be lifted up and moved around.
You can also see a magnetic disc storage system here and a cylinder shaped storage unit in the background of this image. The more you know.
Drawing a database
Draw it: Draw a skewed circle, and give it two “legs” on each side. Fill in the layers between the two legs with three half-circles.
Feel free to submit your own interpretations of the concepts in the comments!
I’ve only recently gotten to know databases. How they work, SQL and the different scripts you can use. I love it. I think it’s so much fun going into different databases when testing, viewing, comparing, joining and editing them. Even though the amount of trouble you can cause in there is immense.
However, for the life of me, I do not understand why the icon is a cylinder. It makes no sense in my world, I can’t see how it relates to anything, and I can’t see the connection between the tables of data I’m used to seeing on my computer screen, and a.. cylinder. So I asked a developer on my team, and he informed me that, like the floppy-disc-save-icon, it’s a historical relic.Back in the days, data was stored on large storage systems consisting of cylinder-shaped discs. Sometimes, each disc could even be lifted up and moved around.
You can also see a magnetic disc storage system here and a cylinder shaped storage unit in the background of this image. The more you know.
Feel free to submit your own interpretations of the concepts in the comments! 
You can also see a magnetic disc storage system here and a cylinder shaped storage unit in the background of this image. The more you know.
