# Introduction

Media Server uses a database to store information that it requires for recognition operations, such as face recognition, object recognition, or image classification. Media Server can be configured to use an internal database file or an external database hosted on a database server.

The default configuration supplied with Media Server uses an internal database and using this type of database requires no additional configuration.

Micro Focus recommends that you use a database hosted on an external database server for the following reasons:

- Better performance. A database hosted on an external database server is likely to achieve significantly higher performance when your Media Server is used by multiple users and many training actions are sent to the Media Server simultaneously.
- Sharing training data. If you analyze large numbers of images and videos you can spread the load across multiple Media Servers. Multiple Media Servers can share a database hosted on an external database server so that all of the Media Servers use the same training data and you only need to maintain one database. Sharing an internal database is not supported.
- Improved handling of concurrent requests. When Media Server modifies data in an internal database file, it can lock the file. Any requests that need to modify the database at the same time might fail, especially if the file is locked for a significant amount of time (such as when you add large amounts of training). An external database hosted on a database server is able to handle concurrent requests.

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