STORING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION— DATABASES CIS 429—Chapter 7

Storing Organizational Information Information is everywhere in an organization Information is stored in databases Database – maintains information about various types of  objects (inventory)  events (transactions)  people (employees)  places (warehouses)

Relational Database Fundamentals Database  ___________ information Database models  Hierarchical  Rigid tree-like model  Used in early DB management systems  Network  Lattice structure  Child records can have many parent records  ____________  Uses logically related two-dimensional tables

Relational Database Fundamentals (2) Entities, Entity Classes, and Attributes  Entity  person, place, thing, transaction, event  Entity class  a ________, a collection of similar entities  Attributes  fields or columns in a table, characteristics of entities Keys and Relationships  Primary key  A field or group of fields that uniquely identify an entity  _________ key  A primary key of one table that is a field of another table

Relational Database Advantages Increased Flexibility  Physical view  Physical storage of information on a device  _________ view  How users logically access the information  Different users have different logical view to meet their needs Increased Scalability and Performance  Scalability  How well a system can adapt to __________________  Performance  How quickly a system performs a process or transaction

Relational Database Advantages (2) Reduced Information Redundancy  Redundancy  __________ duplication of information Increased Information Integrity (Quality)  Information integrity  Measure of the quality of information  Integrity constraints  _________ to ensure the quality of information  Relational integrity constraints ensure basic and fundamental quality  Business-critical integrity constraints enforce business rules Increased Information Security (passwords, etc.)

Database Management Systems A database management system (DBMS) is software that allows users to interact w/ a DB. A DBMS has several components  Data ____________ Component  Creates and maintains the data dictionary and DB structure Data dictionary stores definitions of information types  Data Manipulation Component  Allows users to do ________ Create, read, update, and delete information  A view allows users to see the contents of a DB  Report generators are used to define reports from the DB  QBE (________ by example) tools define answers to questions  SQL (structured query language) is a language to query the DB

Database Management Systems (2) A DBMS has several components (continued)  Application Generation Component  Contains tools for creating easy-to-use applications, such as SCM or CRM  Data Administration Components  Contains tools for managing the overall database environment Backup, recovery, _________, and performance

Integrating Information among Multiple Databases An integration allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other A __________integration takes new information and sends it to all downstream systems and processes A backward integration takes processed information and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes