You may be aware of DBMSs which handle data as a file on a computer. Microsoft Access is one example. One person uses the database on their system or maybe a few over a network. The DBMS will both handle the data and provide an interface.
Other database systems split the job of handling the data and providing an interface. Oracle is one well known example and MySQL is another. MySQL runs on the server and responds to requests to do stuff. The requests are in the form of text commands in Structured Query Language. If you know the commands you can type them in but otherwise you have a problem.
These networked databases are capable of sending data to anything or anyone which understands SQL. Microsoft Access understands SQL and so can be used to access networked databases. MySQL is commonly accessed through Web pages written in PHP. You will learn to create pages which tell MySQL what to do in the PHP/MySQL tutorial pages.
If you have an Apache server then it is simple to add MySQL to it.
