100,000 rows, 20 columns with at most 20 chars per column?
That's only 40 Mb of data. The only reason you might need
a database is for its transactional support. But 40 Mb of
data is enough to keep in memory on a modern day low entry
box.
But if you get more data, or if your data is highly volotile,
you might want to use a database. But which database is
appropriate doesn't depend on the fact you happen to work
with Perl. It depends on your data. How much data, what are
you going to do with it, how intensive is it accessed/modified, how fast does it need to be, how much
support is needed, how much can you spend on a license.
Those are important question, that's what determines your
database. Perl will happily interface with almost all
databases. Don't let Perl determine your database, let your
data determine it. Perl will adapt.
Abigail