Allow the use of different database servers using the same code base.
Drupal provides an abstraction layer with the ability to support multiple database servers easily. The intent of this layer is to preserve the syntax and power of SQL as much as possible, while letting Drupal control the pieces of queries that need to be written differently for different servers and provide basic security checks.
Most Drupal database queries are performed by a call to db_query() or db_query_range(). Module authors should also consider using pager_query() for queries that return results that need to be presented on multiple pages, and tablesort_sql() for generating appropriate queries for sortable tables.