# What are the Derby tools and utilities?

The Derby tools and utilities are a set of routines supplied with Derby that are typically used to setup and update a Derby database.

For more complete information on developing a system using Derby, see the Derby Developer's Guide.

- Overview
  Derby is a database management system (DBMS), accessed by applications through the JDBC API.
- About Derby databases
- JDBC connection basics
  Most of the Derby tools are JDBC applications. A JDBC application is one that uses the classes in the java.sql package to interact with a DBMS.
- Tools and localization
  The Derby tools provide support for common localization features such as localized message files and GUI, locale-appropriate formatting of data, codesets, unicode identifiers and data, and database territories.